经济学基本第1章节.pptVIP

In this chapter, look for the answers to these questions: What kinds of questions does economics address? What are the principles of how people make decisions? What are the principles of how people interact? What are the principles of how the economy as a whole works? What Economics Is All About Scarcity 稀缺 refers to the limited nature of society’s resources. Economics is the study of how society manages its scarce resources, including how people decide how much to work, save, and spend, and what to buy how firms decide how much to produce, how many workers to hire how society decides how to divide its resources between national defense, consumer goods, protecting the environment, and other needs HOW PEOPLE MAKE DECISIONS Decision making is at the heart of economics. The first four principles deal with how people make decisions. HOW PEOPLE MAKE DECISIONS All decisions involve trade-offs. Examples: Going to a party the night before your midterm leaves less time for studying. Having more money to buy stuff requires working longer hours, which leaves less time for leisure. Protecting the environment requires resources that might otherwise be used to produce consumer goods. HOW PEOPLE MAKE DECISIONS Society faces an important trade-off:  efficiency效率 vs. equity 公平 efficiency: getting the most out of scarce resources equity: distributing prosperity fairly among society’s members Trade-off: To increase equity, can redistribute income from the well-off to the poor. But this reduces the incentive to work and produce, and shrinks the size of the economic “pie.” HOW PEOPLE MAKE DECISIONS Making decisions requires comparing the costs and benefits of alternative choices. The opportunity cost 机会成本of any item is whatever must be given up to obtain it. It is the relevant cost for decision making. HOW PEOPLE MAKE DECISIONS Examples: The opportunity cost of… …going to college for a year is not just the tuition, books, and fees, but also the foregone先前 wage