Economics Definitions Flashcards
GDP
(Gross Domestic Product)
Total value of all the financial goods and services produced in an economy in a year.
GNI
(Gross National Income)
Total income that is earned by a country’s factors of production REGARDLESS OF WHERE THE ASSETS ARE LOCATED
NNI
(Net National Income)
GNI taking into account the DEPRECIATION of capital/capital consumption.
Opportunity Cost
Cost of next best opportunity forgone.
Market
Where buyers and sellers come together to carry out economic transactions.
Positive Economics
Economic theories or statements that are falsifiable (yes or no).
Negative Economics
Theories/statements that are opinions and therefore cannot be PROVEN to be correct.
Planned Economy
An economic system in which all resources ate collectively owned and government bodies allocate scarce resources centrally.
Free Market Economy
An economic system in which decisions on what and how to produce goods and services are taken by private firms which are free from government control. Prices are therefore used to ration goods and services.
Utility
A measure of the satisfaction consumers gain from consuming particular goods and services in particular quantities.
Total utility
Total satisfaction of bundle of products consumed
Marginal utility
Extra satisfaction gained with every extra unit of the good or service consumed.
Production possibility curves
Shows the different combinations of 2 goods and services an economy can produce in given time period if all the resources in the economy are fully employed and the state of technology is fixed.
Demand
the quantity of a good or service consumers are willing and able to purchase at a given price in a given time period.
Law of demand
As the price of a product falls the quantity demanded of the product will usually increase, ceteris paribus.
Supply
The quantity of a good or service that producers are willing and able to produce at a given price in a given time period.
Law of supply
As the price of a product rises the quantity supplied of a product usually increases, ceteris paribus.
Demand Function
A function of price that specifies the quantity demanded of a product at each price.
(Qd=a-bP)
Supply function
A function of price that specifies the quantity supplied of a product at each price.
(Qs=c+dP)
Equilibrium
when the quantity demanded of a product in a market is equal to the quantity supplied for the same product in a market. At this point there is neither excess supply (surplus) nor excess demand (shortage).
Consumer Surplus
The extra utility consumers gain from paying a price lower than the price they are prepared to pay.
Producer Surplus
The extra revenue producers gain from selling their output at a price that is higher than they are prepared to accept.
Allocative efficiency
When resources are allocated in the most efficient way. i.e. the point at which community surplus is maximised.
Occurs when average revenue is equal to marginal cost.
Community surplus
The sum of producer and consumer surplus.
Welfare loss
this occurs when community surplus is not maximised. It usually occurs because of market failure.
Economic growth.
Economic growth is the increase in a country’s capacity for production. This can be measured by a rise in an economies GDP overtime and a shift towards in an economies PPC.
Intermediate good
Is a good which is produced and then used in the production of another good.
Elasticity
A measure of how responsive buyers or sellers are to changes in market conditions.
PED
(price elasticity of demand)
it is a measure of how much the quantity demanded of a product changes when there is a change in its price.
XED
(Cross elasticity of demand)
A measure of how responsive demand for one product is when there is a change in the price of another product.
YED
(Income elasticity of Demand)
A measure of how much demand for a product changes when there is a change in consumer income.
PES
A measure of how much the quantity supplied of a product changes with a change in the price of the product.
Stock
Output that has not been supplied to the market.
Market failure
Market failure occurs when community surplus is not maximised and when allocative efficiency is not achieved.
Public goods
Public goods are goods which are non-rivalrous and non-excludable.
Excludable good
this is a good that once produced, it is possible for people not rot consume the.
(E.g street lighting or armed forces would be non-excludable)
Rivalrous goods
goods which when they are consumed by one person are not reduced in the quantity available of them for other people to consume.
Merit goods
products whose benefits are greater than consumers realise.
Externality
An externality occurs when production or consumption of a good or service has an effect on a third party.
This means that the MSB is not equal to MSC.
Hypothesis of Eventually Diminishing Marginal Returns
As extra units of a variable factor are added to a given quantity of a fixed factor, the output from each additional unit of the variable factor will eventually diminish.
Hypothesis of Eventually Diminishing Average Returns
As extra units of a variable factor are added to a given quantity of a fixed factor the output per unit of the variable factor will eventually diminish.
Explicit costs
Explicit costs involve the direct payment of money from the firm for the factors of production.
Implicit costs
Implicit costs are the opportunity cost if using factors already owned by the firm.
It may include for example the earnings a firm could have had had it employed its factors of production in a different way. Or, it may include the opportunity cost of the entrepreneurs time.
Total Product
(TP)
This is the total output of a firm produces in a given time period
Average Product
(AP)
This is output produced, on average, by each unit of the variable factor.
Marginal Product
(MP)
this is the extra output produced when an extra unit of variable factor is used.
MEC
Marginal External Cost
A cost per unit produced which is borne by a third party
Revenue
A firm’s income from selling goods and services.
TR
Total Revenue
(average) price x quantity sold
Maximised at the point where MR=0
=aq -bq^2
AR
Average Revenue is the revenue received per unit sold.
(p x q) ÷ q [i.e. P]
in general AR decreases with output
MR
Marginal revenue is the additional revenue gained when an additional unit of output is sold.
Gradient is twice as large as AR
Diseconomies of scale
An increase in LRAC that occurs because of an alteration in the factors of production in order to increase its scale of output.
Total profit
Total revenue-total economic cost
Economic cost
The opportunity cost of all resources employed by the firm.
Implicit cost + explicit cost
(This means it includes normal profit.)
Normal profit
The minimum amount of profit the entrepreneur needs to make to be willing to continue to operate the firm.
i. e. firm is earning zero economic profit.
i. e. where total revenue is equal to total economic cost
a. k.a zero economic profit.
Break even price
The price at which the firm is able to make normal profit in the long run.
i.e P = ATC