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Ten Principles of Economics

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CHAPTER

1

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?

Ten Principles of Economics

Macroeconomics
N. Gregory Mankiw
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© 2009 South-Western, a part of Cengage Learning, all rights reserved

PRINCIPLES OF

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What Economics Is All About
Scarcity: the limited nature of society’s resources Economics: the study of how society manages its scarce resources, e.g. how people decide what to buy, how much to work, save, and spend how firms decide how much to produce, how many workers to …show more content…

Blue book value is $6500 if transmission works, $5700 if it doesn’t

Answers
Observations: The $1000 you previously spent on repairs is irrelevant. What matters is the cost and benefit of the marginal repair (the transmission). The change in incentives from scenario A to scenario B caused your decision to change.

Benefit of fixing the transmission = $800 ($6500 – 5700). It’s worthwhile to have the transmission fixed.
B. Blue book value is $6000 if transmission works, $5500 if it doesn’t

Benefit of fixing the transmission is only $500. Paying $600 to fix transmission is not worthwhile.
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The principles of HOW PEOPLE INTERACT

HOW PEOPLE INTERACT
Principle #5: Trade Can Make Everyone Better Off
Rather than being self-sufficient, people can specialize in producing one good or service and exchange it for other goods. Countries also benefit from trade & specialization:
Get a better price abroad for goods they produce Buy other goods more cheaply from abroad than could be produced at home
TEN PRINCIPLES OF ECONOMICS
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HOW PEOPLE INTERACT
Principle #6: Markets Are Usually A Good Way to Organize Economic Activity
Market: a group of buyers and sellers (need not be in a single location) “Organize economic activity” means determining what goods to produce how to produce them how much of each to produce who gets them
TEN PRINCIPLES

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