Micro Theme 1 Flashcards
What is a normative statement?
A statement of opinion or value judgement rather than a fact that can be tested by looking at available evidence.
What is a positive statement?
Statement are objectives that can be tested, amended or rejected by referring to the available evidence.
What is a model?
A therotreitcal concept that looks at now different variables interact
What is Ceteris Paribus?
All the other factor remain the same.
What is scarcity?
When there are unlimited human wants but limited number of resources to meet these wants.
What are renewable and non-renewable sources?
Non-renewable resources are finite in supply
Renewables are replaceable if the rate of extraction is less than the natural rate at which a resource renews
What is the economic problem?
Making choices on how to allocate scarce resources to best meet our needs and wants.
What is opportunity cost?
The benefit of the next best alternative when making a choice.
What is a PPF?
A curve which represents all possible combination of goods an economy or a firm can produce when all factors of production are fully employed and used efficiently.
What are the factors of PPF?
Opportunity Growth
Economic growth or decline
Efficient or inefficient allocation of resources
Possible and unobtainable production
What are the factors of production?
- Land
- Labour
- Capital
- Enterprise
What is productive efficiency?
When the economy uses minimum inputs to produce maximum output at lower cost.
What is allocative efficiency?
Social welfare is maximised in the production of goods and services.
What is capital goods?
Goods used to make consumer goods and services.
What is consumer goods?
Goods and services that satisfy our needs.
What is specialisation?
Occurs when economic units focus on producing specific goods or services.
What is the division of Labour?
The assignment of different parts of a manufacturing process or task to different people in order to improve efficiency.
What are some advantages and disadvantages of division of labour?
Advantages:
Higher output
Variety
A bigger market
Disadvantages:
Unrewarding, repetitive work that requires little skill can lower motivation and eventually causes lower productivity.
Workers may take less pride in work and quality suffers.
Dissatisfied workers cause absenteeism to increase
People move to less boring jobs creating a problem of high worker turnover and increased hiring/training costs
Increased risk of repetitive strain injuries at work
Some workers receive little training and may not be able to find alternative jobs when out of work – they suffer structural unemployment / occupational immobility
Mass-produced standardised goods may lack variety
What are the four main functions of money?
A medium of exchange
A store of value
A unit of account
A standard of deferred payments.
Whats the difference between free market, mixed and command economies?
Free market economy: Markets allocate resources through the price mechanism.
Planned or command economy: in a planned or command system associated with a socialist or communist system, the government owns scarce resources.
Mixed economy: In a mixed system, some resources are owned by the public sector (government) and some are owned by the private sector.
What are the advantages of a free market economy?
Advantages:
An efficient allocation of scarce resources
Competitive prices for consumers
Competition drives competition
Promote investment
Reduces Monopoly
What are the disadvantages of free market economies?
Some members of the economy may be unable to work
Goods that are not good (demerit goods) may be over-produced
Because of profits, firms may be tempted to cut costs
Some firms grow so big they have monopoly power
Public goods won’t be produced
What are advantages of command economies?
Low level of unemployment and low levels of inequality
Resources are allocated more evenly
It may be more fast to get infrastructure projects to be built
What are the disadvantages of command economies?
Bureaucratic costs of central planning of resources
Problems in fixing prices of goods and services
Absence of incentives for both workers and businesses can damage productivity and also lead to large levels of over-employment.
Low productivity and weak incentives lead to rising losses for state-owned businesses.
The state can suffer from information failures and corruption
What is rational decision making?
Rational decision making is making choices with the aim of maximising utility.
Why do consumers make rational decision?
To maximise utility.
Why do firms make rational decisions?
To maximise profits.