Macroeconomics of my own life - Essay Example

On a day-to-day basis, our firm refines crude oil into useable forms, be it diesel, petrol or gas among others. The global market exhibits a great need for these products and this need does not get fully satisfied at any particular time. As such, even when we produce in excess, there would always be market for the products. But an interesting phenomenon I observed was the fact that with increased need for our products in the market, the prices would go up. Such are the times when, say, we receive more than usual orders.

Macroeconomics refers to this need as demand (Sexton 105). This observed phenomenon has been documented by Mankiw (69) who notes that with increase in demand, there would be a consequent increase in price, all other factors held constant as retrieved from the demand curve. Even though the demand curve dictates that there would a proportionate decrease in price with decrease in demand, our firm often takes time to decrease its prices with decrease in demand. And even the minimal decrease in price would not be comparable to the price increase trend.

This could be attributed to factors held constant when theorizing the demand curve as documented by Mankiw (69). In our company, these factors could be customer loyalty and the limited substitute options in the industry since our firm controls a significant portion of the oil market in its locality. Furthermore, the government has set guidelines that govern the pricing in the gas industry because of the important role that the industry plays in driving the economy. In macroeconomics, the government would be said to have interest in the aggregate supply which encompasses the economy’s productive capacity for goods and services (Sexton 167).

To further illustrate the effect of demand on the prices of our products, the 2008 economic recession provides an appropriate example. During this time, a majority of the countries were facing hard economic times and could therefore not engage in meaningful production activities. Similarly, a majority of air travels for instance reduced as people sought for ways of cutting down on their expenses. This meant that the demand for our products should have declined during the same period. But on the contrary, the demand increased with other countries joining in the list of our existing customers.

As such, the prices of our commodities kept rising to an all-time high before the government set up proper guidelines on pricing. Information acquired from macroeconomics argues against this trend for the good of the economy. The increase in prices of oil products slows down economic activities, which in turn reduces the final goods and services which the country produces for its market at any given time, referred to as gross domestic product, GDP by (Sexton 585). This would be determined by summing up the output from each enterprise to give a total.

The GDP serves as a significant indicator of the living standards of a country. The government appreciates this fact and would thus step in to contain any factors that threaten the economy such as excessive increase in the cost of production, say due to increase in the prices of oil products. Whereas there would be times when the firm receives plenty of supplies of crude oil, there would also be times of limited supply. With oil producing and exporting countries being prone to wars, war would be the leading reason for limited supplies from such countries.

During such times of low