The United States economy.
The economy of the United States has long been one of the most, if not the most, influential capitalist economy in the modern world. Evidence of this can be seen everywhere in modern life: business news reports on television always start with the US markets, the newspapers always have the latest exchange rates between the Pound and the Dollar, the Euro and the Dollar, the Yen and the Dollar. This is why it is interesting to find out more about how this ?alpha-economy' functions, how it is affected by commodities such as oil and exactly how it can influence the world economies. By looking back at how the economy performed in the last decade and pinpointing and analysing the causes of the economy performing the way it did, we can get an idea of how the US economy will perform in the near future.
What factors led to the slowdown of the US economy in 2001?
To begin with, we should look at one of the most important economic events of the past decade, namely the slowdown of the United States' economic growth in 2001 and the factors that led to this slowdown.
First of all it must be said that the slowdown that occurred in the US economy in 2001 was not a result of solely the terrorist attacks of September 11th as many people seem to think, but was a result of problems with much deeper economic roots. In order to get a clearer picture one must step back and attempt to see this event in context: what happened earlier that could have resulted in this slowdown? We should thus take a closer look at the economies' performance prior to the slowdown.
After the recessions of the early 1990s the US economy started to grow. This is highlighted, for example by the increases in confidence of consumers during the period following the slump, as sho ...