Consider two individuals, Nigel and Mia, who produce hair pins and bandanas. Nigel's and Mia's hourly productivity are shown in Table 3.3. Mia's opportunity cost of producing one bandana is

Excess reserves are the

A) amount of reserves held over what is desired. B) amount of reserves banks keep in their vaults. C) amount of reserves a bank holds at the Fed. D) amount of reserves the Fed requires banks to hold. E) same as the required reserves.

Which of the following is true? The federal government's budget

a. was always in surplus until the 1980s b. is in deficit now but has been in surplus in most of the past 40 years c. has been virtually perfectly balanced for the past 5 years d. deficit has averaged around zero for the last several decades e. switched from deficits to surpluses in the late 1990s