Thursday, January 24, 2013

Supply (week of january 21st)

  • Total Revenue - the total amount of money a firm receives from selling goods and services 
    • Total revenue (TR) = Price x Quantity
  •  Fixed cost - a cost that doesn't change no matter how much is produced
    • ex: salary, mortgage 
  • Variable cost - a cost that rises/falls depending upon how much is produced.
    • ex: water, phone services, electricity
  •  Marginal costs - cost of producing one additional unit of a good
  • Marginal revenue - additional income from selling one more unit of a good 
    •  Marginal revenue = New TR - Old TR


 Supply Chart:


Equations:
  • Marginal Cost (MC) = New Total Cost (TC) - Old TC
  • Average Fixed Cost (AFC) = Total Fixed Cost (TFC) / Quantity
  • Average Variable Cost (AVC) = Total Variable Cost (TVC) / Quantity
  • Average Total Cost (ATC) = TC / Quantity OR AFC - AVC



Sunday, January 20, 2013

Board game project

DUE FEBRUARY 8

UNIT 1 intro

Microeconomics vs. Macroeconomics 
  
  • Microeconomics - the study of how households and firms make decisions and how they interact in the market
    • ex: supply and demand, market structure
  • Macroeconomics - the study of major components of the economy
    • ex: inflation. wage laws, international trade 

Positive economics - claims that attempts to describe the world as is
     ex: minimum wage laws causes unemployment

Normative economics - claims that attempt to prescribe how the world should be
     ex: the government should raise the minimum wage

Want - a desire
 Need - the basic requirements for survival
 Scarcity - the most fundamental economic problem facing all societies
     ~ how to satisfy unlimited wants with limited resources
Shortage - quantity demand > quantity supplied

Goods vs Services
  • Goods - tangible commodities ( 2 types )
    • capital - items used in the creation of other goods
      • ex: machines, trucks
    • consumer - goods that are intended for final use
      • ex: burgers   
  • Services - can't be touched or felt; work performed for someone

The 4 types of production
  1. land - natural resources
  2. labor - work exerted
  3. capital
    1. human - knowledge acquired skills
    2. physical - machinery 
  4.  entrepreneurship - risk taking
Production Possibility
 
Opportunity cost - the most desirable alternative

Guns or Butter tradeoff - things aren't produced at equal levels

 Production possibility graph - shows an alternative way to use resources

Increasing opportunity cost - the opportunity cost of producing an additional unit of a product increases as more of that product is produced

If the graph is concave (bowed out), then 4 assumptions can be made
  1. fixed technology
  2. fixed resources
  3. full employment efficiency and productive efficiency
  4. -
Productive efficiency - producing at the lowest cost
     ~efficiently allocate resources and full employment of resources

Allocative efficiency - combination of the most desired by society or those in charge of economic decisions