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Scarcity
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the limited nature of society's resources, given society's unlimited wants and needs
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What is Economics?
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the study of how people allocate their limited resources to satisfy their unlimited wants
- requires 1 or more trade offs
- study of how people make decisions
- requires 1 or more trade offs
- study of how people make decisions
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Microeconomics
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Study of individual units that make up the economy
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Macroeconomics
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Study of the overall aspects and workings of an economy "big picture"
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What are the 5 Foundations of Economics?
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1. Incentives Matterra
2. Trade-Offs
3. Opportunity cost
4. Marginal thinking
5. Trade Creates Value.
2. Trade-Offs
3. Opportunity cost
4. Marginal thinking
5. Trade Creates Value.
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Positive Incentives
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encourage action by offering rewards or payments
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Negative Incentives
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discourage action by providing undesirable consequences or punishments
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Direct Incentive
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"Here is what I want you to do, and here is what I am going to do in order to get you to do it."
Generally easy to recognize
Generally easy to recognize
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Indirect Incentive
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A secondary change in behavior brought on by the original incentive
Difficult to recognize
Difficult to recognize
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Unintended Consequence
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unplanned result (usually negative and unwanted) of an incentive
e.g. mowing lawn slowly for hourly wage
e.g. mowing lawn slowly for hourly wage
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Trade Offs
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to have one thing, you have to give up another thing
- implies choice
- implies choice
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Marginal Thinking
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requires decision-makers to evaluate whether the benefit of one more unit of something is greater than its cost
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Economic Thinking
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requires a purposeful evaluation of the available opportunities to make the best decision possible
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Opportunity Cost
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the highest-valued alternative that must be sacrificed in order to get something else
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Trade Creates Value
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Trade creates value because participants in markets are able to specialize in the production of goods and services that they have a comparative advantage in making.
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Markets
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Bring buyers and sellers together to exchange goods and services
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Trade
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the voluntary exchange of goods and services between two or more parties
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Barter
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individual trading a good or service in exchange for something they want
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Double Coincidence of Wants
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occurs when each party in an exchange transaction happens to have what the other party desires
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Comparative Advantage
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the situation where an individual, business, or country can produce at a lower opportunity cost than a competitor can