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Econ Chpt 1
Terms & Concepts
Question | Answer |
---|---|
The social science concerned with how individuals, institutions, & society make optimal (best) choices under conditions of scarcity. | Economics |
A view point that envisions individuals & institutions making rational decisions by comparing the marginal benefits & marginal costs associated with their actions. | Economic Perspectives |
The amount of other products that must be forgone or sacrificed to produce a unit of a product. | Opportunity Cost |
The want-satisfying power of a good or service; the pleasure or satisfaction a consumer obtains from the consumption of a good or service. | Utility |
The comparison of marginal (extra) or (additional) benefits & marginal costs usually for decision making. | Marginal Analysis |
procedure for the systematic pursuit of knowledge involving the observation of facts & the formulation & testing of hypothesis to obtain theories, principles, & laws. | Scientific Method |
A widely accepted generalization about the economic behavior of individual or institutions. | Economic Principle |
The assumption that factors other than those being considered are held constant; ceteris paribus assumption. | Other-Things-Equal Assumption |
The part of economics concerned with decision making by individual units such a household, or firm, or an industry, & with individual markets, specific goods & services & products & resource prices. | Microeconomics |
The part of economics concerned with the economy as a whole. | Macroeconomics |
A collection of specific economic units treated as if they were one. For example, all prices of individual goods & services are combined into a price level or all units of output are aggregated into gross domestic product. | Aggregate |
The analysis of facts or data to establish scientific generalizations about economic behavior. | Positive Economics |
The part of economics involving value judgments about what the economy should be like; focused on which economic goals & policies should be implemented; policy economics. | Normative Economics |
The choices necessitated because society’s economic wants for goods & services are unlimited but the resources available to satisfy these wants are limited (scarce). | Economizing Problem |
A lines that shows the different combinations of two products a consumer can purchase with a specific money income, given the products’ prices. | Budget Line |
The land, labor, capital & entrepreneurial ability that are used in the production of goods & services; productive agents; factors or production. | Economic Resources |
Natural resources (“gifts from nature”) used to produce goods & services. | Land |
People’s physical and mental talents & efforts that are used to help produce goods & services. | Labor |
Human made resources (“buildings, machinery & equipment”) used to produce goods & services; goods that do not directly satisfy human wants; also called capital goods. | Capital |
Spending for the production & accumulation of capital & additions to inventories. | Investment |
The human resource that combines the other resources to produce a product; makes non routine decisions, innovates & bears risks. | Entrepreneurial Ability |
Economic resources: land, capital, labor & entrepreneurial ability. | Factors of Production |
Products & services that satisfy human wants directly. | Consumer Goods |
A curve showing the different combinations of two goods or services that can be produced in a full employment, full production economy where the available supplies of resources & technology are fixed. | Production Possibilities Curve |
The principles that as the production of goods increases, the opportunity cost or producing an additional unit rises. | Law of Increasing Opportunity Costs |
An outward shift in the production possibilities curve that results from an increase in resource supplies or quality or an improvement in technology; (2) an increase of real output (gross domestic product) or real output per capita. | Economic Growth |
What does optimal mean? | Best |