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File: Chapter 014 Economic Growth, Productivity, and Living Standards
Multiple Choice
1. The key indicator of a country's living standard and economic well-being is:
A. the interest rate.
B. nominal GDP per person.
C. real GDP.
D. real GDP per person.
Answer: D
Difficulty: 01 Easy
Topic: The Remarkable Rise in Living Standards: The Record
AACSB: Reflective Thinking
Blooms: Remember
Learning Objective: 14-01
Feedback: Real GDP per capita indicates how much the average person produces and thus, how
much goods and services are available to the typical person.
2. Compared to the level of real GDP per person in 1870, by 2010, real GDP in the U.S was
______ times larger, while real GDP per person in Japan was _______.
A. 12; smaller
B. 12; 12 times larger
C. 12; 30 times larger
D. 30; 12 times larger
Answer: C
Difficulty: 01 Easy
Blooms: Remember
Feedback: U.S. real GDP per person went up enormously from 1870 to 2010, and especially fast
in the years 1950 to 2010. In Japan, real GDP per person started out much lower than the U.S. in
1870 and grew 30 times over the same interval.
3. Over the period from 1870 to 2010, the growth of real GDP per capita tended to be more rapid
between _____, particularly for _____.
A. 1870-1950; Japan
B. 1870-1950; the United States
C. 1870-1950; Canada
D. 1950-2010; Japan
Answer: D
1
© 2017 by McGraw-Hill Education. This is proprietary material solely for authorized instructor use. Not authorized for sale or distribution in any
manner. This document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
Difficulty: 01 Easy
Blooms: Remember
Feedback: U.S. real GDP per person went up enormously from 1870 to 2010, and especially fast
in the years 1950 to 2010. In Japan, real GDP per person started out much lower than the U.S. in
1870 and grew 30 times over the same interval.
4. Over the period from 1950 to 2010, which country experienced the fastest average annual
growth rate of real GDP per person?
A. United States
B. Japan
C. China
D. Canada
Answer: C
Difficulty: 01 Easy
Blooms: Remember
Feedback: China, partially due to expanded use of markets since the 1990s, showed the fastest
rate of growth of the countries listed over the period 1950-2010.
5. Growth in real GDP per capita has:

A. been steady over the course of human history.
B. slowed since the mid-nineteenth century compared to before.
C. been more rapid since the mid-nineteenth century than ever before.
D. increased over the last 150 years only in the United States and Canada.
Answer: C
Difficulty: 01 Easy
Blooms: Remember
Feedback: Since the Industrial Revolution, growth in real GDP per capita has expanded at rates
faster than at any other time in history.
6. The rise in average living standards experienced by most industrialized countries:

A. has been continuous over the course of human history.
B. was more rapid before 1870 than after 1870.
C. has been more rapid since 1950 than before 1950.
D. has resulted primarily from an increase in population worldwide.
2
Answer: C
Difficulty: 01 Easy
Blooms: Remember
Feedback: In the post-WWII period, standards of living have growth quickly in most
industrialized countries.
7. The long-run average annual growth of real GDP per person is the United States is
approximately ______ percent.
A. one
B. two
C. five
D. seven
Answer: B
Difficulty: 01 Easy
Blooms: Remember
Feedback: Real GDP per person has grown at an average annual rate of about two percent, which
means that standard of living doubles every 36 years.
8. Compound interest is:

A. the payment of interest on the original deposit.
B. the interest rate adjusted for the rate of inflation.
C. the real rate of interest compounded by the rate of inflation.
D. the payment of interest on both the original deposit and all accumulated interest.
Answer: D
Difficulty: 01 Easy
Blooms: Remember
Feedback: Compound interest is the payment of interest on both the original deposit and all
accumulated interest.
3
9. Bank C promises to pay a compound annual interest rate of 6 percent, while Bank S pays a 10
percent simple annual interest rate on deposits. If you deposit $1,000 in each bank, after 10
years, your deposit in Bank C equals _____, while your deposit in Bank S equals ______.
A. $1,060; $1,100
B. $1,600; $2,000
C. $1,600; $2,594
D. $1,791; $2,000
Answer: D
Difficulty: 03 Hard
AACSB: Analytic
Blooms: Apply
Feedback: Bank C uses the formula: FV = PV (1 + i)n, where i is the interest rate and n the
number of years, so that your deposit after 10 years = $1,000 × (1.06)10 = $1,791. Bank S uses
the formula: FV = P + I, where I is the sum of all the interest payments (here 10 times $100), so
that our deposit after 10 years = $1,000 + $1,000 = $2,000.
10. Bank C promises to pay a compound annual interest rate of 6 percent, while Bank S pays an
8 percent simple annual interest rate on deposits. If you deposit $1,000 in each bank, after 10
years, your deposit in Bank C equals _____, while your deposit in Bank S equals ______.
A. $1,060; $1,800
B. $1,600; $1,800
C. $1,600; $2,159
D. $1,791; $1,800
Answer: D
Difficulty: 03 Hard
AACSB: Analytic
Blooms: Apply
Feedback: Bank C uses the formula: FV = PV (1 + i)n, where i is the interest rate and n the
number of years, so that your deposit after 10 years = $1,000 × (1.06)10 = $1,791. Bank S uses
the formula: FV = P + I, where I is the sum of all the interest payments (here 10 times $100), so
that our deposit after 10 years = $1,000 + $800 = $1,800.
11. If you left $2,500 on deposit with a bank promising to pay you a 6 percent compound annual
rate of interest, then after 50 years your deposit would be worth approximately:
A. $2,800
B. $18,420
C. $46,050
D. $250,750
Answer: C
Difficulty: 03 Hard
4
AACSB: Analytic
Blooms: Apply
Feedback: Use the formula FV = PV (1 + i)n, where i is the interest rate and n the number of
years, so that your deposit after 50 years = and $2,500 × (1.06)50 = $46,050.
12. If you left $2,500 on deposit with a bank promising to pay you a 5 percent compound annual
rate of interest, then after 50 years your deposit would be worth approximately:
A. $2,625
B. $250,750
C. $11,467
D. $28,668
Answer: D
Difficulty: 03 Hard
AACSB: Analytic
Blooms: Apply
years, so that your deposit after 50 years = and $2,500 × (1.05)50 = $28,668.
13. The payment of interest not only on the original deposit, but on all previously accumulated
interest is called::
A. the nominal interest rate.
B. simple interest.
C. compound interest.
D. conflict of interest.
Answer: C
Difficulty: 01 Easy
Blooms: Remember
Feedback: Compound interest is the payment of interest on both the original deposit and all
accumulated interest.
5
14. Suppose when you are 21 years old, you deposit $1,000 into a bank account that pays annual
compound interest, and you do not withdraw from the account until your retirement at the age of
65, 44 years later. How much more will be in your account if the interest rate is 6 percent rather
than 5 percent?
A. $440
B. $1,549
C. $4,428
D. $8,557
Answer: C
Difficulty: 03 Hard
AACSB: Analytic
Blooms: Apply
years. At the interest rate of 6 percent, your deposit after 44 years = $1,000 × (1.06)44 = $12,985.
At the interest rate of 5 percent, your deposit after 44 years = $1,000 × (1.05)44 = $8,557. The
difference is $4,428.
15. Suppose when you are 21 years old, you deposit $1,000 into a bank account that pays annual
compound interest, and you do not withdraw from the account until your retirement at the age of
65, 44 years later. How much more will be in your account if the interest rate is 6 percent rather
than 4 percent?
A. $880
B. $2,390
C. $5,617
D. $7,369
Answer: D
Difficulty: 03 Hard
AACSB: Analytic
Blooms: Apply
years. At 6 percent interest, your deposit after 44 years = $1,000 × (1.06)44 = $12,985.48. At 4
percent interest, your deposit after 44 years = $1,000 × (1.04)44 = $5,616,52. The difference is
$7,369.
16. Small differences in annual growth rates of real GDP generate large differences in real GDP
over time because of the:
A. importance of average labor productivity.
B. power of compound interest.
C. diminishing returns to capital.
D. limits of economic growth.
Answer: B
6
Difficulty: 01 Easy
Blooms: Remember
Feedback: Compound interest pays interest on previously earned interest, so small differences in
growth rates expand into big differences over time.
17. If an economy maintains a small rate of growth for a long period of time, then the size of the
economy:
A. can only increase by a small amount.
B. can increase by a large amount.
C. can never double.
D. will stay nearly constant.
Answer: B
Difficulty: 01 Easy
Blooms: Remember
Feedback: Based on compound growth, even small rates of growth have large effects over time.
18. If real GDP per person were equal to $2,000 in 1900 and grew at a one percent annual rate,
what would be the value of real GDP per person 100 years later?
A. $2,210
B. $4,000
C. $5,410
D. $20,000
Answer: C
Difficulty: 03 Hard
AACSB: Analytic
Blooms: Apply
Feedback: At one percent growth, the future value equation is: Future GDP = $2,000 × (1.01)100
= $5,410.
19. Real GDP per person in both Alpha and Omega is equal to $2,000. Over the next 100 years,
real GDP per person grows at a 1.5 percent annual rate in Alpha and at a 2.5 percent annual rate
in Omega. After 100 years, real GDP per person in Alpha is ______ smaller than real GDP per
person in Omega.
A. $2,000
B. $5,410
C. $8,864
7
D. $14,763
Answer: D
Difficulty: 03 Hard
AACSB: Analytic
Blooms: Apply
Feedback: For Alpha, the future value equation is: Future GDP = $2,000 × (1.015)100 = $8,864.
For Omega, the future value equation is: Future GDP = $2,000 × (1.025)100 = $23,627. The
20. Real GDP per person in both Alpha and Omega is equal to $2,000. Over the next 100 years,
real GDP per person grows at a 1 percent annual rate in Alpha and at a 2 percent annual rate in
Omega. After 100 years, real GDP per person in Alpha is ______ smaller than real GDP per
person in Omega.
A. $2,000
B. $5,410
C. $9,080
D. $11,080
Answer: C
Difficulty: 03 Hard
AACSB: Analytic
Blooms: Apply
Feedback: For Alpha, the future value equation is: Future GDP = $2,000 × (1.01)100 = $5,409.6.
For Omega, the future value equation is: Future GDP = $2,000 × (1.02)100 = $14,489.3. The
difference is $9,079.7 or $9,080.
21. Government policies that increase the long-term economic growth rate by a small amount
result in ______ in average living standards.
A. large increases
B. small increases
C. small decreases
D. no change
Answer: A
Difficulty: 01 Easy
Blooms: Remember
Feedback: Due to compound growth even changes that increase economic growth by a small
amount create large changes over time.
8
22. Real GDP per person in Richland is $20,000, while real GDP per person in Poorland is
$10,000. However, Richland's real GDP per person is growing at 1 percent per year, and
Poorland's real GDP per person is growing at 3 percent per year. After 50 years, real GDP per
person in Richland minus real GDP in Poorland is:
A. positive and greater than $10,000.
B. positive but less than $10,000.
C. zero.
D. negative.
Answer: D
Difficulty: 03 Hard
AACSB: Analytic
Blooms: Apply
Feedback: For Richland, the future value equation is: Future GDP = $20,000 × (1.01)50 =
$32,893. For Poorland, the future value equation is: Future GDP = $10,000 × (1.03)50 = $43,839.
Real GDP per person in Richland minus real GDP in Poorland is $-10,946, which means
Poorland has surpassed Richland.
23. Real GDP per person in Richland is $20,000, while real GDP per person in Poorland is
$10,000. However, Richland's real GDP per person is growing at 1 percent per year, and
Poorland's real GDP per person is growing at 2 percent per year. After 50 years, real GDP per
person in Richland minus real GDP in Poorland is:
A. positive and greater than $10,000.
B. positive but less than $10,000.
C. zero.
D. negative.
Answer: B
Difficulty: 03 Hard
AACSB: Analytic
Blooms: Apply
Feedback: For Richland, the future value equation is: Future GDP = $20,000 × (1.01)50 =
$32,893. For Poorland, the future value equation is: Future GDP = $10,000 × (1.02)50 = $26,916.
Real GDP per person in Richland minus real GDP in Poorland is $5,977.
24. Real GDP per person in Northland is $30,000, while real GDP in Southland is $10,000,
However, Northland's real GDP per person is growing at 1 percent per year, and Southland's real
GDP per person is growing at 3 percent per year. If these growth rates persist indefinitely, then:
A. Northland's real GDP per person will decline until it equals Southland's.
B. Northland's real GDP per person will always be between 1 and 2 percent greater than
Southland's.
C. Southland's real GDP per person will always be exactly 2 percent less than Northland's.
9
D. Southland's real GDP per person will eventually be greater than Northland's.
Answer: D
Difficulty: 02 Medium
Blooms: Understand
Feedback: Southland, due to the power of compound growth, will eventually overtake Northland.
25. Real GDP per person in Westland is $30,000, while real GDP in Eastland is $10,000,
Westland's real GDP per person is growing at 3 percent per year and Eastland's real GDP per
person is growing at 3 percent per year. If these growth rates persist indefinitely, then:
A. Eastland's real GDP per person will rise until it equals Westland's real GDP per person.
B. Westland's real GDP per person will always be at least $20,000 greater than Eastland's.
C. Eastland's real GDP per person will always be exactly $20,000 less than Westland's.
D. Eastland's real GDP per person will eventually be greater than Westland's.
Answer: B
Blooms: Understand
Feedback: Westland, due to the equality of growth rates, will never gain ground on Eastland, but
rather fall further behind as the compounded growth is larger in Westland. .
26. Real GDP per person in the United States was $9,864 in 1950. Over the next 48 years, it
grew at a compound annual rate of 2.0%. If, instead, real GDP per person had grown at an
average compound annual rate 2.5%, then real GDP per capita in the United States in 1998
would have been approximately ______ larger.
A. $2,370
B. $6,751
C. $12,530
D. $25,520
Answer: B
Difficulty: 03 Hard
AACSB: Analytic
Blooms: Analyze
Feedback: 1998 U.S. real GDP = $9,864 × (1.02)48 = $25,519. If the growth rate would have
been 2.5% per year, the 1998 U.S. real GDP = $9,864 × (1.025)48 = $32,270. The difference is
$6,751.
10
27. Real GDP per person in the Canada was $7,377 in 1950. Over the next 48 years it grew at a
compound annual rate of 2.0%. If instead real GDP per person had grown at an average
compound annual rate 2.5%, then real GDP per capita in the Canada in 1998 would have been
approximately ______ larger.
A. $1,770
B. $5,049
C. $9,370
D. $24,130
Answer: B
Difficulty: 03 Hard
AACSB: Analytic
Blooms: Analyze
Feedback: 1950 Canadian real GDP = $7,377 × (1.02)48 = $19,085. If the growth rate would
have been 2.5% per year, 1998 Canadian real GDP = $7,377 × (1.025)48 = $24,134. The
28. The key variable in determining changes in a country's standard of living is the:
A. interest rate.
B. inflation rate.
C. unemployment rate.
D. long-run rate of economic growth.
Answer: D
Difficulty: 01 Easy
Blooms: Remember
Feedback: The long-run rate of economic growth best explains changes in standards of living in
countries around the world.
29. Real GDP per person equals average labor productivity:

A. times one minus the unemployment rate.
B. minus the share of population employed.
C. times the labor force participation rate.
D. times the share of population employed.
Answer: D
Difficulty: 01 Easy
Topic: Why Nations Become Rich: The Crucial Role of Average Labor Productivity
Blooms: Remember
11
Feedback: To find real GDP per person, multiply the average output each worker produces times
the percentage of population employed.
30. Average labor productivity times the proportion of the population employed equals:
A. real GDP.
B. real GDP per person.
C. real GDP per worker.
D. output per worker.
Answer: B
Difficulty: 01 Easy
Blooms: Remember
31. Growth of real GDP per person is totally determined by the growth of average:
A. labor productivity and the proportion of the population employed.
B. labor productivity and the proportion of the population in the labor force.
C. labor force participation and the share of income going to capital.
D. labor force participation and the share of the population employed.
Answer: A
Difficulty: 01 Easy
Blooms: Remember
32. In symbolic terms where Y equals real GDP, POP equals total population, and N equals the
number of employed workers, Y/POP must equal:
A. Y/N × N/POP.
B. N/Y × POP/N.
C. Y/POP × N/POP
D. N/Y × N/POP
Answer: A
Difficulty: 01 Easy
Blooms: Remember
12
33 Real GDP per person can increase:

A. only if the share of the population employed increases.
B. only if the share of the population employed decreases.
C. only if average labor productivity increases.
D. if the share of population employed and/or average labor productivity increases.
Answer: D
Difficulty: 01 Easy
Blooms: Remember
the percentage of population employed. Real GDP per person can only grow if one of these
factors increases.
34. A nation's standard of living, as measured by real GDP per person, increases:
A. only if average labor productivity increases.
B. only if the share of population employed increases.
C. only if both average labor productivity and the share of population employed increase.
D. if either average labor productivity and/or the share of population employed increase.
Answer: D
Difficulty: 01 Easy
Blooms: Remember
the percentage of population employed. Real GDP per person can only grow if one of these
factors increases.
35. If the share of population employed in two countries is the same, average living standards
will be higher in the country with:
A. the smaller population.
B. the larger population.
C. higher average labor productivity.
D. lower average labor productivity.
Answer: C
13
Blooms: Understand
Feedback: To find real GDP per person, which gives the standard of living, multiply the average
output each worker produces times the percentage of population employed.
36. If average labor productivity in two countries is the same, average living standards will be
lower in the country with:
C. the higher share of population employed
D. the lower share of population employed.
Answer: D
Blooms: Understand
37. If average labor productivity in two countries is the same, average living standards will be
higher in the country with:
C. the higher share of population employed
D. the lower share of population employed.
Answer: C
Blooms: Understand
38. If 50 percent of the population in a country is employed and average labor productivity
equals $30,000, then real GDP per person equals:
A. $15,000.
B. $30,000.
C. $50,000.
D. $60,000.
Answer: A
Difficulty: 03 Hard
14
AACSB: Analytic
Blooms: Apply
output each worker produces times the percentage of population employed. In this case, real
GDP per person equals: ($30,000 × 0.5) = $15,000.
39. If real GDP per person in a country equals $40,000 and 60 percent of the population is
employed, then average labor productivity equals:
A. $24,000.
B. $40,000.
C. $60,000.
D. $66,667.
Answer: D
Difficulty: 03 Hard
AACSB: Analytic
Blooms: Apply
Feedback: If real GDP per person is obtained by multiplying the average output each worker
produces times the percentage of population employed. Then average output per worker or
average labor productivity is = real GDP divided by the percentage of population employed =:
$40,000 / 0.60 = $66.667.
40. If real GDP per person in a country equals $20,000 and 40 percent of the population is
employed, then average labor productivity equals:
A. $8,000.
B. $20,000.
C. $40,000.
D. $50,000.
Answer: D
Difficulty: 03 Hard
AACSB: Analytic
Blooms: Apply
Feedback: If real GDP per person is obtained by multiplying the average output each worker
produces times the percentage of population employed. Then average output per worker or
average labor productivity is = real GDP divided by the percentage of population employed =
$20,000 / 0.40 = $50,000.
41. The population of Alpha totals one million people, 40 percent of whom are employed.
Average output per worker in Alpha is $20,000. Real GDP per person in Alpha totals:
15
A. $8,000.
B. $12,000.
C. $20,000.
D. $50,000.
Answer: A
Difficulty: 03 Hard
AACSB: Analytic
Blooms: Apply
Feedback: To find real GDP per person for Alpha, multiply the average output each worker
produces times the percentage of population employed. In this case, real GDP per person is:
($20,000 × 0.40) = $8,000.
42. The population of Omega totals one million people, 30 percent of whom are employed.
Average output per worker in Alpha is $30,000. Real GDP per person in Alpha totals:
A. $9,000.
B. $21,000.
C. $30,000.
D. $100,000.
Answer: A
Difficulty: 03 Hard
AACSB: Analytic
Blooms: Apply
Feedback: To find real GDP per person for Omega, multiply the average output each worker
($30,000 × 0.30) = $9,000.
43. In Econland, 500,000 of the 2 million people in the country are employed. Average labor
productivity in Econland is $15,000 per worker. Real GDP per person in Econland totals:
A. $1,250.
B. $3,750.
C. $11,250.
D. $60,000.
Answer: B
Difficulty: 03 Hard
AACSB: Analytic
Blooms: Apply
16
Feedback: To find real GDP per person for Econland, multiply the average amount of output
each worker produces times the percentage of population employed. In this case, real GDP per
person is: ($15,000) × (500,000/2,000,000) = $3,750.
44. In Macroland, 500,000 of the 1 million people in the country are employed. Average labor
productivity in Macroland is $20,000 per worker. Real GDP per person in Macroland totals:
A. $1,000.
B. $10,000.
C. $15,000.
D. $40,000.
Answer: B
Difficulty: 03 Hard
AACSB: Analytic
Blooms: Apply
Feedback: To find real GDP per person for Macroland, multiply the average output each worker
($20,000) × (500,000/1,000,000) = $10,000.
45. The growth of real GDP per person in the United States between 1960 and 2013 was the
result of:
A. growth in average labor productivity only.
B. growth in the share of population employed only.
C. growth in both average labor productivity and the share of population employed.
D. neither the growth in average labor productivity nor the share of population employed.
Answer: C
Difficulty: 01 Easy
Blooms: Remember
output each worker produces times the percentage of population employed. In this case, both
factors increased.
46. Assume that the share of population employed in all countries is 50 percent. Based on the
information in the table, which country has the highest real GDP per capita?
Country Population (millions) Average Labor Productivity ($)

A 100 2,000
B 150 10,000
C 75 25,000
D 250 50,000
E 95 60,000
17
A. Country A
B. Country B
C. Country D
D. Country E
Answer: D
Difficulty: 03 Hard
AACSB: Analytic
Blooms: Apply
the percentage of population employed. Note that all countries have the same share of population
working, 50 percent, so the real GDP in each country is half of the average labor productivity. So
real GDP per person in Country E is: ($60,000 × 0.50) = $30,000.
47. Assume that the share of population employed in all countries is 50 percent. Based on the
information in the table, which country has the smallest real GDP per capita?

A 100 2,000
B 150 10,000
C 75 25,000
D 250 50,000
E 95 60,000
A. Country A
B. Country B
C. Country D
D. Country E
Answer: A
Difficulty: 03 Hard
AACSB: Analytic
Blooms: Apply
the percentage of population employed. Note that all countries have the same share of population
working, 50 percent, so the real GDP in each country is half of the average labor productivity. So
real GDP per person in Country A is: ($2,000 × 0.50) = $1,000.
18
48. Suppose that the share of population employed in Country C is 50 percent, and that Countries
C and D have the same real GDP per capita. Based on the information in the table, what share of
Country D’s population must be employed?

A 100 2,000
B 150 10,000
C 75 25,000
D 250 50,000
E 95 60,000
A. 12.5 percent
B. 25.0 percent
C. 75.0 percent
D. 100.0 percent
Answer: B
Difficulty: 03 Hard
AACSB: Analytic
Blooms: Apply
the percentage of population employed. In this case, average labor productivity in Country C is
$25,000 and share of population employed is 0.50, so real GDP per person is $12,500. For
Country D to also have real GDP per person of $12,500, then the share of population working ×
the average labor productivity of $50,000 must be $12,500. Solving for the share of population
working, by dividing each side by the real GDP, we get $12,500 / $50,000 = .25 or 25 percent.
49. Suppose that the share of population employed in Country B is 50 percent, and that Countries
B and C have the same real GDP per capita. Based on the information in the table, what share of
Country C’s population must be employed?

A 100 2,000
B 150 10,000
C 75 25,000
D 250 50,000
E 95 60,000
A. 5.0 percent
B. 20.0 percent
C. 40.0 percent
D. 50.0 percent
Answer: B
Difficulty: 03 Hard
19
AACSB: Analytic
Blooms: Apply
the percentage of population employed. In this case, average labor productivity in Country B is
$10,000 and share of population employed is 0.50, so real GDP per person is $5,000. For
Country C to also have real GDP per person of $5,000, then the share of population working ×
the average labor productivity of $25,000 must be $5,000. Solving for the share of population
working, by dividing each side by the real GDP, we get $5,000 / $25,000 = .20 or 20 percent.
50. If average labor productivity increases, real GDP per person:

A. increases.
B. decreases.
C. remains constant.
D. may increase or decrease depending on the change in the share of population employed.
Answer: D
Blooms: Understand
Feedback: It is possible that increased average labor productivity is offset by a decline in the
share of population employed.
51. Assume that average labor productivity is the same in each country. Based on the
information in the table, which country has the highest real GDP per capita?
Country Population (millions) Share of Population Employed

(%)
A 100 60
B 150 55
C 75 50
D 250 45
E 95 40
A. Country A
B. Country B
C. Country C
D. Country D
Answer: A
Blooms: Understand
20
Feedback: To find real GDP per capita, multiply the average output each worker produces times
the percentage of population employed. Since output per worker is the same in each country, the
highest percentage of the population employed indicates the highest standard of living.
52. Assume that average labor productivity is the same in each country. Based on the
information in the table, which country has the smallest real GDP per capita?

(%)
A 100 60
B 150 55
C 75 50
D 250 45
E 95 40
A. Country A
B. Country B
C. Country D
D. Country E
Answer: D
Blooms: Understand
Feedback: To find real GDP per capita, multiply the average output per worker times the
percentage of population employed. Since output per worker is the same in each country, the
lowest percentage of the population employed indicates the lowest standard of living.
53. Suppose that average labor productivity in Country C is $5,000, and that Countries C and E
have the same real GDP per capita. Based on the information in the table, what must be the
average labor productivity in Country E?

(%)
A 100 60
B 150 55
C 75 50
D 250 45
E 95 40
A. $1,000
B. $1,500
C. $4,500
D. $6,250
Answer: D
21
Difficulty: 03 Hard
AACSB: Analytic
Blooms: Apply
Feedback: Country C has real per capita GDP of ($5,000 × 0.5) = $2,500. If Country E has the
same real GDP per capita, then $2,500 = labor productivity (x) times the percentage of
population working of .5. Solving for x, we get = $2,500 / 0.4 = $6,250.
54. Suppose that average labor productivity in Country C is $6,000, and that Countries C and A
have the same real GDP per capita. Based on the information in the table, what must be the
average labor productivity in Country A?

(%)
A 100 60
B 150 55
C 75 50
D 250 45
E 95 40
A. $1,800
B. $2,400
C. $5,000
D. $7,200
Answer: C
Difficulty: 03 Hard
AACSB: Analytic
Blooms: Apply
Feedback: Country C has 50% of its population working and labor productivity is $6,000, so real
per capita GDP is ($6,000 × 0.50) = $3,000. Country A has the same real GDP per capita and has
60% of its population working, so: average labor productivity × 0.60 = $3,000, and average labor
productivity equals $3,000 / .6 = $5,000.
55. One factor that contributed to the growth in the share of population employed in the United
States between 1960 and 2010 was increased:
A. labor union participation.
B. female labor force participation.
C. male labor force participation.
D. minimum wages.
Answer: B
Difficulty: 01 Easy
22
Blooms: Remember
Feedback: The structure of the American family has changed over the last generation and now
more women are working outside the home increasing the share of population employed.
56. Growth in the share of population employed in the United States is likely to decline in the
future because:
A. increasing female labor force participation is predicted.
B. increasing male labor force participation is predicted.
C. population growth is expected to increase.
D. an increasing proportion of those currently employed will be retiring.
Answer: D
Difficulty: 01 Easy
Blooms: Remember
Feedback: The “baby-boomer” generation have recently started retiring, and will continue to do
so in greater number in the coming decade.
57. In the long run, increases in output per person arise primarily from:
A. increases in female labor force participation.
B. increases in male labor force participation.
C. an increasing proportion of the population retiring
D. increases in average labor productivity.
Answer: D
Difficulty: 01 Easy
Blooms: Remember
Feedback: Increased average labor productivity is the foremost reason why nations become rich.
58. Long-run increases in living standards, as measured by real GDP per person, are primarily
the result of increases in:
A. population.
B. the money supply.
C. government budget surpluses.
D. average labor productivity.
Answer: D
Difficulty: 01 Easy
23
Blooms: Remember
Feedback: Increased average labor productivity is the foremost reason why nations become rich.
59. Mike and Tom debone chicken breasts for Ted's Chicken Co. Mike is new and can only
debone 60 chicken breasts per hour, while Tom's experience allows him to debone 120 chicken
breasts per hour. Both Mike and Tom work 40 hours per week. Their average hourly productivity
as a team is ______ chicken breasts.
A. 60
B. 75
C. 90
D. 100
Answer: C
Difficulty: 03 Hard
Topic: The Determinants of Average Labor Productivity
AACSB: Analytic
Blooms: Apply
Feedback: In this case, team productivity is the sum of each worker’s output divided by the
number of team members or (60 + 120) / 2 = 90.
debone 30 chicken breasts per hour, while Tom's experience allows him to debone 60 chicken
breasts per hour. Both Mike and Tom work 40 hours per week. Their average hourly productivity
as a team is ______ chicken breasts.
A. 30
B. 45
C. 60
D. 90
Answer: B
Difficulty: 03 Hard
AACSB: Analytic
Blooms: Apply
Feedback: In this case, team average hourly productivity is 45 chicken breasts, which is the sum
of each worker’s hourly output divided by the number of team members or (30 + 60) / 2 = 45.
61. Fred and Barney fill egg cartons with eggs. Fred just started the job and can fill only 25
cartons an hour. Barney has significant on-the-job experience and can fill 50 cartons an hour.
Both Fred and Barney work 50 hours a week. Fred's average weekly productivity is ______
24
cartons; Barney's average weekly productivity is ______ cartons; and as a team their average
weekly productivity is ______ cartons.
A. 25; 50; 75
B. 25; 50; 37.5
C. 1,000; 2,000; 1,500
D. 1,250; 2,500; 1,875
Answer: D
Difficulty: 03 Hard
AACSB: Analytic
Blooms: Apply
Feedback: Fred’s average weekly productivity is 1,250 cartons, which is the hourly rate of 25
times 50 hours worked. The same equation applies for Barney whose weekly productivity is
2,500 (50 × 50). Team average hourly productivity is 37.5 cartons, which is the sum of each
worker’s hourly output divided by the number of team members or (25 + 50) / 2. The team’s
average weekly productivity is1,875 cartons per week.
62. Fred and Barney fill egg cartons with eggs. Fred just started the job and can fill only 20
cartons an hour. Barney has significant on-the-job experience and can fill 40 cartons an hour.
Both Fred and Barney work 40 hours a week. Fred's average weekly productivity is ______
cartons; Barney's average weekly productivity is ______ cartons; and as a team their average
weekly productivity is ______ cartons.
A. 20; 40; 60
B. 20; 40; 30
C. 800; 2,000; 1,600
D. 800; 1,600; 1,200
Answer: D
Difficulty: 03 Hard
AACSB: Analytic
Blooms: Apply
Feedback: Fred’s average weekly output is 800 cartons, which is the hourly rate of 20 times 40
hours worked. The same equation applies for Barney whose weekly productivity is 1,600 (40 ×
40). Team average weekly productivity is 30 cartons, which is the sum of each worker’s hourly
output divided by the number of team members. The team team’s average weekly productivity is
1,200 cartons per week.
63. Human capital is:

A. the factories and machinery used by humans in the production process.
B. the talents, training, and education of workers.
C. the financial resources available to humans for investment.
D. the factories and machinery made by workers.
25
Answer: B
Difficulty: 01 Easy
Blooms: Remember
Feedback: Human capital is the talents, training, and education of workers.
64. Economists refer to the talents, training, and education of workers as:
A. human capital.
B. physical capital.
C. average labor productivity.
D. labor supply.
Answer: A
Difficulty: 01 Easy
Blooms: Remember
Feedback: Human capital is the talents, training, and education of workers
65. Workers should invest in additional human capital as long as the:

A. marginal benefit exceeds the marginal cost.
B. marginal cost exceeds the marginal benefit.
C. opportunity cost exceeds the marginal benefit.
D. opportunity cost is zero.
Answer: A
Difficulty: 01 Easy
Blooms: Remember
Feedback: Investments in human capital follow the cost-benefit principle, i.e., marginal benefits
should exceed marginal costs.
66. Which of the following is an example of an investment in human capital?

A. A firm replaces manually controlled production with a computer controlled procedure.
B. A firm pays for workers to take college classes.
C. A chemical firm supports research to develop new chemicals.
D. A firm purchases new equipment for a manufacturing process.
Answer: B
26
Blooms: Understand
Feedback: Investments to develop worker skills is “human capital investment.”
67. The prediction that workers get additional training only when the rewards from the training
are expected to exceed the costs of the training (including the opportunity costs) is based on the:
A. principle of comparative advantage.
B. principle of diminishing returns to capital.
C. scarcity principle.
D. cost-benefit principle.
Answer: D
Blooms: Understand
Feedback: The cost-benefit principle says that marginal benefits of a decision should exceed
marginal costs for additional training to occur.
68. Getting a master’s degree is an example of investing in:

A. human capital.
C. technology.
D. research and development.
Answer: A
Blooms: Understand
Feedback: Investments to develop worker skills is “human capital investment.”
69. Providing workers with on-the-job training will increase:

A. average labor productivity.
B. the share of the population employed.
C. the unemployment rate.
D. the labor force participation rate.
Answer: A
Blooms: Understand
27
Feedback: On-the-job training is a form of human capital investment. This investment usually
increases average labor productivity.
70. When a firm builds a new factory, this is an example of an investment in:
A. human capital.
C. the market.
D. research and development.
Answer: B
Blooms: Understand
Feedback: When businesses invest in a new plant, equipment, and/or factories it is physical
capital investment. These investments usually increase productivity.
71. Which of the following is an example of an investment in physical capital?

A. A firm trains workers to operate new machinery.
B. A firm pays for workers to take college classes.
C. A chemical firm employs chemists to develop new chemicals.
D. A firm purchases new equipment for a manufacturing process.
Answer: D
Blooms: Understand
Feedback: When businesses invest in a new plant, equipment, and/or factories it is physical
capital investment. These investments usually increase productivity.
debone 60 chicken breasts per hour by hand, while Tom's experience allows him to debone 120
chicken breasts per hour by hand. Ted buys one new machine that can debone 100 chicken
breasts per hour. Both Mike and Tom work the same 40 hours per week, but one of them is
assigned to operate the machine instead of deboning the chicken breasts by hand. To obtain
maximum average hourly productivity, ______ is assigned to use the machine and their
combined average hourly productivity as a team is ______ chicken breasts.
A. Mike; 80
B. Mike; 110
C. Tom; 80
D. Tom; 110
Answer: B
28
Difficulty: 03 Hard
AACSB: Analytic
Blooms: Apply
Feedback: Mike is assigned to the machine because he is the least efficient producer. After
getting the machine, the team debones 220 chicken breasts per hour (Mike deboned 100 and Tom
deboned 120), for an average of 110 per worker.
debone 30 chicken breasts per hour by hand, while Tom's experience allows him to debone 60
chicken breasts per hour by hand. Ted buys one new machine that can debone 100 chicken
breasts per hour. Both Mike and Tom work the same 40 hours per week, but one of them is
assigned to operate the machine instead of deboning the chicken breasts by hand. To obtain
maximum average hourly productivity, ______ is assigned to use the machine and their
combined average hourly productivity as a team is ______ chicken breasts
A. Mike; 65
B. Mike; 80
C. Tom; 65
D. Tom; 80
Answer: B
Difficulty: 03 Hard
AACSB: Analytic
Blooms: Apply
Feedback: Mike is assigned to the machine because he is the least efficient producer. After
getting the machine, the team debones 160 chicken breasts per hour (Mike deboned 100 and Tom
deboned 60), for an average of 80 per worker.
74. Physical capital is:

A. the factories and machinery used to produce other goods and services.
B. the talents, training, and education of workers.
C. the financial resources available for investment.
D. the physical labor of workers.
Answer: A
Difficulty: 01 Easy
AACSB: Analytic
Blooms: Remember
Feedback: Physical capital is the factories and machinery used to produce other goods and
services.
29
75. Long-lived goods used to produce other goods and services are called:
A. financial capital.
B. human capital.
C. physical capital.
D. inventories.
Answer: C
Difficulty: 01 Easy
AACSB: Analytic
Blooms: Remember
Feedback: Physical capital is the factories, machinery, and other long-lived goods used to
produce other goods and services.
76. Jim and Fred are the only two cashiers employed at a retail store. Each of them works the
same 40 hours per week and each can check out 30 customers per hour by manually entering the
price of each product purchased into the cash register. The store owner replaces the old cash
registers with new ones that automatically scan product prices into the register. With the new
cash registers, Jim and Fred can each check out 60 customers per hour. Their average labor
productivity as a team before the new cash registers were introduced was ______ customers per
hour and ______ customers per hour after the new machines were installed.
A. 30; 60
B. 30; 120
C. 60; 120
D. 1,200; 2,400
Answer: A
Difficulty: 03 Hard
AACSB: Analytic
Blooms: Apply
Feedback: The team’s beginning average hourly output was 30 customers per hour. After buying
the new cash registers, the team’s average hourly output increased to 60 customers per hour.
77. Betty and Wilma are the only two cashiers employed at a retail store. Each of them works the
same 40 hours per week. By manually entering the price of each product purchased into the cash
register, Betty can check out 20 customers and Wilma can check out 30 customers per hour. The
store owner replaces the old cash registers with new ones that automatically scan product prices
into the register. With the new cash registers, Betty and Wilma can each check out 60 customers
per hour. Their average labor productivity as a team before the new cash registers were
introduced was ______ customers per hour and ______ customers per hour after the new
machines were installed.
A. 25; 60
B. 50; 120
C. 50; 60
D. 1,000; 2,400
30
Answer: A
Difficulty: 03 Hard
AACSB: Analytic
Blooms: Apply
Feedback: The team’s beginning average hourly output was 25 customers per hour (50 / 2). After
buying the new cash registers, the team’s average hourly output was 60 customers per hour.
78. Countries with small amounts of capital per worker tend to have ______ levels of real GDP
per person and ______ levels of average labor productivity.
A. high; high
B. high; low
C. low; low
D. low; average
Answer: C
Difficulty: 01 Easy
Blooms: Remember
Feedback: Countries with small amounts of capital per worker suffer from low productivity; this
results in low real GDP per person.
79. The principle of diminishing returns to capital states that if the amount of labor and other
inputs employed is held constant, then the greater the amount of capital in use the:
A. less is produced.
B. less production is wasted.
C. the more an additional unit of capital adds to production.
D. the less an additional unit of capital adds to production.
Answer: D
Difficulty: 01 Easy
Blooms: Remember
Feedback: This is the definition of the “principle of diminishing returns” as applied to addition of
capital stock.
80. The principle that if the amount of labor and other inputs is held constant, then the greater the
amount of capital in use, the less an additional unit of capital adds to production is called the
principle of:
A. increasing average capital productivity.
31
B. diminishing returns to capital.
C. increasing returns to capital.
D. decreasing output per unit of capital.
Answer: B
Difficulty: 01 Easy
Blooms: Remember
Feedback: This is the definition of the “principle of diminishing returns” as applied to addition of
capital stock.
81. Increasing the capital available to the workforce, holding other factors constant, tends to
______ total output while ______ average labor productivity.
A. increase; decreasing
B. increase; increasing
C. increase; not changing
D. decrease; increasing
Answer: B
Difficulty: 01 Easy
Blooms: Remember
Feedback: Increasing the capital available to workers increases their average labor productivity
and therefore, output.
82. Alpha has $40,000 of capital per worker, while Beta has $5,000 of capital per worker. In all
other respects, the two countries are the same. According to the principle of diminishing returns
to capital, an additional unit of capital will increase output ______ in Alpha compared to Beta,
holding other factors constant.
A. more
B. less
C. not at all
D. by the same amount
Answer: B
Blooms: Understand
Feedback: Since Alpha starts out with more capital per worker, the marginal increase in worker
output in Alpha is less than the marginal increase in Beta (where workers have much less capital
to begin with).
32
83. Gamma has $30,000 of capital per worker, while Omega has $7,500 of capital per worker. In
all other respects, the two countries are the same. According to the principle of diminishing
returns to capital, an additional unit of capital will increase output ______ in Gamma compared
to Omega, holding other factors constant.
A. more
B. less
C. not at all
D. by the same amount
Answer: B
Blooms: Understand
Feedback: Since Gamma starts out with more capital per worker, the marginal increase in worker
output in Gamma is less than the marginal increase in Omega (where workers have much less
capital to begin with).
84. Based on the table below and the principle of diminishing returns to capital, then total
packages wrapped when a fourth machine is installed must be less than ______ packages.
Number of (Identical) Machines Total Packages Wrapped

1 10,000
2 13,000
3 15,000
A. 2,000
B. 15,000
C. 16,000
D. 17,000
Answer: D
Difficulty: 03 Hard
AACSB: Analytic
Blooms: Apply
Feedback: The marginal return to the first machine was 10,000 packages, the marginal return to
the second machine was 3,000 packages (13,000 – 10,000) and the marginal return to the third
machine was 2,000 packages (15,000 – 13,000). Thus, the marginal return to the third machine
has to be less than 2,000 packages, which makes the total less than 17,000 packages.
85. Based on the table below and the principle of diminishing returns to capital, then total
packages wrapped when a fourth machine is installed must be less than ______ packages.
33
Number of (Identical) Machines Total Packages Wrapped
1 5000
2 9,000
3 12,000
A. 3,000
B. 4,000
C. 12,000
D. 15,000
Answer: D
Difficulty: 03 Hard
AACSB: Analytic
Blooms: Apply
Feedback: The marginal return to the first machine was 5,000 packages, the marginal return to
the second machine was 4,000 packages (9,000 – 5,000) and the marginal return to the third
machine was 3,000 packages (12,000 – 9,000). Thus, the marginal return to the third machine
has to be less than 3,000 packages, which makes the total less than 15,000 packages.
86. Providing a fixed number of workers with additional capital will ______ average labor
productivity at a ______ rate.
A. increase; increasing
B. increase; constant
C. increase; decreasing
D. decrease; decreasing
Answer: C
Difficulty: 01 Easy
Blooms: Remember
Feedback: More capital per worker increases average labor productivity, but this increase comes
at a decreasing rate.
87. Diminishing returns to capital is a consequence of firms' incentives to use each piece of
capital as productively as possible and illustrates the:
A. principle of comparative advantage.
B. principle of increasing opportunity costs.
C. scarcity principle.
D. cost-benefit principle.
Answer: B
34
Blooms: Understand
Feedback: Diminishing returns to any factor input is a restatement of the principle of increasing
opportunity costs.
88. Because of diminishing returns to capital, there is a limit to the increases in average labor
productivity that can be gained from additional or improved ______.
A. availability of land and natural resources
B. physical capital
C. imports
D. entrepreneurship
Answer: B
Blooms: Understand
Feedback: While all inputs are subject to the law of diminishing returns, Only physical capital is
subject to diminishing returns to capital.
89. Usually an abundance of natural resources ______ average labor productivity.

A. doubles
B. increases
C. decreases
D. has no effect on
Answer: B
Difficulty: 01 Easy
Blooms: Remember
Feedback: Abundant natural resources, given freely from nature, usually increase average labor
productivity.
90. The discovery and utilization of vast, previously unknown oil and mineral deposits in a
country will increase:
D. the quantity of human capital.
Answer: A
35
Blooms: Understand
Feedback: Abundant natural resources, given freely from nature, usually increase average labor
productivity.
91. Most economists agree that ______ are the single most important source of productivity
improvements.
A. increases in human capital
B. increases in physical capital
C. technological advances
D. discoveries of natural resources
Answer: C
Difficulty: 01 Easy
Blooms: Remember
Feedback: Technological advances, like the invention and diffusion of cheap computing, have a
large and sudden contribution to productivity.
92. Three workers run a house painting business and always work the same number of hours
together. The paint they use requires applying two coats. Each worker paints 200 square feet per
hour using a roller or 80 square feet per hour using a brush. If a technological advance provides a
paint that only requires one coat, their average labor productivity per hour as a team:
A. increases.
B. decreases.
C. remains the same.
D. may either increase or decrease.
Answer: A
Blooms: Understand
Feedback: This technological advance improves average labor productivity of individuals and
the team whether they use a roller or a brush.
36
93. The application of new technologies to the production process will increase:
Answer: A
Blooms: Understand
Feedback: New technologies increase worker productivity by giving workers better tools. This
increases average labor productivity.
94. When new technologies are applied to the production and distribution of goods and services:
A. scarcity is eliminated.
B. diminishing returns to capital no longer hold.
C. diminishing returns to capital still hold.
D. average labor productivity decreases.
Answer: C
Blooms: Understand
Feedback: Although new technologies generally improve average labor productivity,
technological additions are still subject to diminishing returns to capital.
95. The introduction of new technologies to production is ______ source of productivity

improvement.
A. the most important
B. the only
C. the least important
D. no longer a
Answer: A
Difficulty: 01 Easy
Blooms: Remember
Feedback: Technological advances, like the invention and diffusion of cheap computing, have a
large and sudden contribution to productivity improvements.
37
96. Entrepreneurs are people who:
A. engage exclusively in business travel.
B. entertain the workers.
C. run businesses on a day-to-day basis.
D. create new economic enterprises.
Answer: D
Difficulty: 01 Easy
Blooms: Remember
Feedback: Entrepreneurs take business risks to earn profits. As entrepreneurs they create new
economic enterprises.
97. Business managers are people who:

A. engage exclusively in business travel.
B. entertain the workers.
C. run businesses on a day-to-day basis.
D. own the physical capital used in production.
Answer: C
Difficulty: 01 Easy
Blooms: Remember
Feedback: This is the definition of “business managers.” Note: they are different from
entrepreneurs because entrepreneurs take risks whereas business managers often do not.
98. ______ start new economic enterprises, while ______ run the enterprises on a day-to-day
basis.
A. Entrepreneurs; managers
B. Mangers; entrepreneurs
C. Mangers; laborers
D. Entrepreneurs; laborers
Answer: A
Blooms: Understand
Feedback: Entrepreneurs take risks when they start new business enterprises whereas managers
run the business but often do not bear the business risks.
38
99. Entrepreneurs contribute to increased average labor productivity in each of the following
ways except by:
A. introducing new production methods.
B. implementing new technological processes.
C. developing new products.
D. assigning workers to jobs.
Answer: D
Blooms: Understand
Feedback: Entrepreneurs take risks when they start new business enterprises whereas managers
run the business but often do not bear the business risks.
100. Managers contribute to increased average labor productivity in each of the following ways
except by:
A. developing new products.
B. obtaining financing.
C. assigning workers to jobs.
D. dealing with suppliers.
Answer: A
Blooms: Understand
Feedback: Managers run the business but often do not bear business risks, whereas
entrepreneurs take risks when they start new business activities.
101. The implementation of new production methods by managers, such as the "just-in-time"
inventory system, increases:
Answer: A
Blooms: Understand
Feedback: New inventions and innovations make workers more efficient, thus increase average
labor productivity.
39
102. Organizing production, obtaining financing, assigning workers to jobs, and dealing with
suppliers are among the ways that ______ increases average labor productivity.
A. human capital
B. physical capital
C. an entrepreneur
D. a manager
Answer: D
Difficulty: 01 Easy
Blooms: Remember
Feedback: Managers run the business but often do not bear business risks.
103. Developing new products and services as well as introducing new production methods are
among the ways that ______ increases average labor productivity.
A. human capital
B. physical capital
C. an entrepreneur
D. a manager
Answer: C
Difficulty: 01 Easy
Blooms: Remember
Feedback: Entrepreneurs take risks when they start new businesses. The intent of these new
activities is to increase factor productivity.
104. The introduction of an overnight delivery service that guarantees the delivery of packages
anywhere in the world overnight would increase:
B. the share of population employed.
C. the labor force participation rate.
D. the unemployment rate.
Answer: A
Blooms: Understand
Feedback: This new service would create the opportunity for fewer business interruptions and
therefore increase average labor productivity.
40
105. Most political scientists and economists agree that ______ is detrimental to economic
growth.
A. a set of well-defined property rights
B. the free and open exchange of ideas
C. political instability
D. a just-in-time inventory system
Answer: C
Difficulty: 01 Easy
Blooms: Remember
Feedback: Political instability creates an undesirable business climate because firm owners
cannot anticipate when the government might change the rules.
106 Well-defined property rights:

A. are clearly written in English.
B. restrict the use of land and natural resources to productive uses.
C. allow the government to confiscate property.
D. clearly state who owns resources and how the resources can be used.
Answer: D
Difficulty: 01 Easy
Blooms: Remember
Feedback: Well-defined property rights clearly state who owns resources and how the resources
can be used.
107. A political system that promotes the free and open exchange of ideas:
A. will not have well-defined property rights.
B. slows the development of new technologies and products.
C. increases average labor productivity.
D. is detrimental to economic growth.
Answer: C
Difficulty: 01 Easy
Blooms: Remember
Feedback: Political stability and transparency creates a favorable business climate because firm
owners can rely on government rules.
41
108. At the time it collapsed in 1991, the Soviet Union possessed all of the factors that promote
increases in economic growth except:
A. a highly educated worker force.
B. a large stock of capital.
C. abundant natural resources.
D. a political and legal environment that promoted economic productivity.
Answer: D
Difficulty: 01 Easy
Blooms: Remember
Feedback: The fall of the former Soviet Union was largely caused by an erratic political and
legal environment that stifled business enterprise.
109. Governments contribute to increased average labor productivity in each of the following
ways except by:
A. establishing well-defined property rights.
B. maintaining political stability.
C. imposing taxes on wages.
D. allowing the free and open exchange of ideas.
Answer: C
Blooms: Understand
Feedback: Imposing taxes on wages discourage work, which reduces labor productivity.
110. Each of the following statements describes how the political and legal environment
encourages productivity except:
A. Well-defined property rights encourage production and saving.
B. Political stability promotes economic growth.
C. Price changes in markets give suppliers incentives to supply goods to markets.
D. Pay rates determined by a governmental planning agency provide workers with stronger
incentives to work hard than market wages.
Answer: D
Blooms: Understand
42
Feedback: Centralized governmental planning agencies, because of the complexity of economies,
have done a poor job of setting proper pay rates. Most economists agree that par rates based on
performance provides much better incentives to work hard.
111. The establishment of well-defined property rights increases:

B. the amount of pollution.
D. the labor force participation rate.
Answer: A
Blooms: Understand
Feedback: Well-defined property rights give individuals and business firms incentives to amass
wealth because they know property is protected. This induces firms to invest, which increases
average labor productivity. Property rights are also often an essential part in obtaining credit for
firms and individuals.
112. Average labor productivity is determined by:

A. consumption, investment, government spending, and net exports.
B. the number employed, unemployed, and the labor force participation rate.
C. the quantity and quality of human capital, physical capital, technology, natural resources,
entrepreneurship, and the legal and political environment.
D. the real interest rate, the nominal interest rate, and the rate of inflation.
Answer: C
Difficulty: 01 Easy
Blooms: Remember
Feedback: Average labor productivity depends on many things. These can be summarized by
saying it depends on those conditions which help workers do their jobs better.
113. The quantity and quality of human capital, physical capital, technology, natural resources,
entrepreneurship, and the legal and political environment determine the:
A. unemployment rate.
B. labor force participation rate.
C. average labor productivity.
D. real interest rate.
Answer: C
Difficulty: 01 Easy
43
Blooms: Remember
Feedback: Average labor productivity depends on many things. These can be summarized by
saying it depends on those conditions which help workers do their jobs better.
114. Each of the following increases average labor productivity except:

A. more human capital.
B. more physical capital.
C. more central planning.
D. more natural resources.
Answer: C
Difficulty: 01 Easy
Blooms: Remember
Feedback: Centralized governmental planning agencies stifle incentives and have done a poor
job increasing average labor productivity.
115. The average annual growth rates of labor productivity from 1948 to 1973 were ______ the
average rates over the period from 1973 to 1995.
A. more rapid than
B. slower than
C. about the same as
D. more rapid in the U.S., but slower in other industrialized countries than
Answer: A
Difficulty: 01 Easy
Blooms: Remember
Feedback: The 1947-1973 period saw high annual growth in labor productivity averaging 2.5%
per year, however labor productivity fell by more than half to about 1.1 percent annually during
the 1973-1995 period.
116. The productivity slowdown of the 1970's occurred:

A. only in the U.S.
B. only in the U.S. and the United Kingdom.
C. only in the U.S, the United Kingdom, and Japan.
D. around the world.
Answer: D
44
Difficulty: 01 Easy
Blooms: Remember
Feedback: The productivity slowdown of the 1970’s, arguably due to higher oil prices, was
experienced worldwide.
117. U.S. productivity growth has rebounded since 1995 largely as a result of:
A. increases in human capital.
B. discoveries of new natural resources.
C. increased political stability.
D. advances in information and Communication Technology (ICT).
Answer: D
Difficulty: 01 Easy
Blooms: Remember
Feedback: The invention and diffusion of the Internet and related technologies has caused a burst
of productivity growth since 1995.
118. Advances in information and communication technology are the principal factors cited for
the:
A. slowdown in productivity growth between 1973 and 1995.
B. speedup in productivity growth between 1973 and 1995.
C. slowdown in productivity growth since 1995.
D. speedup in productivity growth since 1995.
Answer: D
Difficulty: 01 Easy
Blooms: Remember
Feedback: The invention and diffusion of the Internet and related technologies has caused a burst
of productivity growth since 1995.
119. A worldwide slowdown in productivity growth occurred:

A. before 1950.
B. in the 1950s and 1960s.
C. in the 1960s and 1970s.
D. in the 1970s and 1980s.
Answer: D
45
Difficulty: 01 Easy
Blooms: Remember
Feedback: There was a worldwide productivity slowdown of the 1970s and 1980, arguably due
to higher oil prices.
120. Real GDP is not a perfect measure of economic well-being because it excludes the value of
all of the following except:
A. leisure time.
B. goods and services available in the market economy.
C. nonmarket economic activity.
D. goods and services produced in the underground economy.
Answer: B
Section: Real GDP and Economic Well-Being
Blooms: Understand
Feedback: GDP only measures things that are purchased in conventional markets, which
excludes the underground economy, nonmarket activity, and leisure time.
121. GDP excludes important factors that affect people's well-being, such as the value of:
A. leisure time.
B. government purchases of goods and services.
C. services purchased by households.
D. goods produced domestically but sold to foreigners.
Answer: A
Difficulty: 01 Easy
Blooms: Remember
Feedback: Since leisure time is not traded in conventional markets, it is not measured in GDP
even though leisure time is very important.
46
122. If you knew that two countries had the same level of real GDP per person, what additional
piece of information would help you determine in which country people had a better standard of
living?
A. The total physical volume of output for each country
B. The population of each country
C. The average number of hours worked per week in each country
D. The average level of prices in each country
Answer: C
Blooms: Understand
Feedback: GDP does not included information about how many hours were worked to produce
that level of GDP.
123. Using real GDP to compare the level of economic well-being in two countries may be
misleading because the value of ______ contributes to economic well-being, but is excluded
from real GDP.
A. capital goods
B. services
C. leisure
D. formal education
Answer: C
Blooms: Understand
124. If two countries are economically identical except that there is significant air and water
pollution in one, then the level of GDP:
A. will be higher in the country with pollution.
B. will be higher in the country with no pollution.
C. will be the same in both countries.
D. will be greater than the level of economic well-being in each country.
Answer: C
Blooms: Understand
47
Feedback: GDP does not account for pollution and other non-traded features of the economy.
125. If two countries are economically identical except that citizens in one country have more
leisure time, then the level of GDP:
A. will be higher in the country with more leisure time.
B. will be higher in the country with less leisure time.
C. will be the same in both countries.
D. will be greater than the level of economic well-being in each country.
Answer: C
Blooms: Understand
126. Although GDP is not the same as economic well-being, high levels of GDP are positively
correlated with all of the following except:
A. longer life expectancies.
B. higher rates of literacy.
C. higher material standards of living.
D. higher rates of infant mortality.
Answer: D
Blooms: Understand
Feedback: High GDP correlates with many favorable non-economic conditions. Conversely, low
GDP correlates with higher rates of infant mortality and many other non-favorable economic
conditions.
127. Countries with high real GDP tend to have ______ infant mortality rates and ______
literacy rates than countries with low real GDP.
A. higher; higher
B. higher; lower
C. lower; higher
D. lower; lower
Answer: C
48
Blooms: Understand
GDP correlates with higher rates of infant mortality and lower rates of literacy.
128. One shortcoming of real GDP as an indicator of society's social well-being is that it fails to
take into account the:
A. growth in productivity.
B. increase in the quantity of goods.
C. non-market production.
D. change in the price level.
Answer: C
Difficulty: 01 Easy
Blooms: Remember
Feedback: Real GDP does not measure things that are not traded in conventional markets, such
as mowing your own lawn or cooking your own dinner.
129. GDP would be a better measure of economic well-being if it included:

A. the costs of education.
B. the total value of intermediate goods.
C. the market value of final goods.
D. the value of leisure.
Answer: D
Difficulty: 01 Easy
Blooms: Remember
130. Despite some problems with equating GDP with economic well-being, higher real GDP per
person does imply greater economic well-being because it tends to be positively associated with:
A. crime, pollution, and economic inequality.
B. better education, health and life expectancy.
C. poverty, depletion of nonrenewable resources, and congestion.
D. unemployment, availability of goods and services, and better education.
49
Answer: B
Difficulty: 01 Easy
Blooms: Remember
GDP correlates with many unfavorable non-economic conditions.
131. The costs of economic growth include all of the following except consumption sacrificed for:
A. physical capital formation
B. acquiring new human capital
C. research and development into new technologies
D. additional hours of leisure
Answer: B
Difficulty: 01 Easy
Topic: The Costs of Economic Growth
Blooms: Remember
Feedback: If society saves today it can expand its capital stock for the future. However, this
expansion of capital stock means giving up resources that could be used for current consumption.
132. Additional economic growth should be pursued when:

A. new technologies are discovered.
B. scarcity exists.
C. the marginal costs of growth exceed the marginal benefits.
D. the marginal costs of growth are less than the marginal benefits.
Answer: D
Difficulty: 01 Easy
Blooms: Remember
Feedback: Economic growth is a social choice, like many others. This choice, like all economic
choices, is best made by using the marginal benefit- marginal cost principle.
133. The benefits of economic growth are _____, while the costs of economic growth are _____.
A. increased output per person; too small for concern
B. increased output per person; the consumption sacrificed in exchange for capital formation
C. increased output per person; less future consumption
D. more current consumption; less future consumption
Answer: B
50
Difficulty: 01 Easy
Blooms: Remember
Feedback: If society saves today it can expand its capital stock for the future. However, this
expansion of capital stock means giving up resources that could be used for current consumption.
134. The cost of a higher living standard in the future is giving up:
A. current consumption.
B. current investment.
C. future consumption.
D. future investment.
Answer: A
Difficulty: 01 Easy
Blooms: Remember
Feedback: If society saves today it can expand its capital stock and increase living standards in
the future. However, this expansion of capital stock means giving up resources that could be
used for current consumption.
135. More economic growth is not necessarily better unless the benefits of growth:
A. exceed the costs of growth.
B. increase average labor productivity.
C. increase real GDP per capita.
D. increase human capital.
Answer: A
Difficulty: 01 Easy
Blooms: Remember
Feedback: Economic growth, like other economic decisions, should be decided by the marginal
benefits versus marginal costs rule.
136. Higher future living standards require:

A. reduced rates of current consumption.
B. increased rates of population growth.
C. increased rates of current consumption.
D. reduced rates of current investment.
Answer: A
51
Difficulty: 01 Easy
Blooms: Remember
137. To increase future living standards by pursuing higher current rates of investment spending,
an economy must:
A. allow higher rates of current consumption.
B. reduce current rates of consumption spending.
C. reduce the current capital stock.
D. decrease the amount of future research and development spending.
Answer: B
Difficulty: 01 Easy
Blooms: Remember
138. The major economic cost of growth is:

A. higher interest rates.
B. consumption sacrificed for capital formation.
C. higher inflation rates.
D. investment in stocks and bonds.
Answer: B
Difficulty: 01 Easy
Blooms: Remember
52
139. In order to increase the capital stock, society must divert ______ that could be otherwise
used to increase the current supply of _____.
A. money; consumer goods
B. credit; labor
C. money; labor
D. resources; consumer goods
Answer: D
Difficulty: 01 Easy
Blooms: Remember
Feedback: Capital stock growth requires investments into capital goods, which means giving up
resources that could be used for current consumption.
140. An example of a government policy to increase human capital formation is:

A. the construction of an interstate highway system.
B. the provision of publicly-funded education.
C. government support for basic research.
D. maintaining a well-functioning legal system.
Answer: B
Topic: Promoting Economic Growth
Blooms: Understand
Feedback: Publicly funded education expands education opportunities greatly, which results in
much higher levels of human capital formation. Note that all the others options are examples of
ways that governments can improve productivity through the increased use of other important
resources.
141. An example of a government policy to increase physical capital formation is:

B. government support for basic research.
C. maintaining a well-functioning legal system.
D. the provision of publicly-funded education.
Answer: A
Blooms: Understand
Feedback: Governments can provide public physical capital, which is called “infrastructure.”
The interstate highway system is one example. Note that all the others options are examples of
53
resources.
142. An example of a government policy to enhance technological progress is:

B. government support for basic research.
D. the provision of publicly-funded education.
Answer: B
Blooms: Understand
Feedback: Governments can provide support for basic research to introduce and develop new
technologies and thereby improve productivity. Note that all the others options are examples of
resources.
143. An example of a government policy to provide a framework within which the private sector
can operate productively is:
A. the taxation of savings.
B. the suppression of political dissent.
D. government ownership of capital.
Answer: C
Blooms: Understand
Feedback: Government rules and policies can provide social stability, and this often occurs
because of a well-functioning legal system.
144. An example of a government policy to provide a framework within which the private sector
can operate productively is:
A. the taxation of savings.
B. the suppression of political dissent.
C. establishing well-defined property rights.
D. government ownership of capital.
Answer: C
54
Blooms: Understand
Feedback: Government policies can provide social stability, and this often occurs because
property rights are well-defined and citizens create wealth knowing it will not be arbitrarily taken
away.
145. In order to promote growth, the poorest countries—in contrast to the middle-level and rich
countries—need most to:
A. invest in human capital.
B. improve their infrastructure.
C. improve their legal and political environments.
D. increase their capital stock.
Answer: C
Difficulty: 01 Easy
Blooms: Remember
Feedback: Foreign and domestic saving is nearly absent in the poorest countries of the world
because savers worry their money cannot be protected by contract law.
146. The biggest problem thwarting economic growth in the poorest countries, compared to the
richest countries, is:
A. insufficient human capital.
B. outdated physical capital.
C. no access to technology.
D. a legal and/or political environment unfavorable to economic growth.
Answer: D
Difficulty: 01 Easy
Blooms: Remember
because savers worry their money cannot be protected by contract law. With low saving there is
little investment into new capital or technology.
147. The biggest barrier to growth for many of the poorest countries in the world is the need for:
A. larger populations.
B. more human capital.
C. more physical capital.
D. improved legal and political frameworks.
55
Answer: D
Difficulty: 01 Easy
Blooms: Remember
because savers worry their money cannot be protected by contract law. With low saving there is
little investment into new capital or technology.
148. A government policy of providing free public education is an example of a policy to

promote economic growth by:
A. increasing human capital.
B. increasing physical capital.
C. improving technology.
D. increasing the availability of natural resources.
Answer: A
Blooms: Understand
Feedback: Government investment to provide free public education provides the work force with
essential skills that increase human capital.
149. A government policy of providing job training for unskilled youths is an example of a
policy to promote economic growth by:
Answer: A
Blooms: Understand
Feedback: Government provision of on-the-job training gives the work force essential skills that
increase human capital.
56
150 A government policy that allows retirement savings to accumulate tax-free is an example of
a policy to promote economic growth by:
Answer: B
Blooms: Understand
Feedback: Government tax policy that promotes savings gives savers incentives to accumulate
wealth. Savings, in turn, increases investment in physical capital.
151. A government policy to build bridges and dams is an example of a policy to promote
economic growth by:
D. improving the social and legal environment
Answer: B
Blooms: Understand
Feedback: Government policy of building infrastructure, like bridges and dams, promotes
physical capital that is essential to economic growth.
152. The construction of the interstate highway system in the United States is an example of a
government policy to promote economic growth by:
D. improving the social and legal environment.
Answer: B
Blooms: Understand
Feedback: Government policy of building infrastructure, like interstate highways, promotes
physical capital that is essential to economic growth.
57
153. Government support of basic research by funding scientists through the National Science
Foundation is an example of a government policy to promote economic growth by:
Answer: C
Blooms: Understand
Feedback: Government policy supporting basic advances technology, promotes economic
growth.
154. Sharing the results of applied research conducted under government sponsorship with the
private sector, such as the development of the Global Positioning System (GPS), is an example
of a government policy to promote economic growth by:
Answer: C
Blooms: Understand
Feedback: Government policy supporting applied research advances technology, which promotes
economic growth.
155. In order to promote growth through increased quantities of physical capital, governments
must promote:
A. a better educational system.
B. job training programs.
C. high rates of saving and investing.
D. funding for basic science.
Answer: C
Difficulty: 01 Easy
Blooms: Remember
58
Feedback: Government polices that promotes savings gives savers incentives to accumulate
wealth. Savings, in turn, increases investment in physical capital.
156. Research confirms that government provision of infrastructure:

A. hinders economic growth.
B. promotes economic growth.
C. increases human capital.
D. leads to reduced spending on research and development.
Answer: B
Difficulty: 01 Easy
Blooms: Remember
Feedback: Government policy of building infrastructure, like interstate highways, promotes
physical capital, which is essential to economic growth.
157. Which of the following is consistent with a political and legal framework that discourages
economic growth?
A. The allocation of bank credit by the government rather than by markets
B. A speedy approval process for new businesses
C. Agricultural prices that are allowed to vary according to market conditions
D. Taxation and regulation that are not very burdensome
Answer: A
Difficulty: 01 Easy
Blooms: Remember
Feedback: Bank credit is allocated well by private markets, based on the risk-reward trade-off,
whereas credit allocated by governments tends to be faulty because of corruption and strong
political influence.
158. High rates of saving and investing in the private sector promote economic growth by:
B. improving the social and legal environment.
C. increasing physical capital.
D. improving technology.
Answer: C
Difficulty: 01 Easy
Blooms: Remember
59
Feedback: High rates of savings, which result from well-functioning financial markets, provide
the funds needed for investment into physical capital.
159. Economic growth may face environmental limits because:

A. economic growth can take the form of new, different, and "cleaner" goods and services.
B. economic growth may lead to less, not more, pollution.
C. the market mechanism mobilizes resources to deal with shortages.
D. global environmental problems are not handled by markets or national governments.
Answer: D
Difficulty: 01 Easy
Topic: Are There Limits to Growth
Blooms: Remember
Feedback: Global environmental problems, like climate change, are not handled well by markets
because externalities exist. There is no global body today that can efficiently control externalities
such as pollution.
160. Arguments that economic growth must be constrained by environmental problems and
limits of natural resources ignore the fact that economic growth can:
A. be measured in both nominal and real terms.
B. increase both average labor productivity and the share of population employed.
C. take the form of improved quality as well as increased quantity.
D. occur with only benefits and no economic costs.
Answer: C
Difficulty: 01 Easy
Blooms: Remember
Feedback: Making more fuel-efficient cars that cause less pollution counts as economic growth
even if the number of goods is the same. Economic growth can be reflected in quality
improvements as well as quantity increases.
161. Empirical studies suggest that as real GDP per person increases the level of pollution:
A. increases.
B. decreases.
C. remains constant.
D. first increases then decreases.
Answer: D
Difficulty: 01 Easy
60
Blooms: Remember
Feedback: When countries first industrialize there is often considerable pollution. However when
countries get richer, they value quality of life more than before and tend to reduce pollution.
162. Arguing that economic growth will eventually stop because we will run out of natural
resources:
A. must be correct because scarcity exists.
B. will only be correct if growth takes the form of newer, more efficient goods and services.
C. ignores the power of markets to recognize shortages and induce changes in behavior.
D. is supported today by the fact that richer countries have fewer natural resources.
Answer: C
Difficulty: 01 Easy
Blooms: Remember
Feedback: Those who believe there are limits to economic growth tend to worry that the world is
running out of natural resources. However, past experiences seem to suggest that markets will
adjust to shortages as the recent shale oil boom in the United States show.
163. Empirical studies indicate that the maximum amount of air pollution occurs ______ levels
of real GDP per person.
A. at the highest
B. at the lowest
C. at “middle-income”
D. equally at all
Answer: C
Difficulty: 01 Easy
Blooms: Remember
Feedback: Middle-income countries, like Mexico, are between the rich industrialized countries
and the abject poor countries. Middle-income countries tend to have pollution problems because
they are developed enough for industry but not rich enough to afford clean air and waterways.
164. Defenders of limits on economic growth are concerned that continued economic growth will
eventually:
A. raise interest rates.
B. reduce the rate of technological progress.
C. exhaust natural resources.
61
D. make plant and equipment obsolete.
Answer: C
Difficulty: 01 Easy
Blooms: Remember
running out of natural resources.
165. Critics of the "limits to growth" thesis argue that:

A. economic growth will always take the form of more of what we have now, rather than newer,
better, and cleaner goods and services.
B. the market is not capable of adjusting to shortages of resources.
C. clean air and water is a luxury good and the more economically developed a country becomes
the easier it will be to keep the environment clean.
D. government action spurred by political pressure is the best way to avoid the depletion of
natural resources and pollution of the environment that results from economic growth.
Answer: C
Difficulty: 01 Easy
Blooms: Remember
running out of natural resources.
62
Another random document with
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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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5. Growth in real GDP per capita has:

6. The rise in average living standards experienced by most industrialized countries:

8. Compound interest is:

29. Real GDP per person equals average labor productivity:

33 Real GDP per person can increase:

Country Population (millions) Average Labor Productivity ($)

Country Population (millions) Average Labor Productivity ($)

Country Population (millions) Average Labor Productivity ($)

Country Population (millions) Average Labor Productivity ($)

50. If average labor productivity increases, real GDP per person:

Country Population (millions) Share of Population Employed

Country Population (millions) Share of Population Employed

Country Population (millions) Share of Population Employed

Country Population (millions) Share of Population Employed

63. Human capital is:

65. Workers should invest in additional human capital as long as the:

66. Which of the following is an example of an investment in human capital?

68. Getting a master’s degree is an example of investing in:

69. Providing workers with on-the-job training will increase:

71. Which of the following is an example of an investment in physical capital?

74. Physical capital is:

Number of (Identical) Machines Total Packages Wrapped

89. Usually an abundance of natural resources ______ average labor productivity.

95. The introduction of new technologies to production is ______ source of productivity

97. Business managers are people who:

106 Well-defined property rights:

111. The establishment of well-defined property rights increases:

112. Average labor productivity is determined by:

114. Each of the following increases average labor productivity except:

116. The productivity slowdown of the 1970's occurred:

119. A worldwide slowdown in productivity growth occurred:

129. GDP would be a better measure of economic well-being if it included:

132. Additional economic growth should be pursued when:

136. Higher future living standards require:

138. The major economic cost of growth is:

140. An example of a government policy to increase human capital formation is:

141. An example of a government policy to increase physical capital formation is:

142. An example of a government policy to enhance technological progress is:

148. A government policy of providing free public education is an example of a policy to

156. Research confirms that government provision of infrastructure:

159. Economic growth may face environmental limits because:

165. Critics of the "limits to growth" thesis argue that:

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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