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
- consumer - goods that are intended for final use
- Services - can't be touched or felt; work performed for someone
The 4 types of production
- land - natural resources
- labor - work exerted
- capital
- human - knowledge acquired skills
- physical - machinery
- 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
- fixed technology
- fixed resources
- full employment efficiency and productive efficiency
- -
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