The Concepts of Economics

Imagine that you have decided to open a small ice cream stand on campus called "Ice-Campusades." You are very excited because you love ice cream (delicious!) and this is a fun way for you to apply your business and economics skills! Here is the first month's scenario--you order the same number (and the same variety) of ice creams each day from the ice cream suppliers, and your ice creams are always marked at $1.50 each. However, you notice that there are days when ice creams remain unsold but other days when there are not enough ice creams for the number of customers.

A corporate business enterprise is established under a specific legal framework where laws governing the operations and functioning of the enterprise are outlined. The activities of the enterprise are monitored and therefore such an enterprise is recognized by law. This is important due to the fact that legal suits can be filed by the enterprise within the provisions of the law.

1. Describe two examples of important things that financial planning skills can help you do, and explain why these things are important to you personally. (4-6 sentences. 2.0 points)

Despite the city’s positive response to the coffee shop’s renovation, other businesses in the area have not followed suit in renovating the many decrepit buildings and abandoned lots. How might the presence of an externality be in part the cause of this?

Economics is the social science that deals with the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services and with the theory and management of economies or economic systems. All economists agree on one thing, the economy is large and it is unpredictable. However, throughout the years economists have developed some simple but widely applicable principles that are useful when trying to understand decisions that are made by everyday people to the workings of highly complex markets. There are Seven Core Principles of Economics. These principles are: Scarcity Principle, Cost-Benefit Principle, Principle of Unequal Costs, Principle of Comparative Advantage, Principle of Increasing Opportunity Cost, Equilibrium Principle, and

1. (10 pts.) Stella Ann Freeman is having a difficult time deciding whether or not to purchase a new car. How would understanding the concept of opportunity costs help her make a decision?

In the twelve key elements of economics, the second element states, “There is no such thing as a free lunch.” The author described how spending money on one particular thing means that we are sacrificing the chance to spend money on something else or if we do one specific thing, we give up the chance to do something else. In chapter nine, Schiff used an allegory to illustrate this same idea. The allegory he used was when the senator, Franky Deep, realized the people enjoyed getting things for free, but they did not like to pay taxes. After a monsoon, he took this as an opportunity to develop a government reconstruction program. This program made it look like the people on the island were getting the reconstruction for free, but really, the citizens were still paying for the work. Therefore, even though the people thought the reconstruction was free, it truly was not. One recent even that relates to this idea was in an article called, “Everything the Government ‘Gives’ Someone Must Be Taken from Taxpayer Dollars.” This article states that there is no such thing as the government giving something away free for the price of nothing. While the government has over eighty welfare programs to provide individuals free housing, cash, food, and medical care, these programs are not free. Instead, they are funded for by taxpayers.

If I chose to get a job after high school I would have more money than if I went to

For example, when a good is scarce, the prices goes up, so consumers try to avoid buying and therefore conserving the resource. Then, the suppliers want to find more of the source as to get a better profit. The reasons behind their actions are selfish, yet they benefit all of society. Smith identified that the pursuit of profit and the power of self-interest would increase motivation and result in more advances in technology. His model of capitalism was on the basis of freedom and selfishness as a motivator for society. It was also on the basis that the economy would go through recessions and expansions but fix itself. Recessions are periods in the economy in which unemployment goes up, while profits and spending goes down; a slowdown of the economy. An expansion is essentially the exact opposite. The classical model of economics states that the economy will continue to go through these fluctuations over time and will fix itself with no help, thus not needing a government to give influence.

This assignment has a maximum total of 100 marks and is worth 10% of your total grade for this course. You should complete it after completing your course work for Units 1 through 5. Answer each question clearly and concisely.

This research topic is significant to the current property market in Singapore and its sudden increased demand for houses despite the economic downturn, exploring deeper as to whether the government policies were the real influential causes to this boom in property demand. It has relevance to the economic concepts of demand and supply, elasticity, inflation and monopolistic competition. This topic is worthy of investigation because it is a hot media topic in Singapore, and is widely debated in the country because it’s the most expensive household asset.[2]

According the to World Bank a countries income level is determined by it’s Gross National Product (GNP) per capita, which is the value of all final goods and services produced in a country in one year (gross domestic product) plus income that residents have received from abroad, minus income claimed by nonresidents divided by its population.("How We Classify Countries,") This measure is an indication of how well the population in a country lives. When comparing country income levels there are several differences that can be found between each group, listed in order of examination they are GNP per capita, political stability, life expectancy, and access to education.

Many people think that economics is about money. Well, to some extent this is true. Economics has a lot to do with money: with how much money people are paid; how much they spend: what it costs to buy various items; how much money firms earn; how much money there is in total in the economy. But despite the large number of areas in which our lives are concerned with money, economics is more than just the study of money.

Some of the most compelling topics that I learned in this topic only came into focus at the end of the course. Economics is a very large and complex study and reflecting on this subject, piece by piece, requires some patience and ability to put the pieces together. The relationships between simple choices, such as supply and demand, drives all economic and commercial exchange but only through the lens of economic models that attempt to layout this system by combing mathematical principles and psycho-social evaluation. All in all, this was very interesting introduction to some of the complex drivers that propel society.

In earlier times Gross Domestic Product was one of the main indicators to measure a country’s wealth. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is defined as the total value of all the goods and services produced by a nation in any given year ("Is the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) a Good Measure of Prosperity?"). There are two ways of calculating a country’s GDP. The first is the income approach which is calculated by adding the wages of workers, income from rent, interest and profits. The second, more common form of calculating GDP, is the expenditure approach. Here GDP totals consumption expenditure, investment, government spending and net exports. GDP statistics are considered to reflect a county’s economic output which could possibly lead to growth. However GDP is a measure of income and it should not be confused with wealth. Which is why most modern economists do not consider GDP to be a good measure of a