Education – University Degree

With the escalating cost of higher education, many people have begun to question the value of pursuing a college degree. The struggle to earn a living and attain valuable knowledge to increase future earning potential is a dilemma for many folks. However, research has revealed that the rate of return on the investment to earn a university degree for both the individual and society over the long run is over 118% on average.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the holder of a university degree can earn over one million dollars in extra income over the course of their lifetime. One million dollars is a significant sum of money considering the cost involved in investing in a university degree ( On average US $35,196). Knowing that a person who holds a university degree may earn one million dollars more in their lifetime supports the concept that higher education is a worthwhile investment. There are many other verifiable reasons to support going to college to earn a university degree, such as:

» Read more: Education – University Degree

Related posts

Does monetary policy have asymmetric effects on stock returns

IT HAS BEEN OF GREAT interest to both macroeconomists and financial economists of whether monetary policy affects stock returns. A number of studies have empirically investigated the effects of monetary policy on stock returns. Using money aggregate data as a measure of money supply, some empirical studies agree that stock returns lag behind changes in monetary policy; for instance, see Keran (1971), Homa and Jaffee (1971), and Hamburner and Kochin (1972). In contrast, Cooper (1974), Pesando (1974), Rozeff (1974), and Rogalski and Vinso (1977) show that there is no significant forecasting power of past changes in money. Ever since the seminal paper by Bernanke and Blinder (1992), the Federal funds rate has been the most widely used measure of monetary policy. As such, the relationship between monetary policy and stock returns has been reexamined by using the interest rate instrument in the financial literature. Thorbecke (1997) and Patelis (1997) demonstrate that shifts in monetary policy help to explain U.S. stock returns. Conover, Jensen, and Johnson (1999) show that foreign stock returns generally react both to local and U.S. monetary policy.

Two important contributions to the literature on the effects of monetary policy on the stock market have been made. The first one emphasizes the roles of financial markets’ expectations about the future course of monetary policy. Bernanke and Kuttner (2003) extract unanticipated monetary policy from Federal funds futures and find that monetary policy surprises appear to have a significant effect on equity prices through changes in the equity premium. The second focus is on the prospect of endogeneity. Rigobon and Sack (2003) show that the causality between interest rates and stock prices may run in both directions. After accounting for this endogeneity, they find a significant monetary policy response to the stock market.

» Read more: Does monetary policy have asymmetric effects on stock returns

Related posts

Monetary and fiscal policy switching.

Two THEMES RUN through policy analysis: rules determining policy choice are functions of economic conditions; those rules may change over time. The themes reflect the views that actual policy behavior is purposeful, rather than arbitrary, and that good policy adapts to changes in the structure of the economy or to improvements in understanding how policy affects the economy.

A growing body of evidence finds that policy reaction functions vary substantially over different periods in the United States. In light of this evidence of regime shifts, which is reviewed in Section 1, it is surprising that there is little formal modeling of environments where ongoing regime change is stochastic, and the objects subject to change are parameters determining how the economy feeds back to policy choice.

» Read more: Monetary and fiscal policy switching.

Related posts