Shape of the Aggregate Demand Curve
Economics: IB Diploma, topic 2.2.3
Shape of the Aggregate Demand Curve
The aggregate demand (AD) curve shows the total spending on domestic goods and services at each price level.
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AD curve explained
- AD slopes down, showing that, as the price level rises, the amount of total spending on domestic goods and services declines.
- There are three reasons which explain the shape of the AD curve:
- The real wealth effect
- The interest rate effect
- The exchange rate effect

The real wealth effect
- The wealth effect holds that as the price level increases, the buying power of savings that people have stored up in bank accounts and other assets will diminish, eaten away to some extent by inflation.
- Because a rise in the price level reduces people’s wealth, consumption spending will fall as the price level rises.

The interest rate effect
- The interest rate effect is that as prices for outputs rise, the same purchases will take more money or credit to accomplish. This additional demand for money and credit will push interest rates higher.
- In turn, higher interest rates will reduce borrowing by businesses for investment purposes and reduce borrowing by households for homes and cars—thus reducing consumption and investment spending.

The exchange rate effect
- The foreign price effect points out that if prices rise in the United States while remaining fixed in other countries, then goods in the United States will be relatively more expensive compared to goods in the rest of the world.
- U.S. exports will be relatively more expensive, and the quantity of exports sold will fall. U.S. imports from abroad will be relatively cheaper, so the quantity of imports will rise. Thus, a higher domestic price level, relative to price levels in other countries, will reduce net export expenditures.
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Which theory does this definition describe?
This theory holds that as the price level increases, the buying power of savings that people have stored up in bank accounts and other assets will diminish, eaten away to some extent by inflation.