Economy comes from the Greek word oikonomos which means “one who manages a house hold.”
Scarcity : the limited nature of society’s resources
Economics : the study of how society manages it scarce resources.
How People Make Decisions
One. People face Trade-offs.
- clean environment vs high level of income.
- efficiency vs equality.
Two. The Cost of something is what you give up to get it.
- Opportunity cost : whatever must be given up to obtain some item.
Three. Rational People Think at the Margin
- marginal change : small incremental adjustment to a plan of action
- marginal costs and benefits.
Four. People Respond to Incentives
- incentive : something that includes a person to act.
- Many policies change the costs or benefits that people face and, therefore, alter their behavior.
- seat belt law.
- think direct and indirect effect.
How People Interact
Five. Trade Can Make Everyone Better Off.
Six. Markets Are Usually a Good Way to Organize Economic Activity
- market economy: an economy that allocates resources though the decentralized decisions of many firms and households as they interact in markets for goods and services.
- "Invisible hand" which leads everyone to desirable market outcomes.
- what leads to fail communism? marketplace vs central planners
Seven. Governments Can Sometimes Improve Market Outcomes.
- Markets economies need the institutions to enforce property rights so individuals can own and control scarce resources.
- Most policies aim either to enlarge the economic pie or to change how the pie is divided.
- Market failure : a situation in which a market left on its own fails to allocate resources efficiently.
- Externality : the impact of one person’s actions on the well-being of a bystander.(Cause of market failure, ex-pollution)
- Market power : the ability of a single economic actor to have a substantial influence on market places.(Cause of market failure, ex-many people who need water have one well)
- Smith is saying that participants in the economy are motivated by self-interest and that the “indivisible hand” of the marketplace guides this self-interest into promoting general economic well-being.
How the Economy as a Whole Works.
Eight. A country’s Standard of Living Depends on Its Ability to Produce Goods and Services.
- Productivity : the quantity of goods and services produced fro each unit of labor input
- Education, Tools, Technology …
- broken window fallacy
Nine. Prices Rise When the Government Prints Too Much Money
- Inflation : an increase in the overall level of prices in the economy.
Ten. Society Faces a Shout-Run Trade-off between Inflation and Unemployment
- Long-run as increasing the quantity of money : a higher level of prices.
- Short-run are
Increasing the amount of money in the money in the economy stimulates the overall level of spending and thus the demand for goods and services.
Higher demand may over time cause firms to raise their prices, but in the meantime, it also encourages them to hire more workers and produce a larger quantity of goods and services.
More hiring means lower unemployment
- business cycle : fluctuations in economic activity, such as employment and production.