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Chapter 09 - Business Cycles, Unemployment, and Inflation
McConnell, Brue, Flynn, Barbiero Macro 14ce
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. What are the four phases of the business cycle? How long do business cycles last? Why does
the business cycle affect output and employment in capital goods industries and consumer
durable goods industries more severely than in industries producing consumer nondurables?
LO9.1
Answer: The four phases of a typical business cycle, starting at the bottom, are trough,
recovery, peak, and recession. As seen in Table 9.1, the length of a complete cycle varies
from about 2 to 3 years to as long as 15 years.
Because capital goods and durable goods last, purchases can be postponed. This may
happen when a recession is forecast. Capital and durable goods industries therefore
suffer large output declines during recessions. In contrast, consumers cannot long
postpone the buying of nondurables such as food; therefore recessions only slightly
reduce non-durable output. Also, capital and durable goods expenditures tend to be
“lumpy.” Usually, a large expenditure is needed to purchase them, and this shrinks to
zero after purchase is made.
2. How, in general, can a financial crisis lead to a recession? How, in general, can a major new
invention lead to an expansion? LO9.1
Answer: Unexpected financial bubbles (rapid asset price increases) followed by bursts
(abrupt asset price decreases) can spill over to the general economy by contracting
lending and eroding the confidence of consumers and businesses.
For example, the severe recession of 2008-2009 was precipitated by a combination of
excessive money and a financial frenzy in the U.S. that led to overvalued real estate and
unsustainable mortgage debt. The U.S. recession quickly spilled into Canada. Institutions
bundled this debt into new securities (“derivatives”), which were sold to financial
investors, including Canada. Some of the investors in the U.S.in turn bought insurance
against losses that might arise from the securities. As real estate prices plummeted and
mortgage defaults unexpectedly rocketed, the U.S. securitization and insurance structure
buckled and nearly collapsed. Credit markets froze, pessimism prevailed, and spending
by businesses and households tanked.
Significant new products or production methods such as those associated with the
railroad, automobile, computer, and the Internet can rapidly spread through the economy,
sparking sizeable increases in investment, consumption, output, and employment.
9-1
Copyright © 2015 McGraw-Hill Education. All rights reserved. No reproduction or distribution without the prior written
consent of McGraw-Hill Education.
3. How is the labour force defined and who measures it? How is the unemployment rate
calculated? Does an increase in the unemployment rate necessarily mean a decline in the size of
the labour force? Why is a positive unemployment rate—one more than zero percent—fully
compatible with full employment? LO9.2
Answer: Statistics Canada measures the labour force. Statistics Canada defines the
labour force by dividing the total population in Canada into three groups. One group is
made up of people under 15 years of age and people who are institutionalized, for
example, in mental health hospitals or correctional institutions. Such people are not
considered potential members of the labour force. A second group, labeled “Not in labour
force,” is composed of adults who are potential workers but are not employed and are not
seeking work. For example, they are homemakers, full-time students, or retirees. The
third group is the labour force, which constituted slightly more than 50 percent of the
total population in 2014. The labour force consists of people who are able and willing to
work. Both those who are employed and those who are unemployed but actively seeking
work are counted as being in the labour force.
No, an increase in the unemployment rate does not necessarily mean a decline in the size
of the labour force. For example, individuals who were not in the labour force before
(students just graduating college) may start looking for a job. In this case, the number of
unemployed increases, the labour force increases, and the unemployment rate increases.
The natural rate of unemployment is the sum of frictional and structural unemployment.
This value is always positive because people are transitioning to new jobs by choice or
because the industry they were in is no longer globally competitive. This is why a
positive rate of unemployment is fully compatible with full employment.
4. How, in general, do unemployment rates vary by gender, occupation, and education? Why does
the average length of time people are unemployed rise during a recession? LO9.2
Answer: Gender: The unemployment rates for men and women are very similar.
Occupation: Workers in lower-skilled occupations (for example, labourers) have higher
unemployment rates than workers in higher-skilled occupations (for example,
professionals).
Education: Less-educated workers, on average, have higher unemployment rates than
workers with more education. Less education is usually associated with lower-skilled,
less-permanent jobs; more time between jobs; and jobs that are more vulnerable to
cyclical layoff.
Duration: The number of persons unemployed for long periods— 15 weeks or more—as
a percentage of the labour force is much lower than the overall unemployment rate. But
that percentage rises significantly during recessions because businesses lay-off workers
as a result of the decrease in demand or increase in other production cost.
9-2
5. Why is it difficult to distinguish between frictional, structural, seasonal and cyclical

unemployment? Why is unemployment an economic problem? What are the consequences of a
negative GDP gap? What are the noneconomic effects of unemployment? LO9.2
Answer: It is not easy to distinguish between these four types of unemployment because
the sum of frictional and structural unemployment is itself changing, thus it is difficult to
determine the full-employment unemployment rate. For example, a person who quits a
job in search of a better one would normally be considered frictionally unemployed. But
suppose the former job then disappears completely because the firm is in a declining
industry and can no longer make money. Our still jobless worker could now be
considered structurally unemployed. And then suppose the economy slips into a severe
recession so that our worker cannot find any job and has become cyclically unemployed.
The sum of frictional and structural unemployment fluctuates as the labour force structure
changes. In other words, there is no automatic label on the type of unemployment when
someone is counted as unemployed.
Unemployment is an economic problem because of the concept of opportunity cost.
Quite apart from any idea of consideration for others, unemployment is economic waste:
A unit of labour resource that could be engaged in production is sitting idle.
The “GDP gap” is the difference between what the economy could produce at its
potential GDP and what it is producing, its actual GDP. The consequence of a negative
GDP gap is that what is not produced – the amount represented by the gap—is lost
forever. Moreover, to the extent that this lost production represents capital goods, the
potential production for the future is impaired. Future economic growth will be less.
The noneconomic effects of unemployment include the sense of failure created in parents
and in their children, the feeling of being useless to society, of no longer belonging.
6. Since Canada has an employment insurance program that provides income for those out of
work, why should we worry about unemployment? LO9.2
Answer: The employment insurance program merely gives the unemployed enough
funds for basic needs. Furthermore, many of the unemployed do not qualify for
unemployment benefits. The programs apply only to those workers who were covered by
the insurance, and this may be as few as one-third of those without jobs. Most of the
unemployed get no sense of self-worth or accomplishment out of drawing this
compensation. Moreover, from the economic point of view, unemployment is a waste of
resources; when the unemployed go back to work, nothing is forgone except undesired
leisure. The unemployed are producing nothing—their supply is zero – but the
compensation helps keep demand in the economy high.
7. What is the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and how is it determined each month? How does the
Statistics Canada calculate the rate of inflation from one year to the next? What effect does
inflation have on the purchasing power of a dollar? How does it explain differences between
nominal and real interest rates? How does deflation differ from inflation? LO9.3
9-3
Answer: The CPI is constructed from a “market basket” sampling of goods that
consumers typically purchase. Prices for goods in the market basket are collected each
month, weighted by the importance of the good in the basket (cars are more expensive
than bread, but we buy a lot more bread), and averaged to form the price level.
To calculate the rate of inflation, Statistics Canada subtracts the CPI for the previous year
from the CPI for the current year, and then divides this difference by the CPI for the
previous year. Multiplying this value by 100 gives us the percentage change in the price
level.
Inflation reduces the purchasing power of the dollar. Facing higher prices with a given
number of dollars means that each dollar buys less than it did before.
The rate of inflation in the CPI approximates the difference between the nominal and real
interest rates. A nominal interest rate of 10% with a 6% inflation rate will mean that real
interest rates are approximately 4%.
Deflation means that the price level is falling, whereas with inflation overall prices are
rising. Deflation is undesirable because the falling prices mean that incomes are also
falling, which reduces spending, output, employment, and, in turn, the price level (a
downward spiral). Inflation in modest amounts (<3%) is tolerable, although there is not
universal agreement on this point.
8. Distinguish between demand-pull inflation and cost-push inflation. Which of the two types is
most likely to be associated with a negative GDP gap? Which with a positive GDP gap, in which
actual GDP exceeds potential GDP? What is core inflation? Why it is calculated? LO9.3
Answer: Demand-pull inflation occurs when prices rise because of an increase in

aggregate spending not fully matched by an increase in aggregate output. It is sometimes
expressed as “too much spending (or money) chasing too few goods.” Cost-push
inflation describes prices rising because of increases in per unit costs of production.
Cost-push inflation is most likely to be associated with a negative GDP gap, as the rising
production costs reduce spending and output.
Demand-pull inflation is more likely to occur with a positive GDP gap, because actual
GDP will exceed its potential only when aggregate spending is strong and rising. As the
economy produces above its potential, bottlenecks and more severe resource scarcity
occur, driving up prices.
9. Explain how an increase in your nominal income and a decrease in your real income might
occur simultaneously. Who loses from inflation? Who gains? LO9.4
Answer: If a person’s nominal income increases by 10 percent while the cost of living
increases by 15 percent, then her real income has decreased from 100 to 95.65 (=
110/1.15). Alternatively expressed, her real income has decreased by 4.35 percent (= 100
- 95.65). Generally, whenever the cost of living increases faster than my nominal
income, real income decreases.
The losers from inflation are those on incomes fixed in nominal terms or, at least, those
with incomes that do not increase as fast as the rate of inflation. Creditors and savers also
lose. Typically those holding debt gain.
9-4
10. Explain how hyperinflation might lead to a severe decline in total output. LO9.5
Answer: With inflation running into the double, triple, quadruple, or even greater
number of digits per year, it makes little sense to save. The only sensible thing to do with
money is to spend it before its value is cut in half within a month, a week, or a day. This
very fact of everyone trying to spend as fast as possible will speed the inflationary spiral
and cause people to spend more and more time trying to figure out what goods are most
likely to go up fastest in price. More and more people will turn away from productive
activity, because wages and salaries are not keeping up with inflation. Instead, they will
spend their time speculating, transferring goods already in existence and producing
nothing.
Eventually, money may become worthless. No one will work for money. Barter and
living by one’s wits become the only means of survival. Production falls for this reason
and also because investment in productive capital practically ceases. Unemployment
soars. A massive depression is at hand.
The LAST WORD Why was the 2009 hike in the minimum wage in the U.S. probably not
responsible for much of the slow growth in employment after the Great Recession? What is
inefficiently long search and how is it affected by the duration of unemployment benefits? How
might Obamacare have discouraged hiring? Why was the Great Recession more severe in the
U.S.?
Answer: At any given time, fewer than 3 percent of workers are employed at minimum-
wage jobs. So it would be hard to blame the increase in the minimum wage for more than
a very small fraction of the slow post-recession recovery in employment.
“Inefficiently long search” means that many unemployed workers used the extended
period during which they could survive on unemployment benefits to keep searching for
perfect jobs even after they had been offered several so-so jobs. As a result, the
unemployment rate stayed higher than it would have if benefits had continued to end after
just 26 weeks and workers had felt financial pressure at an earlier date to accept so-so
jobs rather than to keep on searching for perfect jobs.
Obamacare might discourage companies from hiring because it increases labour costs.
Both the increase in the Medicare payroll tax and the requirement that by 2014 any firm
with more than 50 employees would have to provide health insurance coverage for all of
its full-time workers increased the cost to hire an employee.
The recession was less severe in the Canada because it did not experience a housing
bubble as in the U.S.
9-5
REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. Place the phases of the business cycle in order. LO9.1

Recession
Trough
Peak
Expansion
Answer: Peak, Recession, Trough, Expansion.

The typical business cycle goes through four phases in the following order: peak,
recession, trough, expansion.
2. Most economists agree that the immediate cause of the large majority of cyclical changes in the
levels of real output and employment is unexpected changes in ___________________. LO9.1
a. The level of total spending.
b. The level of the stock market.
c. The level of the trade deficit.
d. The level of unemployment.
Answer: a. The level of total spending.

Most economists agree that the immediate cause of the large majority of cyclical changes
in the levels of real output and employment is unexpected changes in the level of total
spending.
Total spending may change for a number of reasons including political events, financial
instability, and monetary factors. But it is unexpected changes in total spending that drive
the large majority of cyclical changes in real GDP.
3. Suppose that an economy has 9 million people working full time. It also has 1 million people
who are actively seeking work but currently unemployed as well as 2 million discouraged
workers who have given up looking for work and are currently unemployed. What is this
economy’s unemployment rate? LO9.2
a. 10 percent.
b. 15 percent.
c. 20 percent.
d. 25 percent.
9-6
Answer: a. 10 percent.
This economy’s unemployment rate is 10 percent because the number of unemployed is 1
million and the size of the labour force is 10 million.
To see why 10 percent is the correct answer, recall that the formula for calculating the
unemployment rate is
To apply the formula, we need numbers for “unemployed” and “labour force.” Let’s start
with the size of the labour force, which by definition is the sum of the number of people
who are employed plus the number of people who are not currently working but who are
actively seeking work. For this economy, the labour force would consequently be 10
million (= 9 million employed + 1 million unemployed but actively seeking work).
We next need to figure out how many “unemployed” workers there are. Remember that
as far as the unemployment statistic is concerned, we are looking for people who want
jobs, are actively seeking jobs, but don’t currently have jobs. That is, we totally exclude
the discouraged workers. They are excluded because, by ceasing to look for work, they
are no longer in the labour force, which by definition consists of everybody willing and
able to work right now. By focusing only on the workers without jobs who are still
actively seeking work, we see that there are 1 million “unemployed” workers in the
labour force.
By plugging in our values for the labour force (10 million) and the number of
“unemployed” (1 million) we see that this economy’s unemployment rate is 10 percent [=
(1 million/10 million) times 100].
4. Label each of the following scenarios as either frictional unemployment, structural

unemployment, or cyclical unemployment. LO9.2
a. Tim just graduated and is looking for a job.
b. A recession causes a local factory to lay off 30 workers.
c. Thousands of bus and truck drivers permanently lose their jobs when driverless, computer-
driven vehicles make human drivers redundant.
d. Hundreds of Toronto legal jobs permanently disappear when a lot of legal work gets
outsourced to lawyers in India.
Answers:
a. frictional unemployment
b. cyclical unemployment
c. structural unemployment
d. structural unemployment
Let’s go through each scenario in order.
Tim just graduated and is looking for a job is an example of frictional unemployment
because Tim is merely transitioning from school to work. He is not unemployed because
of a recession (cyclical unemployment) or because he lacks skills desired by employers
(structural unemployment).
A recession causes a local factory to lay off 30 workers is an example of cyclical
unemployment because the downturn in the business cycle has led to these 30 workers
losing their jobs.
9-7
Thousands of bus and truck drivers permanently lose their jobs when driverless,
computer-driven vehicles make human drivers redundant is an example of structural
unemployment because the drivers are losing their jobs as the result of a technological
innovation which has destroyed the demand for human driving skills.
Hundreds of Toronto legal jobs permanently disappear when a lot of legal work gets
outsourced to lawyers in India is an example of structural unemployment because the
demand for legal skills has permanently dropped in Toronto due to competition from
India.
5. The unemployment rate that is consistent with full employment is known as

_________________________. LO9.2
a. The natural rate of unemployment.
b. The unnatural rate of unemployment.
c. The status quo rate of unemployment.
d. Cyclical unemployment.
e. Okun’s rate of unemployment.
Answer: a. The natural rate of unemployment.

The natural rate of unemployment is in fact defined as the unemployment rate that is
consistent with full employment.
Keep in mind that when we say full employment, we mean that the economy is only
experiencing frictional and structural unemployment. That is, there is no cyclical
unemployment. Thus, while not every worker will be employed, only those temporarily
between jobs (the frictionally unemployed) and those whose skills fail to match the needs
of employers (the structurally unemployed) will be without work.
6. A country’s current unemployment rate is 11 percent. Economists estimate that its natural rate
of unemployment is 6 percent. About how large is this economy’s negative GDP gap? LO9.2
a. 1 percent.
b. 3 percent.
c. 6 percent.
d. 10 percent.
Answer: d. 10 percent.
This economy’s negative GDP gap should be about 10 percent.
This estimate is based upon Okun’s law, which indicates that for every 1 percentage point
by which the actual unemployment rate exceeds the natural rate, a negative GDP gap of
about 2 percentage points occurs.
To apply Okun’s law to the current situation, we first note that actual unemployment
exceeds the natural rate by 5 percentage points (= 11 percent actual rate of unemployment
minus 5 percent natural rate of unemployment). It then follows that the negative GDP gap
must be 10 percent (= 5 percentage points times 2).
9-8
7. Cost-push inflation occurs when there is __________________________. LO9.3

a. Excess inventory.
b. A trade deficit.
c. Rising per-unit production costs.
d. Excess demand for goods and services.
Answer: c. Rising per-unit production costs.

Cost-push inflation occurs when rising per-unit production costs squeeze company
profits, thereby causing firms to reduce the amount of output that they are willing to
supply at the current price level. This leads to higher unemployment because fewer
workers are needed to produce less output.
8. Jimmer’s nominal income will go up by 10 percent next year. Inflation is expected to be -2

percent next year. By approximately how much will Jimmer’s real income change next year?
LO9.3
a. -2 percent.
b. 8 percent.
c. 10 percent.
d. 12 percent.
Jimmer’s real income will rise by 12 percent next year. You can see this by rearranging
the formula that shows the relationship between real income, nominal income, and
inflation:
Percentage Percentage Percentage
change in = change in - change in
real income nominal price level
income
Using that formula, we see that the percentage change in Jimmer’s real income will be
approximately equal to the 10 percent increase in his nominal income minus the
percentage change in the price level (which will be minus 2 percent). Taking into account
the fact that a “minus times a minus is a plus” we see that Jimmer’s real income should
be approximately 12 percent [= 10 percent increase in nominal income – (-2 percent
change in price)].
9. Kaitlin has $10,000 of savings that she may deposit with her local bank. Kaitlin wants to earn a
real rate of return of at least 4 percent and she is expecting inflation to be exactly 3 percent. What
is the lowest nominal interest rate that Kaitlin would be willing to accept from her local bank?
LO9.4
a. 4 percent.
b. 5 percent.
c. 6 percent.
d. 7 percent.
9-9
The lowest nominal interest rate that Kaitlin would be willing to accept is 7 percent.
She would of course be happier to get more than 7 percent. But the lowest nominal rate
that she would accept is 7 percent because that is the lowest nominal interest rate that
would give her the 4 percent real rate of return that she wishes to earn.
To see why that is true, recall the formula that states that
nominal interest rate = real interest rate + inflation premium (the expected rate of
inflation)
Given that the real interest rate that Kaitlin desires is 4 percent and given that she is
expecting inflation to be 3 percent, the right-hand side of the formula tells us to add the
two values together in order to figure out the nominal interest rate that Kaitlin will accept.
Doing so tells us that she will accept a nominal interest rate of 7 percent (= 4 percent real
interest rate + 3 percent expected rate of inflation). She is happy to accept that rate
because it will yield her the real return of 4 percent that she desires.
By contrast, if she were to accept a nominal interest rate of 5 percent, then she would
only make a real rate of return of just 2 percent. You can see this by rearranging the
formula and solving for the real interest rate. Doing so yields,
real interest rate = nominal interest rate − inflation premium (the expected rate of
inflation)
Using this version of the formula, we can see that the real interest rate in this situation
would only be 2 percent (= 5 percent nominal interest rate minus 3 percent expected rate
of inflation). Because that real rate of 2 percent is less than the 4 percent rate that Kaitlin
wants, she will not give the bank her money if the best they offer is a 5 percent nominal
interest rate. She will hold out for at least a 7 percent nominal rate, as that is the only way
for her to get a real return of at least 4 percent.
10. True or False: Lenders are helped by unanticipated inflation. LO9.4
Answer: false.
This statement is false because lenders are actually hurt (rather than helped) by
unanticipated inflation.
Unanticipated inflation hurts lenders by reducing real returns. As an example, suppose
that you loaned out $1000 at a nominal interest rate of 10 percent. Also suppose that you
had been expecting an inflation rate of 2 percent so that you were anticipating a real
interest rate of 8 percent (= 10 percent nominal interest rate minus 2 percent inflation
rate). But then suppose that inflation turns out to be 10 percent. As a result, your real
interest rate will turn out to be zero percent (= 10 percent nominal interest rate minus 10
percent inflation rate).
Thus, you will suffer substantial financial harm because the unexpectedly high inflation
rate lowers your real rate of return down to nothing in this case. But note that things don’t
have to be that extreme for you to be hurt. Any inflation rate that turns out to be higher
than what you were expecting will lower your real rate of return.
9-10
11. Economists agree that______________ inflation reduces real output. LO9.5

a. Cost-push.
b. Demand-pull.
Answer: a. cost-push.
The correct answer is that economists agree that cost-push inflation reduces real output.
Cost-push inflation reduces real output because the unexpected increases in resource
prices that drive cost-push inflations reduce firm profits. Those falling profits then cause
firms to reduce output and lay off workers.
By contrast, economists disagree about whether demand-pull inflation increases or
decreases real output. On the one hand, some economists argue that demand-pull inflation
reduces output because people divert time that could otherwise be spent producing output
into attempts to hedge against inflation. On the other hand, a different group of
economists argue that mild levels of demand-pull inflation may help to increase output
because the high levels of spending that cause demand-pull inflation also create high
profits and a powerful incentive for firms to expand their plants, increase their output,
and hire more workers.
PROBLEMS
1. Suppose that a country’s annual growth rates were 5, 3, 4, -1, -2, 2, 3, 4, 6, and 3 in yearly
sequence over a 10-year period. What was the country’s trend rate of growth over this period?
Which set of years most clearly demonstrates an expansionary phase of the business cycle?
Which set of years best illustrates a recessionary phase of the business cycle? LO9.1
Answers: 2.7 percent (rounded to the nearest decimal); years 6-9; years 4 and 5.
Feedback: The trend rate of growth equals the average for the 10-year period, which is
2.7 percent. (= (5 + 3 + 4 – 1 – 2 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 6 + 3) / 10).
The set of years that clearly demonstrate an expansionary phase is years 6 through 9. The
rate of growth is positive and increasing over this period.
The set of years that best illustrate a recessionary phase is years 4 and 5. Growth is
negative (declining GDP) for these years.
2. Assume the following data for a country: total population, 500; population under 15 years of
age or institutionalized, 120; not in labour force, 150; unemployed, 23; part-time workers looking
for full-time jobs, 10. What is the size of the labour force? What is the official unemployment
rate? LO2
Answer: 230; 10%.
Feedback: To find the size of the labour force subtract population under 16 years of age
or institutionalized (120) and those not in the labour force (150) from the population
(500).
The size of the labour force is 230 (= 500 - 120 -150).
The official unemployment rate is the number of individuals unemployed divided by the
labour force converted into percentage form.
The unemployment rate for the values above is 10% (= (23/230) x 100).
9-11
3. Suppose that the natural rate of unemployment in a particular year is 5 percent and the actual
rate of unemployment is 9 percent. Use Okun’s law to determine the size of the GDP gap in
percentage-point terms. If the potential GDP is $500 billion in that year, how much output is
being forgone because of cyclical unemployment? LO9.2
Answer: GDP gap = 8%; $40 billion.
Feedback: On the basis of recent estimates, Okun’s law indicates that for every 1
percentage point by which the actual unemployment rate exceeds the natural rate, a
negative GDP gap of about 2 percent occurs.
The actual rate of unemployment exceeds the natural rate of unemployment by 4% (= 9%
- 5%), which is cyclical unemployment.
Using Okun’s law, this translates into an 8% GDP gap in percentage-point terms (= 2 x
4%).
Since potential GDP is $500 billion and we are 8% below this amount, the output forgone
is $40 billion (= 0.08 x $500 billion).
4. If the CPI was 110 last year and is 121 this year, what is this year’s rate of inflation? In
contrast, suppose that the CPI was 110 last year and is 108 this year. What is this year’s rate of
inflation? What term do economists use to describe this second outcome? LO9.3
Answers: 10 percent; -1.8 percent; deflation.
Feedback: The inflation rate is the percentage change in the CPI over a period of time.
For the values above we have:
If the CPI was 110 last year and is 121 this year, the inflation rate was 10%
(= ((121-110)/110) x 100).
If the CPI was 110 last year and is 108 this year, the inflation rate was approximately -
1.8%
(= ((108-110)/110) x 100). This outcome is referred to as deflation by economists.
5. How long would it take for the price level to double if inflation persisted at (a) 2, (b) 5, and (c)
10 percent per year? LO9.3
Answer: (a) 35 years; (b) 14 years; (c) 7 years.
Feedback: The “Rule of 70,” which is to divide 70 by the inflation rate, gives us the time
it takes for the price level to double.
Years to double = (70 / Inflation Rate)
Using this formula we have:
(a) The price level will double in 35 years if the inflation rate is 2% (= 70/2).
(b) The price level will double in 14 years if the inflation rate is 5% (= 70/5).
(c) The price level will double in 7 years if the inflation rate is 10% (= 70/10).
9-12
6. If your nominal income rose by 5.3 percent and the price level rose by 3.8 percent in some
year, by what percentage would your real income (approximately) increase? If your nominal
income rose by 2.8 percent and your real income rose by 1.1 percent in some year, what must
have been the (approximate) rate of inflation? LO9.4
Answer: 1.5 percent; 1.7 percent.
Feedback: To find the approximate percentage change in the real value of your income,
subtract the rate of inflation from the nominal percentage change in your income.
Percentage change in real income = Percentage change in nominal income - Inflation rate
This implies the percentage change in real income is approximately 1.5% (= 5.3% -
3.8%).
We can also rearrange the equation above as follows:
Inflation rate = Percentage change in nominal income - Percentage change in real income
This implies the inflation rate is approximately 1.7% (= 2.8% - 1.1%) for the second set
of values.
7. Suppose that the nominal rate of inflation is 4 percent and the inflation premium is 2 percent.
What is the real interest rate? Alternatively, assume that the real interest rate is 1 percent and the
nominal interest rate is 6 percent. What is the inflation premium? LO9.4
Answers: 2 percent; 5 percent.
Feedback:
To find the approximate real interest rate subtract the inflation premium from the nominal
interest rate.
Real interest rate = nominal interest rate - inflation premium
This implies the real interest rate is 2% (= 4% - 2%).
We can also rearrange the equation above as follows:
Inflation premium = nominal interest rate - real interest rate
This implies the inflation premium is 5% (= 6% - 1%).
9-13
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V
ON THE ADVANTAGE OF HAVING A PATTERN
V
ON THE ADVANTAGE OF HAVING A PATTERN
No passage of Stevenson’s has been oftener quoted than his

confession how he taught himself the art of letters by playing “the
sedulous ape to many masters”; and in this avowal he had been
preceded by masters of style as dissimilar in their accomplishment
as Franklin and Newman. Stevenson may be overstating the case—
he had caught the trick of over-statement from Thoreau—but he is
not misstating it when he asserts that this is the only way to learn to
write. Certainly it is an excellent way, if we judge by its results in his
own case, in Franklin’s and in Newman’s. The method of imitative
emulation will help any apprentice of the craft to choose his words, to
arrange them in sentences and to build them up in coherent
paragraphs. It is a specific against that easy writing which is “cursed
hard reading.” But it goes no deeper than the skin, since it affords
insufficient support when the novice has to consider his structure as
a whole, the total form he will bestow upon his essay, his story, his
play.
In the choice of the proper framework for his conception the
author’s task is made measurably lighter if he can find a fit pattern
ready to his hand. Whether he shall happen upon this when he
needs it is a matter of chance, since it depends on what the
engineers call “the state of the art.” There have been story-tellers
and playwrights not a few who have gone astray and dissipated their
energies, not through any fault of their own, but solely because no
predecessor had devised a pattern suitable for their immediate
purpose. They have wandered afield because the trail had not been
blazed by earlier, and possibly less gifted, wayfarers and
adventurers.
Perhaps I can make clear what I mean by a concrete example not
taken from the art of letters. In Professor John C. Van Dyke’s acute
analysis of the traditions of American painting, he has told us that
when La Farge designed the ‘Ascension’ for the church of that name
in New York,
The architectural place for it was simplified by placing on the chancel wall of the
church a heavily gilded moulding, deep-niched, and with an arched top, which
acted at once both as a frame and a limit to the picture. The space was practically
that of a huge window with a square base and a half-top requiring for its filling two
groups of figures one above the other. La Farge placed his standing figures of the
apostles and the holy women in the lower space and their perpendicular lines
paralleled the uprights of the frame; at the top he placed an oval of angels about
the risen Christ, and again the rounded lines of the angel group repeated the
curves of the gilded arch.
Then Professor Van Dyke appends this significant comment:
There was no great novelty in this arrangement. It was frankly adopted from
Italian Renascence painting and had been used for high altar-pieces by all the
later painters—Andrea del Sarto, Raphael, Titian, Palma. They had worked out the
best way of filling that up-right-and-arched space, and La Farge followed the
tradition because he recognized its sufficiency.
In other words, the art of painting had so far advanced that La

Farge was supplied with the pattern best suited to his purpose; and
this pattern once accepted, he was at liberty to paint the picture as
he saw it, without wasting time in quest of another construction. The
picture he put within that frame was his and his only, even if the
pattern of it had been devised centuries before he was born. In thus
utilizing a framework invented by his predecessors he was not
cramped and confined; rather was he set free. So it is that to Milton
and to Wordsworth the rigidity of the sonnet was not a hindrance but
a help—especially to Wordsworth since it curbed his tendency to
diffuseness. Wordsworth himself declared his delight in the
restrictions of the sonnet:
In truth the prison into which we doom
Ourselves no prison is: and hence for me,
In sundry moods, ’twas pastime to be bound
Within the Sonnet’s scanty plot of ground;
Pleased if some Souls (for such there needs must be),
Who have felt the weight of too much liberty,
Should find brief solace here, as I have found.
That utterance of Wordsworth’s may be recommended to the
ardent advocates of Free Verse,—that is, of the verse which boasts
itself to be patternless and to come into being in response solely to
the whim of the moment. Sooner or later the Free Versifiers will
discover the inexorable truth in Huxley’s saying that it is when a man
can do as he pleases that his trouble begins.
Since I have ventured these three quotations I am emboldened to
make a fourth—from John Morley’s essay on Macaulay. After
informing us about the rules which Comte imposed on himself in
composition, Morley tells us that Comte
justified his literary solicitude by insisting on the wholesomeness alike to heart and
intelligence of submission to artificial restrictions. He felt, after he had once
mastered the habit of the new yoke, that it became the source of continual and
unforeseeable improvement even in thought, and he perceived that the reason
why verse is a higher kind of literary perfection than prose, is that verse imposes a
greater number of rigorous forms.
It is because of their rigorous forms that the ballade and the

rondeau have established themselves by the side of the sonnet; and
the lyrist who has learnt to love them finds in their fixity no curb on
his power of self-expression. So in the kindred art of music, the
sonata and the symphony are forms each with a law of its own; yet
the composer has abundant liberty within the law. He has all the
freedom that is good for him; and the prison to which he dooms
himself no prison is.
II
There is however a difference between a fixed form, such as the

sonata has and the sonnet, and the more flexible formula, such as
the arrangement within a framework which La Farge borrowed from
the painters of the Italian Renascence. A pattern of this latter sort is
less rigid; in fact, it is easily varied as successive artists modify it to
suit themselves.
Consider the eighteenth century essay which Steele devised with
the aid of hints he found in the ‘Epistles’ and even in the ‘Satires’ of
Horace, and which was enriched and amplified by Addison. The
pattern of the ‘Tatler’ and the ‘Spectator’ was taken over by a
heterogeny of other essayists in the course of four-score years,
notably by Johnson in the ‘Idler’ and the ‘Rambler’; and assuredly
Johnson if left to himself could never have invented a formula so
simple, so unpretending and so graceful. It was only a little departed
from by Goldsmith, and only a little more by Irving in the ‘Sketch-
Book,’ which is not so much a periodical (altho it was originally
published in parts) as it is a portfolio of essays and of essay-like
tales. From Irving, Thackeray borrowed more than the title of his
‘Paris Sketch-Book’ and ‘Irish Sketch-Book.’
Consider the earlier and in some measure stricter form of the
essay as it had been developed by Montaigne,—the pattern that
Montaigne worked out as he put more and more of himself into the
successive editions of his essays. He had begun intending little more
than a commonplace-book of anecdotes and quotations; and yet by
incessant interpolation and elaboration his book became at last the
intimate revelation of his own pungent individuality. This is the
pattern that Bacon adopted and adapted to his purpose, less
discursive and more monitory, but not less pregnant nor less
significant. And it is Montaigne’s formula, not greatly transformed by
Bacon, which Emerson found ready to his hand when he made his
essays out of his lectures, scattering his pearls of wisdom with a
lavish hand and not pausing to string them into a necklace. We
cannot doubt that the pattern of Montaigne and Bacon and Emerson
owed something also to their memory of Epictetus and Marcus
Aurelius.
Shakspere was as fortunate as Bacon in the fact that he had not to
waste time in vainly seeking new forms. He did not invent the sonnet
and he did not invent the sonnet-sequence; but he made his profit
out of them. Neither the stanza nor the structure of his two narrative
poems, ‘Venus and Adonis’ and the ‘Rape of Lucrece,’ was of his
contriving; he found them already in use and he did not go in search
of any overt novelty of form.
Scott, “beaten out of poetry by Byron,” as he himself phrased it,
turned to prose-fiction; and almost by accident he created the pattern
of the historical novel, with its romantic heroes and heroines and with
its realistic humbler characters. His earliest heroes and heroines in
prose were very like his still earlier heroes and heroines in verse;
and his realistic characters were the result of his expressed desire to
do for the Scottish peasant what Miss Edgeworth had done for the
Irish peasant. The first eight of the Waverley novels dealt only with
Scottish scenes; then in ‘Ivanhoe,’ and a little later in ‘Quentin
Durward,’ Scott enlarged his formula for the presentation of an
English and a French theme.
Since Scott’s day his pattern has approved itself to three
generations of novelists; and it is not yet outworn. In France Victor
Hugo and Alexander Dumas accepted it, each of them altering it at
will, feeling free to adjust it to their own differing necessities. In Italy it
was employed by Manzoni, in Poland by Sinckiewitz; and in
Germany by a horde of uninspired story-tellers. In the United States
it was at once borrowed by Cooper for the ‘Spy,’ the first American
historical novel. Then Cooper, having proved its value, took the
pattern which Scott had created for the telling of a story the action of
which took place on land, and in the ‘Pilot’ made it serve for a story
the action of which took place mainly on the sea,—perhaps a more
striking originality than his contemporaneous employment of it for a
series of tales the action of which took place in the forest.
It is one of the most fortunate coincidences in the history of
literature that Scott crossed the border and made a foray into English
history at the very moment when Cooper was ready to write fiction
about his own country; and it was almost equally unfortunate that
Charles Brockden Brown was born too early to be able to avail
himself of the pattern Scott and Cooper were to handle triumphantly.
Brown died a score of years before the publication of ‘Ivanhoe.’ He
left half-a-dozen novels of varying value, known only to devoted
students of American fiction. He had great gifts; he had invention
and imagination; he was a keen observer of human nature; he had a
rich faculty of description. (In one of his books there is a portrayal of
an epidemic of yellow fever in Philadelphia which almost challenges
comparison with De Foe’s ‘Journal of the Plague Year’.) But “the
state of the art” of fiction supplied Brown with no model appropriate
to his endowment; and therefore he had to do the best he could with
the unworthy pattern of the Gothic Romance of Horace Walpole and
Mrs. Radcliffe and of their belated followers, “Monk” Lewis and
Godwin. If Brown had been a contemporary of Cooper, then the
author of the ‘Last of the Mohicans’ might have had a worthy rival in
his own country.
The state of the art in his own time was a detriment to a far greater
story-teller than Brown or Cooper or Scott, to one of the greatest of
all story-tellers, to Cervantes. ‘Don Quixote’ abides as the
imperishable monument to his genius, to his wisdom, to his insight,
to his humor, to his all-embracing sympathy. None the less is it
sprawling in its construction and careless in its composition. There
were only two models available for Cervantes when he wrote this
masterpiece of fiction, the Romance of Chivalry and its antithesis,
the Romance of Roguery—the picaresque tale. The Romance of
Chivalry was generally chaotic and involute, with a plot at once
complicated and repetitious. The Romance of Roguery, born of an
inevitable reaction against the highflown and toplofty unreality of the
interminable narratives of knight-errantry, was quite as straggling in
its episodes; and it was also addicted to cruel and brutal practical
joking. For Cervantes these were unworthy patterns; and he had no
other. So it is that the method of ‘Don Quixote’ is sometimes
unsatisfactory, even when the manner is always beyond all cavil.
Moreover, it is evident that Cervantes builded better than he knew;
he seems not to have suspected the transcendent quality of his own
work; and therefore he did not take his task as seriously as he might.
As it has been well said, Cervantes came too early to profit by
Cervantes.
How much luckier are the novelists and short-story writers of to-
day! The state of the art has advanced to a point unforeseen even a
century ago. Whatever theme a writer of fiction may want to treat
now, he is never at a loss for a pattern, which will preserve him from
the misadventure which befell Cervantes. In its methods, if in nothing
else, fiction is a finer art than it was once upon a time. Consider
Rudyard Kipling, for example, who is almost infinitely various, and
who is always inexpugnably original. Whatever his subject might be,
there was always an appropriate pattern at his service; he had only
to pick and choose that which best suited his immediate need.
Consider Stevenson, again, and how he was able to play the
sedulous ape at one time to Scott and Dumas, and at another to
Hawthorne and Poe.
III
It is perhaps in the field of playmaking that the utility of the pattern

is most obvious. Sophocles modeled himself on Aeschylus, and then
modified the formula in his own favor. Calderon took over the pattern
that Lope de Vega had developed and the younger playwright
departed from it only infrequently. Racine modeled himself upon
Corneille; and then transformed the formula he borrowed in
obedience to his own genius. Victor Hugo took the theatrically
effective (but psychologically empty) pattern of contemporary
Parisian melodrama and draped its bare bones with his glittering
lyrism. Maeterlinck took the traditional formula of the fairy-play, the
féerie, and endowed it with the poetic feeling which delights us in the
‘Blue Bird.’ Oscar Wilde took the framework of Scribe and Sardou;
and he was thus enabled adroitly to complicate the situations of
‘Lady Windermere’s Fan.’
Then there is Ibsen, whose skilful construction has demanded the
praise of all students of the art and mystery of playmaking. He
started where Scribe and Sardou left off. The earliest of his social
dramas, the ‘League of Youth,’ is in accord with the pattern of Augier
and the younger Dumas. The next, the ‘Doll’s House,’ might have
been composed by Sardou—up to the moment in the final act when
husband and wife sit down on opposite sides of the table to talk out
their future relation. Thereafter Ibsen evolved from this French
pattern a pattern of his own which was exactly suited to his later
social dramas and which has in its turn been helpful to the more
serious dramatists of to-day.
As Shakspere had been content to take the verse-forms of his
predecessors and contemporaries, so he never hesitated to employ
their playmaking formulas. Kyd had developed the type of play which
we call the tragedy-of-blood; and Shakspere borrowed it for his ‘Titus
Andronicus’ (if this is his, which is more than doubtful) and even for
his ‘Hamlet,’ wherein it is purged of most of its violence. Marlowe
lifted into literature the unliterary and loosely knit chronicle-play; and
Shakspere enlarged this formula in ‘Richard III’ and ‘Richard II.’ It
was in his youth that Shakspere trod in the trail of Kyd and Marlowe;
and in his maturity he followed in the footsteps of his younger
friends, Beaumont and Fletcher, taking the pattern of their dramatic-
romance for his ‘Winter’s Tale’ and ‘Cymbeline.’ Due perhaps to the
fact that the state of the art did not provide him with a pattern for
what has been called high-comedy, Shakspere did not attempt any
searching study of Elizabethan society,—altho, of course, this may
have been because Elizabethan society was lacking in the delicate
refinements of fashion which are the fit background of high-comedy.
Whatever the explanation may be, it was left for Molière, inspired
by the external elegancies of the court of Louis XIV, to create the
pattern of high-comedy in ‘Tartuffe’ and the ‘Misanthrope’ and the
‘Femmes Savantes,’—the pattern which was to serve Congreve for
the ‘Way of the World,’ Sheridan for the ‘School for Scandal,’ Augier
and Sandeau for the ‘Gendre de Monsieur Poirier.’ And Molière
really created the formula, with little or no help from any earlier
dramatists, either Greek or Latin. Neither in Athens nor in Rome was
there the atmosphere of breeding which might have stimulated
Menander or Terence to the composition of comedies of this
distinction. It is the more remarkable that Molière should have
accomplished this feat, since he sought no originality of form in his
earlier efforts, contenting himself with the loose and liberal
framework of the Italian improvized plays, the Comedy-of-Masks.
One of the many reasons for the sterility of the English drama in
the middle of the nineteenth century is that the dramatists of our
language seem to have believed it their duty to abide by the patterns
which had been acceptable to the Jacobean and Restoration
audiences and which were not appropriate to the theater of the
nineteenth century, widely different in its size and in its scenic
appliances. The English poets apparently despised the stage of their
own time; and they made no effort to master its methods. As a result
they wrote dramatic poems and not poetic dramas. They did not
follow the example of Victor Hugo and lift into literature a type of play
which was unliterary. Stevenson, in his unfortunate adventures into
playmaking, made the unpardonable mistake of trying to varnish with
style a dramatic formula which had long ceased to be popular.
In the past half-century the men of letters of our language have
seen a great light. They have no contempt for the dramatic patterns
of approved popularity; and of these there are now a great many,
suitable for every purpose and adjustable to every need. They have
found out how to be theatrically effective without ceasing to be
literary in the best sense of the word,—that is to say, they are not
relying on “fine writing” but on clear thinking and on the honest
presentation of human nature, as they severally see it.
(1921)
VI
DID SHAKSPERE WRITE PLAYS TO FIT HIS ACTORS?
VI
DID SHAKSPERE WRITE PLAYS TO FIT HIS
ACTORS?
In his consideration of the organization of the Elizabethan dramatic

companies Professor Alwin Thaler pointed out that the company of
the Globe Theater in London, to which Shakspere belonged,
continued to contain the same actors year after year, the secessions
and the accessions being few and far between; and he explained
that this was “because its members were bound to one another by
ties of devoted personal friendship.” He noted that he had
“emphasized the influence exerted upon Shakspere the playwright
by his intimate knowledge of the men for whom his work was written,
and there can be no doubt that in working out some of his greatest
characters he must have remembered that Burbage was to act
them.” Then Professor Thaler filed a caveat, so to speak.
But the Shakspere muse was not of that sorry sort which produces made-to-
order garments to fit the tastes and idiosyncrasies of a single star. Far from being
one-man plays, the dramas were written for a great company of actors.... And
Richard Burbage, I imagine, would have had little inclination to surrender his place
among his peers for the artificial and idolatrous solitude of modern starhood.
In this last sentence Mr. Thaler confuses the issue. The question is
not whether Burbage wanted to go starring, supported by a more or
less incompetent company, but whether Shakspere did on occasion
choose to write a play which is in fact a made-to-order garment to fit
the idiosyncrasies of a single star. And when it is put in this way the
question is easy to answer. We know that Burbage played Richard
III, and if there ever was a star-part, if there ever was a one-man
play, if there ever was a piece cut and stitched to the measure of the
man who first performed it, then it is Richard III. Here we have a
dominating character to whom the other characters are sacrificed; he
is etched with bold strokes, whereas most of the others are only
faintly outlined. So long as Richard is powerfully seized and
rendered, then the rest of the acting is relatively unimportant.
Richard is the whole show. And while there is only a single star-part
in Richard III—Eclipse first and the rest nowhere—there are twin
star-parts in Macbeth, who are vigorously drawn, while the remaining
characters are merely brushed in, as Professor Bradley has noted.
Now, if this proves that Shakspere’s muse was of a sorry sort, then
that heavenly visitor is in no worse case than the muse of many
another dramatist. Sophocles is reported to have devised his great
tragic parts specially for one actor, whose name has not come down
to us. Racine wrote ‘Phèdre’ and ‘Andromaque,’ his masterpieces,
for Mlle. de Champsmeslé. Rostand wrote ‘Cyrano de Bergerac’ and
‘Chantecler’ for Coquelin. Sardou wrote ‘Fédora’ and ‘Théodora’ for
Sarah Bernhardt. The younger Dumas wrote the ‘Visite de Noces’ for
Desclée. Giacommetti wrote ‘Maria Antoinette’ for Ristori and the
‘Morte Civile’ for Salvini. D’Annunzio wrote the ‘Gioconda’ and the
‘Citta Morte’ for Duse. Bulwer-Lytton wrote the ‘Lady of Lyons’ and
‘Richelieu’ for Macready. Gilbert wrote ‘Comedy and Tragedy’ for
Mary Anderson. Legouvé has told us in detail the circumstances
which led to his writing (in collaboration with Scribe) ‘Adrienne
Lecouvreur’ for Rachel. Jules Lemaître has told us how and why he
came to compose his ‘Age Difficile’ for Coquelin; and Augustus
Thomas has told us how he came to compose his ‘In Mizzoura’ for
Goodwin. The line stretches out to the crack of doom. When
Shakspere chose to produce made-to-order garments to fit the
idiosyncrasies of a single actor, he was in very good company,
ancient and modern. And we may go further and assert that very few
of these plays are any the worse because they were made-to-order.
The great dramatists, whose works we analyze reverently in the
study, were all of them, in their own time, successful playwrights,
stimulated now and again by association with the most gifted and the
most accomplished of contemporary actors. If they had not made
their profit out of the histrionic ability of the foremost performers of
their own time and country, they would have been neglecting golden
opportunities.
Those who best know the conditions of playwriting will be the least
likely to deny that not a few of the great characters in the drama
came into being originally as parts for great actors. Of course, these
characters are more than parts; they transcend the endowment of
any one performer; they have complexity and variety; they are vital
and accusable human beings; but they were parts first of all more or
less made-to-order. In many cases we know the name of the actor
for whose performance the character was conceived, Burbage for
one, Mlle. de Champsmeslé for a second, Coquelin for a third. And
in many another case we lack definite knowledge and are left to
conjecture. There are peculiarities in the ‘Medea’ of Euripides, for
instance, which seem to me to point to the probability that it also was
a made-to-order garment.
To say that Sophocles and Euripides possibly did this cutting-to-fit,
that Shakspere and Racine and Rostand indisputably did it, is not to
imply that they did it always or even that they did it often. Perhaps
they did it more often than we shall ever know; perhaps they had
special actors in mind when they created characters which are not
star-parts. And this suggests a broadening of the inquiry.
II
After asserting that Shakspere’s were “far from being one-man

plays,” Professor Thaler reminded us that Shakspere’s dramas were
written “for a great company of actors”; and what is true of
Shakspere
holds good also of the Elizabethan drama in general. Its breadth and variety may
be ascribed in no slight degree to the fact that the organization of the dramatic
companies provided the great poets of a great age with ample facilities for the
interpretation of many characters and many phases of life.
This prompts a question as to whether Shakspere may not have
fitted other actors who were his associates at the Globe Theater
besides Burbage. That he did deliberately and repeatedly take the
measure of the foremost performer in the company and that his
dramatic genius was stimulated by the histrionic talent of Burbage, I
do not doubt. We cannot help seeing that Shakspere’s heroes
become older as Burbage himself advanced in years. Romeo being
intended for a fiery young fellow and Lear being composed for a
maturer man, who had become a more consummate artist. I have
suggested elsewhere the possibility—to my own mind a probability—
that Shakspere inserted the part of Jaques into ‘As You Like It’
specially for Burbage. Shakspere took his sequence of incidents
from Lodge’s ‘Rosalynd,’ in which there is no character which
resembles Jaques; and Jaques has nothing to do with the plot; he
remains totally outside the story; he exists for his own sake; and he
may very well have been thrust into ‘As You Like It’ because
Burbage was too important an actor to be left out of the cast and
because Orlando was not the kind of part in which Burbage at that
period of his artistic development would appear to best advantage.
If Shakspere made parts thus adjusted to the chief performer at
the Globe Theater, may he not also have proportioned other and less
important characters to the capabilities of one or another of the
actors whose histrionic endowment he was in the best possible
position to appreciate aptly, since he was acting every day by their
side? Is this something to which the greatest of dramatists would
scorn to descend? Has this ever been done by any other playwright
in all the long history of the stage?
When we turn the pages of that history in search of support for this
suggestion, we find it abundantly and super-abundantly. The
succession of comic operas which Gilbert devised to be set to music
by Sullivan reveal at once that they were contrived with reference to
the capacity and to the characteristics of the chief members of the
company at the Savoy Theater. The sequence of broadly humorous
pieces, farces which almost rose to be comedies and comedies
which almost relaxed into farces, written by Labiche, and by Meilhac
and Halévy for the Palais Royal theater were all of them so put
together as to provide appropriate parts for the quartet of comedians
who made that little house the home of perennial laughter in the third
quarter of the nineteenth century.
At the same time Meilhac and Halévy were contriving for the
Variétés the librettos of ‘Barbe-Bleue’ and the ‘Grande Duchesse de
Gérolstein,’ ‘Belle Hélène’ and ‘La Périchole,’ a series of opera-
bouffes enhanced by the scintillating rhythms of Offenbach and
adroitly adapted to the special talents of Schneider, of Dupuis and of
several of the other more or less permanent members of the
company. Almost simultaneously Augier and the younger Dumas
were giving to the Comédie-Française their social dramas, always
carefully made-to-order to suit the half-dozen leading members of
the brilliant company Perrin was then guiding. The ‘Fourchambault’
of Augier and the ‘Étrangère’ of Dumas are masterpieces of this
profitable utilization of the pronounced personalities of the
performers. The ‘Étrangère,’ in particular, would have been a very
different play if it had not contained characters made-to-order for
Sarah Bernhardt and Croizette, Got and Coquelin.
A little earlier the series of blank verse plays written by Gilbert for
the Haymarket Theater, of which ‘Pygmalion and Galatea’ won the
most protracted popularity, had their leading characters plainly
made-to-order for Mr. and Mrs. Kendal and for Buckstone himself.
And just as ‘Richard III’ and ‘King Lear’ are none the worse because
the central character was conceived also as an acting part for
Burbage, so Gilbert’s blank verse pieces, Augier’s social dramas,
Meilhac and Halévy’s farcical comedies lost nothing by their owing
some portion of their inspiration to the necessity of fitting the
accomplished comedians by whom the outstanding characters were
to be impersonated. I venture to express the opinion that this desire
to bring out the best the several actors had to give was helpful rather
than not, stimulatingly suggestive to the author when he was setting
his invention to work.
When we turn back the pages of stage-history from the nineteenth
century to the eighteenth we find perhaps the most striking of all
instances of made-to-order parts,—an instance which shows us not
one or two or three characters in a play, but almost every one of
them, composed and elaborated with an eye single to the original
performers. The ‘School for Scandal’ has been seen by hundreds
and read by thousands, who have enjoyed its effective situations, its
sparkling dialog and its contrasted characters, without any suspicion
that the persons of the play were made-to-order parts. Yet this
undisputed masterpiece of English comedy is what it is because its
clever author had succeeded to the management of Drury Lane,
where Garrick had gathered an incomparable company of
comedians; and in writing the ‘School for Scandal’ Sheridan peopled
his play with the characters which the members of this company
could personate most effectively.
King was Sir Peter, Mrs. Abington was Lady Teazle, Palmer was
Joseph Surface, Smith was Charles Surface; and they were so
perfectly fitted that they played with effortless ease. So closely did
Sheridan identify the parts with the performers that when a friend
asked him why he had written a five-act comedy ending in the
marriage of Charles and Maria without any love-scene for this
couple, he is reported to have responded: “But I couldn’t do it. Smith
can’t make love—and nobody would want to make love to Priscilla
Hopkins!”
III
It may be objected that Sheridan and Augier and Dumas were

after all dextrous playwrights and that they are no one of them to be
ranked with the truly great dramatists. While they might very well be
willing once in a way to turn themselves into dramaturgic tailors, this
is a servile complaisance of which the mighty masters of the drama
would never be guilty, from which indeed they would shrink with
abhorrence. But if we turn the pages of stage-history still further
back, from the eighteenth century to the seventeenth, we discover
that Molière did this very thing, the adjustment of a whole play to the
actors who were to perform it, not once as Sheridan did, but
repeatedly and regularly and in all his pieces, in his loftiest comedies
no less than his broadest and most boisterous farces. And there will
be found few competent critics to deny that Molière is one of the
supreme leaders of the drama, with an indisputable right to a place
by the side of Sophocles and Shakspere, even if he does not climb
to the austere and lofty heights of tragedy.
The more we know about the art of the theater and the more we
study the plays of Molière the more clearly do we perceive that he
was compelled to do persistently what Sheridan did only once. The
company at the Palais Royal was loyal to Molière; nearly all its
leading members came to Paris with him and remained with him until
his death fifteen years later. This company was strictly limited in
number; and as it had a permanent repertory and stood ready to
appear in any of its more successful plays at a moment’s notice,
outside actors could not be engaged for any special part,—even if
there had then been in Paris any available performers at liberty.
Molière could not have more parts in any of his pieces than there
were members of the company; and he could not put into any of his
pieces any character for which there was not a competent performer
in the company. No doubt, he must at times have felt this to be a
grievous limitation. That he never deals with maternal love may be
accounted for by the fact that he had no woman to play agreeable
“old women,”—the disagreeable elderly females being still played by
men, in accord with the medieval tradition. We know the name of the
male actor who appeared as Madame Pernelle in ‘Tartuffe,’ as the
wife in the ‘Bourgeois Gentilhomme’ and as the Comtesse
d’Escarbagnas.
Molière wrote many parts for his own acting; and as he was
troubled with a frequent cough, he sometimes makes coughing a
characteristic of the person he was to act. His brother-in-law, Béjart,
was lame; and so Molière describes a character written for this actor
as having a limp. His sister-in-law, Madeleine Béjart, was an actress
of authority; and so the serving maids he wrote for her are
domineering and provocative. But when she died and her place was
taken by a younger actress with an infectious laugh, the serving
maids in all the plays that Molière wrote thereafter are not
authoritative, and they are given occasion for repeated cachinnation.
And as this recruit, Mlle. Beauval, had a clever little daughter,
Molière did not hesitate to compose a part for a child in his ‘Malade
Imaginaire.’ When we have familiarized ourselves with the record of
the leading man, La Grange, of Madeleine Béjart, of Catherine de
Brie, and of Armande Béjart (Molière’s wife), we find it difficult to
study the swift succession of comedies without constantly feeling the
presence of the actors inside the characters written for them. We
recognize that it was not a matter of choice this fitting of the parts to
the performers; it was a matter of necessity; and even if it may have
irked him at times, Molière made the best of it and probably found
his profit in it.
Now Shakspere was subject to the same limitations as Molière. He
composed all his plays for one company, the membership of which
was fairly constant during a score of years and more. It was also a
repertory company with frequent changes of bill. It could never be
strengthened by the special engagement of an unattached
performer; it had to suffice, such as it was. So far as we can judge by
the scant external evidence and by the abundant internal evidence of
the plays written for them by Shakspere, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and
Fletcher, and the rest, the company was composed of unusually
competent performers. It is unthinkable that Shakspere should have
plotted his superb series of tragedies, making more and more
exacting demands on the impersonators of his tragic heroes, unless
he had a confident assurance that Burbage would be equal to them.
And this confidence could not fail to be a stimulus to him,
encouraging him to seek out stories for the ample display of his
friend’s great gifts.
From all we have learnt of late about Shakspere we are justified in
believing that he was a shrewd man of affairs with a keen eye to the
main chance. He was a sharer in the takings at the door; and he
could not but know that those plays are most attractive to the public
which contain the most parts demanding and rewarding good acting.
So we must infer that he put into his plays the characters in which he
judged that his comrades could appear to best advantage. He not
only wrote good parts for good actors, he wrote special parts for
special actors, shaping his characters to the performers who were to
impersonate them. In other words he provided, and he had to
provide, made-to-order garments.
That he did this repeatedly and regularly, just as Molière was to do
it three-quarters of a century later on the other side of the channel, is
plainly evident, altho we do not now know the special qualifications
of his actors as well as we do those of Molière’s. But we cannot
doubt that the company contained one actor of villains, of “heavies”
as they are termed in the theater. I hazard a guess that this was
Condell, afterwards the associate of Heming in getting out the First
Folio; but whoever he was, Condell or another, he was entrusted
with Iago, with Edmund in ‘King Lear,’ with the King in ‘Hamlet,’ and
with the rest of Shakspere’s bold, bad men.
We know that there were two low comedians in the company, who
appeared as the two Dromios, as the two Gobbos, as Launce and
Speed; and we know also that one of these was Will Kempe and that
when he left the Globe Theater his place was taken by Arnim. Now,
we can see that the Dromios, the Gobbos, Launce and Speed are
merely “clowns” as the Elizabethans called the funny men,—“Let not
your clowns speak more than is set down for them.” The Dromios
and the Gobbos and the corresponding parts in Shakspere’s earlier
plays, including Peter in ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ are only funny men, with
little individuality, almost characterless; and we may surmise that this
was due to Shakspere’s own inexperience in the delineation of
humorous character. But we may, if we choose, credit it also to the
fact that Kempe was only a funny man, and not a character-actor.
And we can find support for this in the superior richness and stricter
veracity of the low comedy characters composed by Shakspere after
Arnim took Kempe’s place,—Dogberry, the porter in ‘Macbeth,’ the
gravedigger in ‘Hamlet,’ comic parts which are also characters,
equipt with more or less philosophy. And again this may be ascribed
either to Shakspere’s own ripening as a humorist or to the richer
capacity of Arnim. But why may not these two causes have
coöperated?
Then there is the brilliant series of parts composed for a dashing
young comedian,—Mercutio, Gratiano, Cassio, Laertes. That these
successive characters were all entrusted to the same performer
seems to me beyond question; and it seems to me equally
indisputable that Shakspere knew what he was doing when he

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Chapter 09 - Business Cycles, Unemployment, and Inflation

McConnell, Brue, Flynn, Barbiero Macro 14ce

5. Why is it difficult to distinguish between frictional, structural, seasonal and cyclical

Answer: Demand-pull inflation occurs when prices rise because of an increase in

1. Place the phases of the business cycle in order. LO9.1

Answer: Peak, Recession, Trough, Expansion.

Answer: a. The level of total spending.

4. Label each of the following scenarios as either frictional unemployment, structural

5. The unemployment rate that is consistent with full employment is known as

Answer: a. The natural rate of unemployment.

7. Cost-push inflation occurs when there is __________________________. LO9.3

Answer: c. Rising per-unit production costs.

8. Jimmer’s nominal income will go up by 10 percent next year. Inflation is expected to be -2

10. True or False: Lenders are helped by unanticipated inflation. LO9.4

11. Economists agree that______________ inflation reduces real output. LO9.5

Answer: 230; 10%.

Answer: GDP gap = 8%; $40 billion.

Answers: 10 percent; -1.8 percent; deflation.

Answer: (a) 35 years; (b) 14 years; (c) 7 years.

Answer: 1.5 percent; 1.7 percent.

Answers: 2 percent; 5 percent.

No passage of Stevenson’s has been oftener quoted than his

Then Professor Van Dyke appends this significant comment:

In other words, the art of painting had so far advanced that La

It is because of their rigorous forms that the ballade and the

There is however a difference between a fixed form, such as the

It is perhaps in the field of playmaking that the utility of the pattern

In his consideration of the organization of the Elizabethan dramatic

After asserting that Shakspere’s were “far from being one-man

It may be objected that Sheridan and Augier and Dumas were

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