Economics USA: 21st Century Edition
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Teacher resources and professional development across the curriculum
Teacher professional development and classroom resources across the curriculum
To illustrate how unlimited wants and scarce resources lead to trade-offs and choices, and to show how the economic cost of using resources to produce a good is the value of the goods that could have been produced with those same resources.
Director of Occupational Safety and Health for UNITE HERE, a union representing garment, textile, laundry, hotel, and restaurant workers.
See full bioEconomist and lawyer who drafted major pieces of New Deal legislation and served as head of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Harry S. Truman.
See full bioEconomist and lawyer, renowned for his work during the Depression and World War II and for his ability to explain complex economic theories in plain language.
See full bioPolicy Director for the Campaign for America’s Wilderness, and Conservation Director and Associate Executive Director for the Sierra Club for 17 years.
See full bioUse this web-based calculator to aid in your studies.
Economics is probably BEST defined as the study of how...
resources are apportioned to satisfy human wants.
NEXT QUESTIONAdam Smith, author of The Wealth of Nations, is often called the father of modern economics. Over the past 200 years Smith’s influence on current economic thinking is indisputable. Basically, Smith held that specialization...
was essential to efficient use of resources.
NEXT QUESTIONEconomic models are sometimes harder to validate than scientific models MAINLY because...
the variables in economics are often beyond the economists’ control.
NEXT QUESTIONWhich of the following statements is MOST accurate? Government regulation of industry in the American economy today is...
the subject of much debate and controversy.
NEXT QUESTIONIn order to achieve point M, the economy would need to...
increase resources or expand technology.
NEXT QUESTIONSuppose that point J represents precisely the amount of food consumed by the economy, but 5% more tractors than the economy presently uses in producing its food. If the demand for food rises, and the society begins using the additional 5% of its tractors to produce this extra food, the output will...
Move to an undetermined point on a new production possibilities curve. The tractors are an example of a capital resource that can be used to produce other goods—in this case, food. In other words, output sometimes creates its own resources. The most efficient use of resources in this case probably demands that all the tractors be used in producing food. This will put the new output combination at a point somewhere directly to the right of J on the graph—i.e., more food, same number of tractors. The point M represents a decrease in tractor production from J, so M cannot be the right answer. This new production point is not reflected on the current production possibilities curve.
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