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Economics Unit 1
Term | Definition |
---|---|
need | something essential for survival |
want | something that people desire but that is not necessary for survival |
goods | the physical objects that someone produces |
services | the actions or activities that one person performs for another |
scarcity | the principle that limited amounts of goods and services are available to meet unlimited wants |
economics | the study of how people seek to satisfy their needs and wants by making choices |
shortage | a situation in which consumers want more of a good or services than producers are willing to make available at a particular price |
entrepreneur | a person who decides how to combine resources to create goods and services |
factors of production | the resources that are used to make goods and services |
land | all natural resources used to produce goods and services |
land | all natural resources used to produce goods and services |
labor | the effort people devote to tasks for which they are paid |
capital | any human-made resource that is used to produce other goods and services |
physical capital | the human-made objects used to create other goods and services |
human capital | the knowledge and skills a worker gains through education and experience |
trade-off | the act of giving up one benefit in order to gain another |
"guns or butter" | the government decision to produce more military goods or consumer goods |
opportunity cost | the most desirable alternative given up as the result of a decision |
thinking at the margin | the process of deciding whether to do or use one additional unit of some resource |
cost/benefit analysis | a decision-making process in which you compare what you will sacrifice and gain by a specific action |
marginal cost | the extra cost of adding one unit |
marginal benefit | the extra benefit of adding one unit |
production possibilities curve | a graph that shows alternative ways to use an economy's productive resources |
production possibilities frontier | a line on a production possibilities curve that shows the maximum possible outcome an economy can produce |
efficiency | the use of resources in such a way as to maximize the output of goods and services |
underutilization | the use of fewer resources than an economy is capable of using |
law of increasing costs | an economic principle which states that as production shifts from making one good or service to another |