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| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Economics | The study of how man allocates scarce resources, which have alternative uses, to achieve given ends or goals. |
| Economy | This is the mechanisms through which these scarce resources are organized for the production of goods and services. |
| Household | This is a one decision-making unit. In economics two assumptions are made about households. First, households consume goods and services. Second, households are the owners of the factors of production. |
| Firm | A firm is also a decision making unit. This is the unit that produces goods and services. |
| Government | Government:- The government provides the frame work of rules and laws for households and firms to operate within. In some economies the government is also involved in production. |
| Needs | Needs are any goods and services that are essential for life. |
| Wants | Wants:- Wants are goods and services that are desired to improve the quality of life but are not essential. |
| Scarcity | Scarcity:- This is an economic condition where all resources and goods and services, though they may be plentiful, are not sufficient for all those who desire them. |
| Choice | Choice is the range of options available to the individual household, firm or government when making a decision. |
| Opportunity Cost:- | This is defined as the next best alternative forgone. OR. The item or good that is given up. |
| Production Possibility Frontier (PPF) | The production possibility frontier is a graph showing the various combination of goods that an economy is able to produce with fixed resources. |
| Efficient | The economy is said to be producing on its production possibility frontier. |
| Economic Decisions | An individual is faced with options and chooses one course of action. |
| Super-normal Profit | This is the excess of total revenue over total cost. |
| Industrial Relations | The relationship between the management of a firm and the workers. |
| Land | Land is defined as the naturally occurring free gifts of nature. |
| Labour | Labour is the physical and mental effort of man in the production process. |
| Capital | Capital refers to all the goods used to produce more goods. |
| Entrepreneur | An entrepreneur is one who is willing to take on substantial financial risks to begin or organise a businesses. |
| Mobility | Mobility is the ease with which a factor of production can move from one place to another. |
| Labour Supply | This refers to those people who are available for work in the economy. |
| Division of labour | This is where the production process is divided into a series of separate tasks. |
| Specialisation | This occurs when workers focus on a specific task and so become skilled in that area. |
| Labour Force | The labour force is the number of people willing to work in the economy. |
| Supply of Labour | This is the total number of hours they are willing to work. |
| Investment | This is the purchase of capital goods. |
| Capital accumulation | Capital accumulation is the increase in the capital stock of a country. |
| Primary factor of production | Primary factor of production is one that occurs naturally such as land or unskilled labour. |
| Secondary factor of production | A secondary factor of production is one created by man or developed in some way; for example, capital, entrepreneurship or skilled labour. |
| Production | Production can be defined as the conversion of factors of production into goods and services that consumers wish to consume. |
| Goods | Goods are tangible products (that you can touch) |
| Services | Services are intangible products (things you cannot touch) |
| Producer goods | Producer goods are goods such as machinery, that help in the production of other goods and services. |
| Intermediate goods | Intermediate goods are goods that are used as inputs in the production of other goods and services. |
| Final goods | Final goods are goods that are brought by consumers for use of consumption. |