Week 3 Flashcards
(30 cards)
Who is Adam Smith?
the father of modern economics
What did Adam Smith say about the wealth in a country?
the wealth of a country consists not in its gold and silver only, but in its lands, houses, and consumable goods of all different kinds; we are wealthy if we are able to consume valuable stuff
How is value created?
through production and through trade
What does the production process do?
turns inputs into consumable outputs
What are consumable outputs?
goods and services
What are the four resources/inputs that we use in production?
1) natural resources
2) labor
3) capital
4) entrepreneurship
What is the definition of natural resources?
tangible, but not produced by anyone
What is the definition of labor?
physical and mental talents, applies to production
What is the definition of capital?
produced means of production
What is the definition of entrepreneurship?
risk taking/risk barring and innovation
What is the cost of natural resources?
Rent
What is the cost of labor?
Wage
What is the cost of capital?
Interest
What is the cost of entrepreneurship?
Profit
What do we call “the spontaneous order of the world economy”?
“the engine”
What is technology?
the way that inputs are combined to produce outputs
What is make work fallacy?
the idea that jobs are valuable, whether or not the labor’s production adds value
What does PPF stand for?
Production possibilities frontier
What is the PPF?
a simplified way of understanding the production trade offs that are made in an economy
What three things do the PPF models assume?
1) only two goods are produced over some time period
2) some fixed amount of resources is used
3) a given technology is used
law of increasing opportunity cost (LIOC)
as more of one good is produced, the opportunity cost of producing a unit of that good rises, in terms of the other good which must be sacrificed
What does the LIOC apply to?
trade off between all real world goods
What results in the law of increasing opportunity cost?
Applying the principle of optimal arrangement to the production of two goods where resources are not all the same
What is economic growth?
an expansion of an economies productive capabilites