Chapter 1 Flashcards
What three groups can scarce resources be subdivided into?
- Natural and Biological Resources
- Human Resources
- Manufactured Resources
______ forces both consumers and farmers to make choices.
Resource scarcity
_____ of effort might lead to a higher total output.
Specialization
______ focuses on the actions of individuals—specifically with the economic behavior of consumers and farmers.
Microeconomics
______ focuses on broad aggregates, including the nation’s aggregate performance as measured by gross domestic product (GDP), unemployment, and inflation.
Macroeconomics
______ focuses on what-is and what-would-happen-if questions and policy issues.
Positive economic analysis
______ focuses on what should-be or what-ought-to-be policy issues.
Normative economic analysis
The U.S. economy represents a ______ economic system.
Mixed
Define Agricultural Economics
an applied social science that deals with how producers, consumers, and societies use scarce resources in the production, processing, marketing, and consumption of food and fiber products.
Define Biological Resources
include livestock, wildlife, and different genetic varieties of crops.
Define Capitalism
a free market economic system in which individuals own resources and have the right to employ their time and resources however they choose, with minimal legal constraints from government.
Define Communism
a type of economic system and social order structured upon common ownership and distribution of the production of goods and services based on need. This economic system is in contrast to capitalism and socialism.
Define Economics
a social science that studies how consumers, producers, and societies choose among the alternative uses of scarce resources in the process of producing, exchanging, and consuming goods and services.
Define Fallacy of Composition
economic reasoning that is true for one individual but not for society as a whole.
Define Food and Fiber System
an economic system consisting of business entities that are involved in one way or another with the supply of food and fiber products to consumers.
Define Human Resources
the services provided by laborers and management to the production of goods and services.
Define Macroeconomics
branch of economics that focuses on the broad aggregates such as the growth of gross domestic product, the money supply, the stability of prices, and the level of employment.
Define Manufactured Resources
resources such as plows, tractors, tools, buildings, and other improvements to land that are manufactured by human beings; often referred to as capital.
Define Microeconomics
branch of economics that focuses on the economic actions of individuals or specific groups of individuals.
Define Mixed Economic System
an economic system in which markets are not entirely free to determine price in some markets but are in others. Government controls in selected markets and welfare programs are indicative of a mixed economic system.
Define Natural Resources
resources such as land and mineral deposits, which are available without additional effort on the part of the owners.
Define Normative Economics
a branch of economics that focuses on determining what-should-be issues and questions. Unlike positive economics, it assigns specific values with specific goals or objectives.
Define Opportunity Cost
the cost of producing a good as measured by the amount of a second good that must be forgone to release just enough resources to produce one additional unit of the first good.
Define Positive Economics
a branch of economics that focuses on what-is and what-would-happen-if questions and issues; does not involve value judgments or policy prescriptions to reach a particular objective.
