As President Bush and challenger John Kerry traverse the country, one issue likely to help determine the outcome of the election is one which they cannot control: the state of the economy.

Come Election Day, the small number of undecided voters will likely cast their ballots based on where they believe the U.S. economy is headed. That's why every release of economic data over the next two months will elicit two very different responses.

As unemployment figures rose the past three years, so too did the number of students seeking to raise their educational qualifications by enrolling in advanced degree programs.

But new figures reported by the Graduate Management Admission Council show demand for the traditional, two-year master's of business administration program is slumping.

Cooling homes

The government is predicting that U.S. housing prices may follow the same path as salary increases (see "Slower hikes" below), growing at their slowest pace since 1970 over the next few years.

Researchers at the Federal Reserve say that if interest rates rise, existing home prices may increase a cumulative of just 2.6 percent over the next three years. That would mark the lowest rate since the government began keeping records in 1970.

Farming out

Nearly a century after the Industrial ­Revolution, large corporate farming operations continue to displace traditional small farm owners through the use of bigger and more efficient equipment.

In its latest agricultural study, the Census Bureau found that just 3 percent of the nation's farms in 2002 produced more than 60 percent of the nation's agricultural goods.