My Preamble
I subscribe to the seven principles of public life, thus:
1) Selflessness:
As a public officer holder, I should take decision solely in terms of the public interest. I should not do so in order to gain financial or other material benefits for myself, my family or my friends.
2) Integrity:
As a holder of public officer, I should not place myself under any financial or other obligation to outside individuals or organizations that might influence them in the performance of my officer duties.
3) Objectivity:
In carrying out public business, including making public appointments, awarding contracts, or recommending individuals for rewards and benefits, as a public office holder, I should make choices on merit.
4) Accountability:
For me to hold a public office, I am to accountable for my decision and actions to the public and must submit myself to whatever scrutiny is appropriate to my office.
5) Openness:
As a public office holder, I should be as open as possible about all the decisions and actions that I take. I should be able to give reason for my decisions and restrict information only when the wider public interest clearly demands it.
6) Honesty:
As a public office holder, I have a duty to declare any private interest relating to public duties and to take steps to resolve any conflicts arising in a way that protects the public interest.
7) Leadership:
In carrying out public duties, I should promote and support these principles by leadership and example.
To assist me in upholding these aforementioned principles and the provisions contained in the Code of Conduct for Public Officers contained on part v of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, and in view of the special Responsibilities with which my office Director General (DG) is entrusted.
I NOW ADOPT for myself, the following Code of Conduct to which I shall be able to faithfully comply, in both spirit and with the letter.
1. Ethnical Standards
I shall at all times act with honesty, whether in public or in private affairs, and uphold the highest ethical standards so that the public confidence and trust in the integrity objective and impartially of government are conserved and enhance.
2. Accountability and Transparency
I have a responsibility to the public interest, which requires that, I put to one side all personal, sectoral and regional interest. I am to accountable for my decisions and actions to the public and are prepared to be open to scrutiny by them. To facilitate and inform this process, I shall to the extent possible be open and transparent in the discharge of public duties.
3. Decision – Making
In fulfilling official duties and responsibilities, I shall put to one side both personal sectional interests and shall make decisions in the public interest and with regard to the merits of each case without discrimination on the grounds of ethnicity, sex, religion or origin other than when acting in furtherance of objectives laid down in the Constitution of the Federal Republic.
4. Private Interests
I shall perform my official duties and arrange my private affairs in a manner that will bear the closest public interest, an obligation that is not fully discharged simply by acting within the law but which must also be within the law’s spirit. I shall not have private interest, other than those permitted pursuant to the Code and to the Code of Conduct for Public officers provided by Constitution that would be affected particularly or significantly by government actions in which I participate.
5. Public Interest
On appointment to office and thereafter, I hall arrange my private affairs in a manner that will prevent real, potential or apparent conflicts of interest from arising but if such a conflicts does arise between the private interest or my close relations and the official duties and responsibilities of that my office, the conflict shall be resolved in favour of the public interest
6. Conflict of Interests:
I shall not exercise an official power or perform an official duty or function in the execution of my office and at the same time know that in the performance of the duty or function or in the exercise of the power, there is the opportunity to further my private interest or these of my friends and relatives over and above the benefits this gives to the wider community.
I shall not exercise an official power of perform an official duty or function if I have a conflict of interest or an apparent conflict of interest.
7. Influence
I shall not use my office to seek to influence decisions to be made by another person, to further my private interest or those of my friends and relatives.
8. Gifts and Benefits
I shall not solicit gifts of any kind. Nor will I accept transfers of economics benefit, other than incidental gifts, customary hospitality, or other benefits of normal value as permitted by the Code of Conduct for Public Official, unless the transfer is pursuant to enforceable contract or property right of the …………………………………………………………..
9. Preferential Treatment
I shall not step outside my official roles to assist private entities or persons in my dealings with the government where this would result in preferential treatment to any person. In particular, I shall not use my office to seek to influence a decision, to be made by another person, to further my observe similar discipline.
10. Government property
I have a duty to the people to ensure that public resources are fully ad effectively utilized. I shall in the course of my duties eliminate waste and extravagance, and ensure that my official observe similar discipline.
11. Insider Information
I shall not use information this gained in the execution of my office that is not available to the general public to further or seek to further my private interest to those of my friends or relatives.
12. Party Politics
I shall not misuse my office for politically partisan purpose.
13. Post Employment
I shall not act, after I leave public office, in such a manner as to take improper advantage of my previous office.
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Supply and Demand
Supply and Demand
The market price of a good is determined by both the supply and demand for it. In 1890, English economist Alfred Marshall published his work, Principles of Economics, which was one of the earlier writings on how both supply and demand interacted to determine price. Today, the supply-demand model is one of the fundamental concepts of economics. The price level of a good essentially is determined by the point at which quantity supplied equals quantity demanded. To illustrate, consider the following case in which the supply and demand curves are plotted on the same graph.
Supply and Demand
On this graph, there is only one price level at which quantity demanded is in balance with the quantity supplied, and that price is the point at which the supply and demand curves cross.
The law of supply and demand predicts that the price level will move toward the point that equalizes quantities supplied and demanded. To understand why this must be the equilibrium point, consider the situation in which the price is higher than the price at which the curves cross. In such a case, the quantity supplied would be greater than the quantity demanded and there would be a surplus of the good on the market. Specifically, from the graph we see that if the unit price is $3 (assuming relative pricing in dollars), the quantities supplied and demanded would be:
Quantity Supplied = 42 units
Quantity Demanded = 26 units
Therefore there would be a surplus of 42 - 26 = 16 units. The sellers then would lower their price in order to sell the surplus.
Suppose the sellers lowered their prices below the equilibrium point. In this case, the quantity demanded would increase beyond what was supplied, and there would be a shortage. If the price is held at $2, the quantity supplied then would be:
Quantity Supplied = 28 units
Quantity Demanded = 38 units
Therefore, there would be a shortage of 38 - 28 = 10 units. The sellers then would increase their prices to earn more money.
The equilibrium point must be the point at which quantity supplied and quantity demanded are in balance, which is where the supply and demand curves cross. From the graph above, one sees that this is at a price of approximately $2.40 and a quantity of 34 units.
To understand how the law of supply and demand functions when there is a shift in demand, consider the case in which there is a shift in demand:
Shift in Demand
In this example, the positive shift in demand results in a new supply-demand equilibrium point that in higher in both quantity and price. For each possible shift in the supply or demand curve, a similar graph can be constructed showing the effect on equilibrium price and quantity. The following table summarizes the results that would occur from shifts in supply, demand, and combinations of the two.
Result of Shifts in Supply and Demand
Demand | Supply | Equilibrium | Equilibrium |
+ |
| + | + |
- |
| - | - |
| + | - | + |
| - | + | - |
+ | + | ? | + |
- | - | ? | - |
+ | - | + | ? |
- | + | - | ? |
In the above table, "+" represents an increase, "-" represents a decrease, a blank represents no change, and a question mark indicates that the net change cannot be determined without knowing the magnitude of the shift in supply and demand. If these results are not immediately obvious, drawing a graph for each will facilitate the analysis.
Economics > Supply and Demand
Economics Basics: Demand and Supply
Supply and demand is perhaps one of the most fundamental concepts of economics and it is the backbone of a market economy. Demand refers to how much (quantity) of a product or service is desired by buyers. The quantity demanded is the amount of a product people are willing to buy at a certain price; the relationship between price and quantity demanded is known as the demand relationship. Supply represents how much the market can offer. The quantity supplied refers to the amount of a certain good producers are willing to supply when receiving a certain price. The correlation between price and how much of a good or service is supplied to the market is known as the supply relationship. Price, therefore, is a reflection of supply and demand.
The relationship between demand and supply underlie the forces behind the allocation of resources. In market economy theories, demand and supply theory will allocate resources in the most efficient way possible. How? Let us take a closer look at the law of demand and the law of supply.
A. The Law of Demand
The law of demand states that, if all other factors remain equal, the higher the price of a good, the less people will demand that good. In other words, the higher the price, the lower the quantity demanded. The amount of a good that buyers purchase at a higher price is less because as the price of a good goes up, so does the opportunity cost of buying that good. As a result, people will naturally avoid buying a product that will force them to forgo the consumption of something else they value more. The chart below shows that the curve is a downward slope.
A, B and C are points on the demand curve. Each point on the curve reflects a direct correlation between quantity demanded (Q) and price (P). So, at point A, the quantity demanded will be Q1 and the price will be P1, and so on. The demand relationship curve illustrates the negative relationship between price and quantity demanded. The higher the price of a good the lower the quantity demanded (A), and the lower the price, the more the good will be in demand (C).
B. The Law of Supply
Like the law of demand, the law of supply demonstrates the quantities that will be sold at a certain price. But unlike the law of demand, the supply relationship shows an upward slope. This means that the higher the price, the higher the quantity supplied. Producers supply more at a higher price because selling a higher quantity at a higher price increases revenue.
A, B and C are points on the supply curve. Each point on the curve reflects a direct correlation between quantity supplied (Q) and price (P). At point B, the quantity supplied will be Q2 and the price will be P2, and so on.
Time and Supply
Unlike the demand relationship, however, the supply relationship is a factor of time. Time is important to supply because suppliers must, but cannot always, react quickly to a change in demand or price. So it is important to try and determine whether a price change that is caused by demand will be temporary or permanent.
Let's say there's a sudden increase in the demand and price for umbrellas in an unexpected rainy season; suppliers may simply accommodate demand by using their production equipment more intensively. If, however, there is a climate change, and the population will need umbrellas year-round, the change in demand and price will be expected to be long term; suppliers will have to change their equipment and production facilities in order to meet the long-term levels of demand.
C. Supply and Demand Relationship
Now that we know the laws of supply and demand, let's turn to an example to show how supply and demand affect price.
Imagine that a special edition CD of your favorite band is released for $20. Because the record company's previous analysis showed that consumers will not demand CDs at a price higher than $20, only ten CDs were released because the opportunity cost is too high for suppliers to produce more. If, however, the ten CDs are demanded by 20 people, the price will subsequently rise because, according to the demand relationship, as demand increases, so does the price. Consequently, the rise in price should prompt more CDs to be supplied as the supply relationship shows that the higher the price, the higher the quantity supplied.
If, however, there are 30 CDs produced and demand is still at 20, the price will not be pushed up because the supply more than accommodates demand. In fact after the 20 consumers have been satisfied with their CD purchases, the price of the leftover CDs may drop as CD producers attempt to sell the remaining ten CDs. The lower price will then make the CD more available to people who had previously decided that the opportunity cost of buying the CD at $20 was too high.
D. Equilibrium
When supply and demand are equal (i.e. when the supply function and demand function intersect) the economy is said to be at equilibrium. At this point, the allocation of goods is at its most efficient because the amount of goods being supplied is exactly the same as the amount of goods being demanded. Thus, everyone (individuals, firms, or countries) is satisfied with the current economic condition. At the given price, suppliers are selling all the goods that they have produced and consumers are getting all the goods that they are demanding.
As you can see on the chart, equilibrium occurs at the intersection of the demand and supply curve, which indicates no allocative inefficiency. At this point, the price of the goods will be P* and the quantity will be Q*. These figures are referred to as equilibrium price and quantity.
In the real market place equilibrium can only ever be reached in theory, so the prices of goods and services are constantly changing in relation to fluctuations in demand and supply.
E. Disequilibrium
Disequilibrium occurs whenever the price or quantity is not equal to P* or Q*.
1. Excess Supply
If the price is set too high, excess supply will be created within the economy and there will be allocative inefficiency.
At price P1 the quantity of goods that the producers wish to supply is indicated by Q2. At P1, however, the quantity that the consumers want to consume is at Q1, a quantity much less than Q2. Because Q2 is greater than Q1, too much is being produced and too little is being consumed. The suppliers are trying to produce more goods, which they hope to sell to increase profits, but those consuming the goods will find the product less attractive and purchase less because the price is too high.
2. Excess Demand
Excess demand is created when price is set below the equilibrium price. Because the price is so low, too many consumers want the good while producers are not making enough of it.
In this situation, at price P1, the quantity of goods demanded by consumers at this price is Q2. Conversely, the quantity of goods that producers are willing to produce at this price is Q1. Thus, there are too few goods being produced to satisfy the wants (demand) of the consumers. However, as consumers have to compete with one other to buy the good at this price, the demand will push the price up, making suppliers want to supply more and bringing the price closer to its equilibrium.
F. Shifts vs. Movement
For economics, the “movements” and “shifts” in relation to the supply and demand curves represent very different market phenomena:
1. Movements
A movement refers to a change along a curve. On the demand curve, a movement denotes a change in both price and quantity demanded from one point to another on the curve. The movement implies that the demand relationship remains consistent. Therefore, a movement along the demand curve will occur when the price of the good changes and the quantity demanded changes in accordance to the original demand relationship. In other words, a movement occurs when a change in the quantity demanded is caused only by a change in price, and vice versa.
Like a movement along the demand curve, a movement along the supply curve means that the supply relationship remains consistent. Therefore, a movement along the supply curve will occur when the price of the good changes and the quantity supplied changes in accordance to the original supply relationship. In other words, a movement occurs when a change in quantity supplied is caused only by a change in price, and vice versa.
2. Shifts
A shift in a demand or supply curve occurs when a good's quantity demanded or supplied changes even though price remains the same. For instance, if the price for a bottle of beer was $2 and the quantity of beer demanded increased from Q1 to Q2, then there would be a shift in the demand for beer. Shifts in the demand curve imply that the original demand relationship has changed, meaning that quantity demand is affected by a factor other than price. A shift in the demand relationship would occur if, for instance, beer suddenly became the only type of alcohol available for consumption.
Conversely, if the price for a bottle of beer was $2 and the quantity supplied decreased from Q1 to Q2, then there would be a shift in the supply of beer. Like a shift in the demand curve, a shift in the supply curve implies that the original supply curve has changed, meaning that the quantity supplied is effected by a factor other than price. A shift in the supply curve would occur if, for instance, a natural disaster caused a mass shortage of hops; beer manufacturers would be forced to supply less beer for the same price.
Next: Economics Basics: Elasticity
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A. The Law of Demand
The law of demand states that, if all other factors remain equal, the higher the price of a good, the less people will demand that good. In other words, the higher the price, the lower the quantity demanded. The amount of a good that buyers purchase at a higher price is less because as the price of a good goes up, so does the opportunity cost of buying that good. As a result, people will naturally avoid buying a product that will force them to forgo the consumption of something else they value more. The chart below shows that the curve is a downward slope.
 |
A, B and C are points on the demand curve. Each point on the curve reflects a direct correlation between quantity demanded (Q) and price (P). So, at point A, the quantity demanded will be Q1 and the price will be P1, and so on. The demand relationship curve illustrates the negative relationship between price and quantity demanded. The higher the price of a good the lower the quantity demanded (A), and the lower the price, the more the good will be in demand (C).
B. The Law of Supply
Like the law of demand, the law of supply demonstrates the quantities that will be sold at a certain price. But unlike the law of demand, the supply relationship shows an upward slope. This means that the higher the price, the higher the quantity supplied. Producers supply more at a higher price because selling a higher quantity at a higher price increases revenue.
 |
A, B and C are points on the supply curve. Each point on the curve reflects a direct correlation between quantity supplied (Q) and price (P). At point B, the quantity supplied will be Q2 and the price will be P2, and so on.
Time and Supply
Unlike the demand relationship, however, the supply relationship is a factor of time. Time is important to supply because suppliers must, but cannot always, react quickly to a change in demand or price. So it is important to try and determine whether a price change that is caused by demand will be temporary or permanent.
Let's say there's a sudden increase in the demand and price for umbrellas in an unexpected rainy season; suppliers may simply accommodate demand by using their production equipment more intensively. If, however, there is a climate change, and the population will need umbrellas year-round, the change in demand and price will be expected to be long term; suppliers will have to change their equipment and production facilities in order to meet the long-term levels of demand.
C. Supply and Demand Relationship
Now that we know the laws of supply and demand, let's turn to an example to show how supply and demand affect price.
Imagine that a special edition CD of your favorite band is released for $20. Because the record company's previous analysis showed that consumers will not demand CDs at a price higher than $20, only ten CDs were released because the opportunity cost is too high for suppliers to produce more. If, however, the ten CDs are demanded by 20 people, the price will subsequently rise because, according to the demand relationship, as demand increases, so does the price. Consequently, the rise in price should prompt more CDs to be supplied as the supply relationship shows that the higher the price, the higher the quantity supplied.
If, however, there are 30 CDs produced and demand is still at 20, the price will not be pushed up because the supply more than accommodates demand. In fact after the 20 consumers have been satisfied with their CD purchases, the price of the leftover CDs may drop as CD producers attempt to sell the remaining ten CDs. The lower price will then make the CD more available to people who had previously decided that the opportunity cost of buying the CD at $20 was too high.
D. Equilibrium
When supply and demand are equal (i.e. when the supply function and demand function intersect) the economy is said to be at equilibrium. At this point, the allocation of goods is at its most efficient because the amount of goods being supplied is exactly the same as the amount of goods being demanded. Thus, everyone (individuals, firms, or countries) is satisfied with the current economic condition. At the given price, suppliers are selling all the goods that they have produced and consumers are getting all the goods that they are demanding.
 |
As you can see on the chart, equilibrium occurs at the intersection of the demand and supply curve, which indicates no allocative inefficiency. At this point, the price of the goods will be P* and the quantity will be Q*. These figures are referred to as equilibrium price and quantity.
In the real market place equilibrium can only ever be reached in theory, so the prices of goods and services are constantly changing in relation to fluctuations in demand and supply.
E. Disequilibrium
Disequilibrium occurs whenever the price or quantity is not equal to P* or Q*.
1. Excess Supply
If the price is set too high, excess supply will be created within the economy and there will be allocative inefficiency.
 |
At price P1 the quantity of goods that the producers wish to supply is indicated by Q2. At P1, however, the quantity that the consumers want to consume is at Q1, a quantity much less than Q2. Because Q2 is greater than Q1, too much is being produced and too little is being consumed. The suppliers are trying to produce more goods, which they hope to sell to increase profits, but those consuming the goods will find the product less attractive and purchase less because the price is too high.
2. Excess Demand
Excess demand is created when price is set below the equilibrium price. Because the price is so low, too many consumers want the good while producers are not making enough of it.
 |
In this situation, at price P1, the quantity of goods demanded by consumers at this price is Q2. Conversely, the quantity of goods that producers are willing to produce at this price is Q1. Thus, there are too few goods being produced to satisfy the wants (demand) of the consumers. However, as consumers have to compete with one other to buy the good at this price, the demand will push the price up, making suppliers want to supply more and bringing the price closer to its equilibrium.
F. Shifts vs. Movement
For economics, the “movements” and “shifts” in relation to the supply and demand curves represent very different market phenomena:
1. Movements
A movement refers to a change along a curve. On the demand curve, a movement denotes a change in both price and quantity demanded from one point to another on the curve. The movement implies that the demand relationship remains consistent. Therefore, a movement along the demand curve will occur when the price of the good changes and the quantity demanded changes in accordance to the original demand relationship. In other words, a movement occurs when a change in the quantity demanded is caused only by a change in price, and vice versa.
 |
Like a movement along the demand curve, a movement along the supply curve means that the supply relationship remains consistent. Therefore, a movement along the supply curve will occur when the price of the good changes and the quantity supplied changes in accordance to the original supply relationship. In other words, a movement occurs when a change in quantity supplied is caused only by a change in price, and vice versa.
 |
2. Shifts
A shift in a demand or supply curve occurs when a good's quantity demanded or supplied changes even though price remains the same. For instance, if the price for a bottle of beer was $2 and the quantity of beer demanded increased from Q1 to Q2, then there would be a shift in the demand for beer. Shifts in the demand curve imply that the original demand relationship has changed, meaning that quantity demand is affected by a factor other than price. A shift in the demand relationship would occur if, for instance, beer suddenly became the only type of alcohol available for consumption.
 |
Conversely, if the price for a bottle of beer was $2 and the quantity supplied decreased from Q1 to Q2, then there would be a shift in the supply of beer. Like a shift in the demand curve, a shift in the supply curve implies that the original supply curve has changed, meaning that the quantity supplied is effected by a factor other than price. A shift in the supply curve would occur if, for instance, a natural disaster caused a mass shortage of hops; beer manufacturers would be forced to supply less beer for the same price.
 |
Next: Economics Basics: Elasticity
Supply and demand - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Supply and demand
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For other uses, see Supply and demand (disambiguation).
In economics, supply and demand describes market relations between prospective sellers and buyers of a good. The supply and demand model determines price and quantity sold in a market. This model is fundamental in microeconomic analysis, and is used as a foundation for other economic models and theories. It predicts that in a competitive market, price will function to equalize the quantity demanded by consumers, and the quantity supplied by producers, resulting in an economic equilibrium of price and quantity. The model incorporates other factors changing equilibrium as a shift of demand and/or supply.
[edit] Fundamentals
Strictly speaking, the model of supply and demand applies to a theoretical type of market called perfect competition in which no single buyer or seller has much effect on prices, and prices are known. The quantity of a product supplied by the producer and the quantity demanded by the consumer are dependent on the market price of the product. The law of supply states that quantity supplied is related to price. It is often depicted as directly proportional to price: the higher the price of the product, the more the producer will supply, ceteris paribus ("all other things being equal"). The law of demand is normally depicted as an inverse relation of quantity demanded and price: the higher the price of the product, the less the consumer will demand, ceteris paribus. The respective relations are called the supply curve and demand curve, or supply and demand for short.
The supply-and-demand model (sometimes described as the law of supply and demand) posits that a market tends toward equilibrium price and quantity of a commodity at the intersection of consumer demand and producer supply. At this point, quantity supplied equals quantity demanded (as shown in the figure[1] ). If the price for a good is below equilibrium, consumers demand more of the good than producers are prepared to supply. This defines a shortage of the good. A shortage results in producers increasing the price until equilibrium is reached. If the price of a good is above equilibrium, there is a surplus of the good. Producers are motivated to eliminate the surplus by lowering the price, until equilibrium is reached.
[edit] Supply schedule
The supply schedule, graphically represented by the supply curve, is the relationship between market price and amount of goods produced. In short-run analysis, where some input variables are fixed, a positive slope can reflect the law of diminishing marginal returns, which states that beyond some level of output, additional units of output require larger amounts of input. In the long-run, where no input variables are fixed, a positively-sloped supply curve can reflect diseconomies of scale.
For a given firm in a perfectly competitive industry, if it is more profitable to produce than to not produce, profit is maximized by producing just enough so that the producer's marginal cost is equal to the market price of the good.
Occasionally, supply curves bend backwards. A well known example is the backward bending supply curve of labour. Generally, as a worker's wage increases, he is willing to work longer hours, since the higher wages increase the marginal utility of working, and the opportunity cost of not working. But when the wage reaches an extremely high amount, the employee may experience the law of diminishing marginal utility. The large amount of money he is making will make further money of little value to him. Thus, he will work less and less as the wage increases, choosing instead to spend his time in leisure.[2] The backwards-bending supply curve has also been observed in non-labor markets, including the market for oil: after the skyrocketing price of oil caused by the 1973 oil crisis, many oil-exporting countries decreased their production of oil.[3]
The supply curve for public utility production companies is unusual. A large portion of their total costs are in the form of fixed costs. The supply curve for these firms is often constant (shown as a horizontal line).
Another postulated variant of a supply curve is that for child labor. Supply will increase as wages increase, but at a certain point a child's parents will pull the child from the child labor force due to cultural pressures and a desire to concentrate on education[clarify]. The supply will not increase as the wage increases, up to a point where the wage is high enough to offset these concerns. For a normal demand curve, this can result in two stable equilibrium points - a high wage and a low wage equilibrium point.[4]
[edit] Demand schedule
The demand schedule, depicted graphically as the demand curve, represents the amount of goods that buyers are willing and able to purchase at various prices, assuming all other non-price factors remain the same. The demand curve is almost always represented as downwards-sloping, meaning that as price decreases, consumers will buy more of the good.[1]
Just as the supply curves reflect marginal cost curves, demand curves can be described as marginal utility curves.[5]
The main determinants of individual demand are: the price of the good, level of income, personal tastes, the population (number of people), the government policies, the price of substitute goods, and the price of complementary goods.
The shape of the aggregate demand curve can be convex or concave, possibly depending on income distribution.
As described above, the demand curve is generally downward sloping. There may be rare examples of goods that have upward sloping demand curves. Two different hypothetical types of goods with upward-sloping demand curves are a Giffen good (an inferior, but staple, good) and a Veblen good (a good made more fashionable by a higher price).
[edit] Changes in market equilibrium
Practical uses of supply and demand analysis often center on the different variables that change equilibrium price and quantity, represented as shifts in the respective curves. Comparative statics of such a shift traces the effects from the initial equilibrium to the new equilibrium.
[edit] Demand curve shifts
When consumers increase the quantity demanded at a given price, it is referred to as an increase in demand. Increased demand can be represented on the graph as the curve being shifted outward. At each price point, a greater quantity is demanded, as from the initial curve D1 to the new curve D2. More people wanting coffee is an example. In the diagram, this raises the equilibrium price from P1 to the higher P2. This raises the equilibrium quantity from Q1 to the higher Q2. A movement along the curve is described as a "change in the quantity demanded" to distinguish it from a "change in demand," that is, a shift of the curve. In the example above, there has been an increase in demand which has caused an increase in (equilibrium) quantity. The increase in demand could also come from changing tastes, incomes, product information, fashions, and so forth.
If the demand decreases, then the opposite happens: an inward shift of the curve. If the demand starts at D2, and decreases to D1, the price will decrease, and the quantity will decrease. This is an effect of demand changing. The quantity supplied at each price is the same as before the demand shift (at both Q1 and Q2). The equilibrium quantity, price and demand are different. At each point, a greater amount is demanded (when there is a shift from D1 to D2).
[edit] Supply curve shifts
When the suppliers' costs change for a given output, the supply curve shifts in the same direction. For example, assume that someone invents a better way of growing wheat so that the cost of wheat that can be grown for a given quantity will decrease. Otherwise stated, producers will be willing to supply more wheat at every price and this shifts the supply curve S1 outward, to S2—an increase in supply. This increase in supply causes the equilibrium price to decrease from P1 to P2. The equilibrium quantity increases from Q1 to Q2 as the quantity demanded increases at the new lower prices. In a supply curve shift, the price and the quantity move in opposite directions.
If the quantity supplied decreases at a given price, the opposite happens. If the supply curve starts at S2, and shifts inward to S1, the equilibrium price will increase, and the quantity will decrease. This is an effect of supply changing. The quantity demanded at each price is the same as before the supply shift (at both Q1 and Q2). The equilibrium quantity, price and supply changed.
When there is a change in supply or demand, there are four possible movements. The demand curve can move inward or outward. The supply curve can also move inward or outward.
See also: Induced demand
[edit] Elasticity
Elasticity is a central concept in the theory of supply and demand. In this context, elasticity refers to how supply and demand respond to various factors. One way to define elasticity is the percentage change in one variable divided by the percentage change in another variable (known as arc elasticity, which calculates the elasticity over a range of values, in contrast with point elasticity, which uses differential calculus to determine the elasticity at a specific point). It is a measure of relative changes.
Often, it is useful to know how the quantity demanded or supplied will change when the price changes. This is known as the price elasticity of demand and the price elasticity of supply. If a monopolist decides to increase the price of their product, how will this affect their sales revenue? Will the increased unit price offset the likely decrease in sales volume? If a government imposes a tax on a good, thereby increasing the effective price, how will this affect the quantity demanded?
Another distinguishing feature of elasticity is that it is more than just the slope of the function. For example, a line with a constant slope will have different elasticity at various points. Therefore, the measure of elasticity is independent of arbitrary units (such as gallons vs. quarts, say for the response of quantity demanded of milk to a change in price), whereas the measure of slope only is not.
One way of calculating elasticity is the percentage change in quantity over the associated percentage change in price. For example, if the price moves from $1.00 to $1.05, and the quantity supplied goes from 100 pens to 102 pens, the slope is 2/0.05 or 40 pens per dollar. Since the elasticity depends on the percentages, the quantity of pens increased by 2%, and the price increased by 5%, so the price elasticity of supply is 2/5 or 0.4.
Since the changes are in percentages, changing the unit of measurement or the currency will not affect the elasticity. If the quantity demanded or supplied changes a lot when the price changes a little, it is said to be elastic. If the quantity changes little when the prices changes a lot, it is said to be inelastic. An example of perfectly inelastic supply, or zero elasticity, is represented as a vertical supply curve. (See that section below)
Elasticity in relation to variables other than price can also be considered. One of the most common to consider is income. How would the demand for a good change if income increased or decreased? This is known as the income elasticity of demand. For example, how much would the demand for a luxury car increase if average income increased by 10%? If it is positive, this increase in demand would be represented on a graph by a positive shift in the demand curve. At all price levels, more luxury cars would be demanded.
Another elasticity sometimes considered is the cross elasticity of demand, which measures the responsiveness of the quantity demanded of a good to a change in the price of another good. This is often considered when looking at the relative changes in demand when studying complement and substitute goods. Complement goods are goods that are typically utilized together, where if one is consumed, usually the other is also. Substitute goods are those where one can be substituted for the other, and if the price of one good rises, one may purchase less of it and instead purchase its substitute.
Cross elasticity of demand is measured as the percentage change in demand for the first good that occurs in response to a percentage change in price of the second good. For an example with a complement good, if, in response to a 10% increase in the price of fuel, the quantity of new cars demanded decreased by 20%, the cross elasticity of demand would be -2.0.
[edit] Vertical supply curve (Perfectly Inelastic Supply)
It is sometimes the case that a supply curve is vertical: that is the quantity supplied is fixed, no matter what the market price. For example, the surface area or land of the world is fixed. No matter how much someone would be willing to pay for an additional piece, the extra cannot be created. Also, even if no one wanted all the land, it still would exist. Land therefore has a vertical supply curve, giving it zero elasticity (i.e., no matter how large the change in price, the quantity supplied will not change).
Supply-side economics argues that the aggregate supply function – the total supply function of the entire economy of a country – is relatively vertical. Thus, supply-siders argue against government stimulation of demand, which would only lead to inflation with a vertical supply curve.[6]
[edit] Other markets
The model of supply and demand also applies to various specialty markets.
The model applies to wages, which are determined by the market for labor. The typical roles of supplier and consumer are reversed. The suppliers are individuals, who try to sell their labor for the highest price. The consumers of labors are businesses, which try to buy the type of labor they need at the lowest price. The equilibrium price for a certain type of labor is the wage.[7]
The model applies to interest rates, which are determined by the money market. In the short term, the money supply is a vertical supply curve, which the central bank of a country can control through monetary policy. The demand for money intersects with the money supply to determine the interest rate.[8]
[edit] Other market forms
The supply and demand model is used to explain the behavior of perfectly competitive markets, but its usefulness as a standard of performance extends to other types of markets. In such markets, there may be no supply curve, such as above, except by analogy. Rather, the supplier or suppliers are modeled as interacting with demand to determine price and quantity. In particular, the decisions of the buyers and sellers are interdependent in a way different from a perfectly competitive market.
A monopoly is the case of a single supplier that can adjust the supply or price of a good at will. The profit-maximizing monopolist is modeled as adjusting the price so that its profit is maximized given the amount that is demanded at that price. This price will be higher than in a competitive market. A similar analysis can be applied when a good has a single buyer, a monopsony, but many sellers. Oligopoly is a market with so few suppliers that they must take account of their actions on the market price or each other. Game theory may be used to analyze such a market.
The supply curve does not have to be linear. However, if the supply is from a profit-maximizing firm, it can be proven that curves-downward sloping supply curves (i.e., a price decrease increasing the quantity supplied) are inconsistent with perfect competition in equilibrium. Then supply curves from profit-maximizing firms can be vertical, horizontal or upward sloping.
[edit] Positively-sloped demand curves?
Standard microeconomic assumptions cannot be used to disprove the existence of upward-sloping demand curves. However, despite years of searching, no generally agreed upon example of a good that has an upward-sloping demand curve (also known as a Giffen good) has been found. Some suggest that luxury cosmetics can be classified as a Giffen good. As the price of a high end luxury cosmetic drops, consumers see it as an low quality good compared to its peers. The price drop may indicate lower quality ingredients, thus consumers would not want to apply such an inferior product to their face. One example of a Giffen good could be potatoes during the Irish famine.
Lay economists sometimes believe that certain common goods have an upward-sloping curve. For example, people will sometimes buy a prestige good (eg. a luxury car) because it is expensive, a drop in price may actually reduce demand. However, in this case, the good purchased is actually prestige, and not the car itself. So, when the price of the luxury car decreases, it is actually decreasing the amount of prestige associated with the good (see also Veblen good). However, even with downward-sloping demand curves, it is possible that an increase in income may lead to a decrease in demand for a particular good, probably due to the existence of more attractive alternatives which become affordable: a good with this property is known as an inferior good.
[edit] Negatively-sloped supply curve
There are cases where the price of goods gets cheaper, but more of those goods are produced. This is usually related to economies of scale and mass production. One special case is computer software where creating the first instance of a given computer program has a high cost, but the marginal cost of copying this program and distributing it to many consumers is low (almost zero).
[edit] Empirical estimation
Demand and supply relations in a market can be statistically estimated from price, quantity, and other data with sufficient information in the model. This can be done with simultaneous-equation methods of estimation in econometrics. Such methods allow solving for the model-relevant "structural coefficients," the estimated algebraic counterparts of the theory. The Parameter identification problem is a common issue in "structural estimation." Typically, data on exogenous variables (that is, variables other than price and quantity, both of which are endogenous variables) are needed to perform such an estimation. An alternative to "structural estimation" is reduced-form estimation, which regresses each of the endogenous variables on the respective exogenous variables.
[edit] Macroeconomic uses of demand and supply
Demand and supply have also been generalized to explain macroeconomic variables in a market economy, including the quantity of total output and the general price level. The Aggregate Demand-Aggregate Supply model may be the most direct application of supply and demand to macroeconomics, but other macroeconomic models also use supply and demand. Compared to microeconomic uses of demand and supply, different (and more controversial) theoretical considerations apply to such macroeconomic counterparts as aggregate demand and aggregate supply. Demand and supply may also be used in macroeconomic theory to relate money supply to demand and interest rates.
[edit] Demand shortfalls
A demand shortfall results from the actual demand for a given product being lower than the projected, or estimated, demand for that product. Demand shortfalls are caused by demand overestimation in the planning of new products. Demand overestimation is caused by optimism bias and/or strategic misrepresentation.
[edit] History
The phrase "supply and demand" was first used by James Denham-Steuart in his Inquiry into the Principles of Political Economy, published in 1767. Adam Smith used the phrase in his 1776 book The Wealth of Nations, and David Ricardo titled one chapter of his 1817 work Principles of Political Economy and Taxation "On the Influence of Demand and Supply on Price".[9]
In The Wealth of Nations, Smith generally assumed that the supply price was fixed but that its "merit" (value) would decrease as its "scarcity" increased, in effect what was later called the law of demand. Ricardo, in Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, more rigorously laid down the idea of the assumptions that were used to build his ideas of supply and demand. Antoine Augustin Cournot first developed a mathematical model of supply and demand in his 1838 Researches on the Mathematical Principles of the Theory of Wealth.
During the late 19th century the marginalist school of thought emerged. This field mainly was started by Stanley Jevons, Carl Menger, and Léon Walras. The key idea was that the price was set by the most expensive price, that is, the price at the margin. This was a substantial change from Adam Smith's thoughts on determining the supply price.
In his 1870 essay "On the Graphical Representation of Supply and Demand", Fleeming Jenkin drew for the first time the popular graphic of supply and demand which, through Marshall, eventually would turn into the most famous graphic in economics.
The model was further developed and popularized by Alfred Marshall in the 1890 textbook Principles of Economics.[9] Along with Léon Walras, Marshall looked at the equilibrium point where the two curves crossed. They also began looking at the effect of markets on each other.
[edit] See also
- Aggregate demand
- Aggregate supply
- Artificial demand
- Barriers to entry
- Consumer surplus
- Consumer theory
- Deadweight loss
- Demand Forecasting
- Demand shortfall
- Economic surplus
- Effect of taxes and subsidies on price
- Elasticity
- Externality
- Foundations of Economic Analysis by Paul A. Samuelson
- History of economic thought
- "invisible hand"
- Labor shortage
- Microeconomics
- Producer's surplus
- Protectionism
- Profit
- Rationing
- Real prices and ideal prices
- Say's Law
- Supply shock
- An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith
[edit] References
- ^ a b Note that unlike most graphs, supply & demand curves are plotted with the independent variable (price) on the vertical axis and the dependent variable (quantity supplied or demanded) on the horizontal axis.
- ^ Note that the backwards bending supply curve of labor only applies to an individual worker's supply schedule. If wages are raised for the entire labor market, the supply of labor will generally increase as workers from lower-paying economic sectors move to the sector with the higher wages. The increased amount of workers will compensate for the fact that each individual worker is producing less.
- ^ Samuelson, Paul A; William D. Nordhaus (2001). Economics, 17th edition, McGraw-Hill, p. 157. ISBN 0072314885.
- ^ Basu, Kaushik. "The Economics of Child Labor", Scientific American, October, 2003.
- ^ "Marginal Utility and Demand". Retrieved on 2007-02-09.
- ^ Understanding Supply-Side Economics
- ^ Kibbe, Matthew B.. "The Minimum Wage: Washington's Perennial Myth". Cato Institute. Retrieved on 2007-02-09.
- ^ Mead, Art. "Interest rates are prices". University of Rhode Island. Retrieved on 2007-02-09.
- ^ a b Humphrey, Thomas M. (March/April 1992). "Marshallian Cross Diagrams and Their Uses before Alfred Marshall: The Origins of Supply and Demand Geometry" ([dead link] – Scholar search). Economic Review. Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.
[edit] External links
- "Marshallian Cross Diagrams and Their Uses before Alfred Marshall: The Origins of Supply and Demand Geometry" by Thomas Humphrey (via the Richmond Fed)
- Supply and Demand book by Hubert D. Henderson at Project Gutenberg.
- Price Theory and Applications by Steven E. Landsburg ISBN 0-538-88206-9
- An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith, 1776 [1]
- By what is the price of a commodity determined?, a brief statement of Karl Marx's rival account [2]
- The Economic Motivation of Open Source Software: Stakeholder Perspectives, Dirk Riehle, 2007 [3]
- Supply and Demand by Fiona Maclachlan and Basic Supply and Demand by Mark Gillis, The Wolfram Demonstrations Project.
| [hide] | |
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| Major topics | Scarcity · Opportunity cost · Supply and demand · Elasticity · Economic surplus · Economic shortage · Aggregation problem · Consumer theory · Market form · Welfare economics · Market failure |
| Lists of topics in microeconomics | |
Economics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Economics
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Economics is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek for oikos ("house") and nomos ("custom" or "law"), hence "rules of the house(hold)".[1]
Current economic models developed out of the broader field of political economy in the late 19th century, owing to a desire to use an empirical approach more akin to the physical sciences.[2] A definition that captures much of modern economics is that of Lionel Robbins in a 1932 essay: "the science which studies human behaviour as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses."[3] Scarcity means that available resources are insufficient to satisfy all wants and needs. Absent scarcity and alternative uses of available resources, there is no economic problem. The subject thus defined involves the study of choices as they are affected by incentives and resources.
Economics aims to explain how economies work and how economic agents interact. Economic analysis is applied throughout society, in business and finance but also in crime,[4] education,[5] the family, health, law, politics, religion,[6] social institutions, and war.[7] The dominating effect of economics on the social sciences been described as economic imperialism.[8][9]
Contents[hide] |
Microeconomics
A common distinction is between positive economics (describing "what is") and normative economics (advocating "what ought to be") or mainstream economics (more "orthodox") and heterodox economics (more "radical"). The primary textbook distinction is between microeconomics ("small" economics), which examines the economic behavior of agents (including individuals and firms) and "macroeconomics" ("big" economics), addressing issues of unemployment, inflation, monetary and fiscal policy. Microeconomics looks at interactions through individual markets, given scarcity and government regulation. A given market might be for a product, say fresh corn, or the services of a factor of production, say bricklaying. The theory considers aggregates of quantity demanded by buyers and quantity supplied by sellers at each possible price per unit. It weaves these together to describe how the market may reach equilibrium as to price and quantity or respond to market changes over time. This is broadly termed demand-and-supply analysis. Market structures, such as perfect competition and monopoly, are examined as to implications for behavior and economic efficiency. Analysis of change in a single market often proceeds from the simplifying assumption that behavioral relations in other markets remain unchanged, that is, partial-equilibrium analysis. General-equilibrium theory allows for changes in different markets and aggregates across all markets, including their movements and interactions toward equilibrium.[10][11]
Another distinction is between mainstream economics and heterodox economics. One broad characterization describes mainstream economics as dealing with the "rationality-individualism-equilibrium nexus" and heterodox economics as defined by a "institutions-history-social structure nexus".[12]
Markets
Production possibilities, opportunity cost
In microeconomics, production is the conversion of inputs into outputs. It is an economic process that uses resources to create a commodity that is suitable for exchange. This can include manufacturing, storing, shipping, and packaging. Some economists define production broadly as all economic activity other than consumption. They see every commercial activity other than the final purchase as some form of production.
Production is a process, and as such it occurs through time and space. Because it is a flow concept, production is measured as a "rate of output per period of time". There are three aspects to production processes, including the quantity of the commodity produced, the form of the good created and the temporal and spatial distribution of the commodity produced.
Opportunity cost expresses the idea that for every choice, the true economic cost is the next best opportunity. Choices must be made between desirable yet mutually exclusive actions. It has been described as expressing "the basic relationship between scarcity and choice."[13]. The notion of opportunity cost plays a crucial part in ensuring that scarce resources are used efficiently.[14] Thus, opportunity costs are not restricted to monetary or financial costs: the real cost of output forgone, lost time, pleasure or any other benefit that provides utility should also be considered.
Factors of production
The inputs or resources used in the production process are called factors of production. Possible inputs are typically grouped into six categories. These factors are:
In the short-run, as opposed to the long-run, at least one of these factors of production is fixed. Examples include major pieces of equipment, suitable factory space, and key managerial personnel. A variable factor of production is one whose usage rate can be changed easily. Examples include electrical power consumption, transportation services, and most raw material inputs. In the "long-run", all of these factors of production can be adjusted by management. In the short run, a firm's "scale of operations" determines the maximum number of outputs that can be produced, but in the long run, there are no scale limitations. Long-run and short-run changes play an important part in economic models.
Economic efficiency
Economic efficiency describes how well a system generates the maximum desired output a with a given set of inputs and available technology. Efficiency is improved if more output is generated without changing inputs, or in other words, the amount of "friction" or "waste" is reduced. Economists look for Pareto efficiency, which is reached when a change can make someone better off without making anyone worse off.
Economic efficiency is used to refer to a number of related concepts. A system can be called economically efficient if:
- No one can be made better off without making someone else worse off.
- More output cannot be obtained without increasing the amount of inputs.
- Production proceeds at the lowest possible per unit cost.
These definitions of efficiency are not exactly equivalent. However, they are all encompassed by the idea that nothing more can be achieved given the resources available.
Specialization, division of labour, and gains from trade
Specialization is considered key to economic efficiency because different individuals or countries have different comparative advantages. While one country may have an absolute advantage in every area over other countries, it could nonetheless specialize in the area which it has a relative comparative advantage, and thereby gain from trading with countries which have no absolute advantages. For example, a country may specialize in the production of high-tech knowledge products, as developed countries do, and trade with developing nations for goods produced in factories, where labor is cheap and plentiful. According to theory, in this way more total products and utility can be achieved than if countries produced their own high-tech and low-tech products. The theory of comparative advantage is largely the basis for the typical economist's belief in the benefits of free trade. This concept applies to individuals, farms, manufacturers, service providers, and economies. Among each of these production systems, there may be:
- a corresponding division of labour with each worker having a distinct occupation or doing a specialized task as part of the production effort,
- correspondingly different types of capital equipment and differentiated land uses.[15][16][17]
Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations (1776) discusses the benefits of the division of labour. Smith noted that an individual should invest a resource, for example, land or labour, so as to earn the highest possible return on it. Consequently, all uses of the resource should yield an equal rate of return (adjusted for the relative riskiness of each enterprise). Otherwise reallocation would result. This idea, wrote George Stigler, is the central proposition of economic theory, and is today called the marginal productivity theory of income distribution. French economist Turgot had made the same point in 1766.[18]
In more general terms, it is theorized that market incentives, including prices of outputs and productive inputs, select the allocation of factors of production by comparative advantage, that is, so that (relatively) low-cost inputs are employed to keep down the opportunity cost of a given type of output. In the process, aggregate output increases as a by product or by design.[19] Such specialization of production creates opportunities for gains from trade whereby resource owners benefit from trade in the sale of one type of output for other, more highly-valued goods. A measure of gains from trade is the increased output (formally, the sum of increased consumer surplus and producer profits) from specialization in production and resulting trade.[20][21][22]
Supply and demand, prices and quantities
The theory of demand and supply is an organizing principle to explain prices and quantities of goods sold and changes thereof in a market economy. In microeconomic theory, it refers to price and output determination in a perfectly competitive market. This has served as a building block for modeling other market structures and for other theoretical approaches.
For a given market of a commodity, demand shows the quantity that all prospective buyers would be prepared to purchase at each unit price of the good. Demand is often represented using a table or a graph relating price and quantity demanded (see boxed figure). Demand theory describes individual consumers as rationally choosing the most preferred quantity of each good, given income, prices, tastes, etc. A term for this is 'constrained utility maximization' (with income as the constraint on demand). Here, utility refers to the (hypothesized) preference relation for individual consumers. Utility and income are then used to model hypothesized properties about the effect of a price change on the quantity demanded. The law of demand states that, in general, price and quantity demanded in a given market are inversely related. In other words, the higher the price of a product, the less of it people would be able and willing to buy of it (other things unchanged). As the price of a commodity rises, overall purchasing power decreases (the income effect) and consumers move toward relatively less expensive goods (the substitution effect). Other factors can also affect demand; for example an increase in income will shift the demand curve outward relative to the origin, as in the figure.
Supply is the relation between the price of a good and the quantity available for sale from suppliers (such as producers) at that price. Supply is often represented using a table or graph relating price and quantity supplied. Producers are hypothesized to be profit-maximizers, meaning that they attempt to produce the amount of goods that will bring them the highest profit. Supply is typically represented as a directly proportional relation between price and quantity supplied (other things unchanged). In other words, the higher the price at which the good can be sold, the more of it producers will supply. The higher price makes it profitable to increase production. At a price below equilibrium, there is a shortage of quantity supplied compared to quantity demanded. This pulls the price up. At a price above equilibrium, there is a surplus of quantity supplied compared to quantity demanded. This pushes the price down. The model of supply and demand predicts that for given supply and demand curves, price and quantity will stabilize at the price that makes quantity supplied equal to quantity demanded. This is at the intersection of the two curves in the graph above, market equilibrium.
For a given quantity of a good, the price point on the demand curve indicates the value, or marginal utility[23] to consumers for that unit of output. It measures what the consumer would be prepared to pay for the corresponding unit of the good. The price point on the supply curve measures marginal cost, the increase in total cost to the supplier for the corresponding unit of the good. The price in equilibrium is determined by supply and demand. In a perfectly competitive market, supply and demand equate cost and value at equilibrium.[24]
Demand and supply can also be used to model the distribution of income to the factors of production, including labour and capital, through factor markets. In a labour market for example, the quantity of labour employed and the price of labour (the wage rate) are modeled as set by the demand for labour (from business firms etc. for production) and supply of labour (from workers).
Demand and supply are used to explain the behavior of perfectly competitive markets, but their usefulness as a standard of performance extends to any type of market. Demand and supply can also be generalized to explain variables applying to the whole economy, for example, quantity of total output and the general price level, studied in macroeconomics.
In supply-and-demand analysis, the price of a good coordinates production and consumption quantities. Price and quantity have been described as the most directly observable characteristics of a good produced for the market.[25] Supply, demand, and market equilibrium are theoretical constructs linking price and quantity. But tracing the effects of factors predicted to change supply and demand—and through them, price and quantity—is a standard exercise in applied microeconomics and macroeconomics. Economic theory can specify under what circumstances price serves as an efficient communication device to regulate quantity.[26] A real-world application might attempt to measure how much variables that increase supply or demand change price and quantity.
Marginalism is the use of marginal concepts within economics. Marginal concepts are associated with a specific change in the quantity used of a good or of a service, as opposed to some notion of the over-all significance of that class of good or service, or of some total quantity thereof. The central concept of marginalism proper is that of marginal utility, but marginalists following the lead of Alfred Marshall were further heavily dependent upon the concept of marginal physical productivity in their explanation of cost; and the neoclassical tradition that emerged from British marginalism generally abandoned the concept of utility and gave marginal rates of substitution a more fundamental rôle in analysis.
Market failure
- See also: Externalities, Public good, Information asymmetries, and Incomplete markets
The term "market failure" encompasses several problems which may undermine standard economic assumptions. Although economists categorise market failures differently,[27] the following categories emerge in the main texts.[28]
- Natural monopoly, or the overlapping concepts of "practical" and "technical" monopoly, involves a failure of competition as a restraint on producers. The problem is described as one where the more of a product is made, the greater the returns are. This means it only makes economic sense to have one producer.
- Information asymmetries arise where one party has more or better information than the other. The existence of information asymmetry gives rise to problems such as moral hazard, and adverse selection, studied in contract theory. The economics of information has relevance in many fields, including finance, insurance, contract law, and decision-making under risk and uncertainty.[29]
- Incomplete markets is a term used for a situation where buyers and sellers do not know enough about each others positions to price goods and services properly. Based on George Akerlof's Market for Lemons article, the paradigm example is of a dodgy second hand car market. Customers without the possibility to know for certain whether they are buying a "lemon" will push the average price down below what a good quality second hand car would be. In this way, prices may not reflect true values.
- Public goods are goods which are undersupplied in a typical market. The defining features are that people can consume public goods without having to pay for them and that more than one person can consume the good at the same time.
- Externalities occur where there are significant social costs or benefits from production or consumption that are not reflected in market prices. For example, air pollution may generate a negative externality, and education may generate a positive externality (less crime, etc.). Governments often tax and otherwise restrict the sale of goods that have negative externalities and subsidize or otherwise promote the purchase of goods that have positive externalities in an effort to correct the price distortions caused by these externalities.[30] Elementary demand-and-supply theory predicts equilibrium but not the speed of adjustment for changes of equilibrium due to a shift in demand or supply.[31] In many areas, some form of price stickiness is postulated to account for quantities, rather than prices, adjusting in the short run to changes on the demand side or the supply side. This includes standard analysis of the business cycle in macroeconomics. Analysis often revolves around causes of such price stickiness and their implications for reaching a hypothesized long-run equilibrium. Examples of such price stickiness in particular markets include wage rates in labour markets and posted prices in markets deviating from perfect competition.
- Macroeconomic instability, addressed below, is a prime source of market failure, whereby a general loss of business confidence or external shock can grind production and distribution to a halt, undermining ordinary markets that are otherwise sound.
Some specialised fields of economics deal in market failure more than others. The economics of the public sector is one example, since where markets fail, some kind of regulatory or government programme is the remedy. Much environmental economics concerns externalities or "public bads". Policy options include regulations that reflect cost-benefit analysis or market solutions that change incentives, such as emission fees or redefinition of property rights.[32][33] Environmental economics is related to ecological economics but there are differences.[34]
Most environmental economists have been trained as economists. They apply the tools of economics to address environmental problems, many of which are related to so-called market failures—circumstances wherein the "invisible hand" of economics is unreliable.[35] Most ecological economists have been trained as ecologists, but have expanded the scope of their work to consider the impacts of humans and their economic activity on ecological systems and services, and vice-versa. This field takes as its premise that economics is a strict subfield of ecology. Ecological economics is sometimes described as taking a more pluralistic approach to environmental problems and focuses more explicitly on long-term environmental sustainability and issues of scale. Agricultural economics is one the oldest and most established fields of economics. It is the study of the economic forces that affect the agricultural sector and the agricultural sector's impact on the rest of the economy. It is an area of economics that, thanks to the necessity of applying microeconomic theories to complex real world situations, has given rise to many important advances of more general applicability; the role of risk and uncertainty, the behaviour of households and links between property rights and incentives. More recently policy areas such as international commodity trade and the environment have been stressed.[36]
Firms
One of the assumptions of perfectly competitive markets is that there are many producers, none of whom can influence prices or act independently of market forces. In reality, however, people do not simply trade on markets, they work and produce through firms. The most obvious kinds of firms are corporations, partnerships and trusts. According to Ronald Coase people begin to organise their production in firms when the costs of doing business becomes lower than doing it on the market.[37] Firms combine labour and capital, and can achieve far greater economies of scale (when producing two or more things is cheaper than one thing) than individual market trading.
Labour economics seeks to understand the functioning of the market and dynamics for labour. Labour markets function through the interaction of workers and employers. Labour economics looks at the suppliers of labour services (workers), the demanders of labour services (employers), and attempts to understand the resulting patterns of wages and other labour income and of employment and unemployment, Practical uses include assisting the formulation of full employment of policies.[38]
Industrial organization studies the strategic behavior of firms, the structure of markets and their interactions. The common market structures studied include perfect competition, monopolistic competition, various forms of oligopoly, and monopoly.[39]
Financial economics, often simply referred to as finance, is concerned with the allocation of financial resources in an uncertain (or risky) environment. Thus, its focus is on the operation of financial markets, the pricing of financial instruments, and the financial structure of companies.[40]
Managerial economics applies microeconomic analysis to specific decisions in business firms or other management units. It draws heavily from quantitative methods such as operations research and programming and from statistical methods such as regression analysis in the absence of certainty and perfect knowledge. A unifying theme is the attempt to optimize business decisions, including unit-cost minimization and profit maximization, given the firm's objectives and constraints imposed by technology and market conditions.[41][42]
Public sector
- See also: Welfare economics
Public finance is the field of economics that deals with budgeting the revenues and expenditures of a public sector entity, usually government. The subject addresses such matters as tax incidence (who really pays a particular tax), cost-benefit analysis of government programs, effects on economic efficiency and income distribution of different kinds of spending and taxes, and fiscal politics. The latter, an aspect of public choice theory, models public-sector behavior analogously to microeconomics, involving interactions of self-interested voters, politicians, and bureaucrats.[43]
Much of economics is positive, seeking to describe and predict economic phenomena. Normative economics seeks to identify what is economically good and bad.
Welfare economics is a normative branch of economics that uses microeconomic techniques to simultaneously determine the allocative efficiency within an economy and the income distribution associated with it. It attempts to measure social welfare by examining the economic activities of the individuals that comprise society.[44]
Macroeconomics
Macroeconomics examines the economy as a whole to explain broad aggregates and their interactions "top down," that is, using a simplified form of general-equilibrium theory.[45] Such aggregates include national income and output, the unemployment rate, and price inflation and subaggregates like total consumption and investment spending and their components. It also studies effects of monetary policy and fiscal policy. Since at least the 1960s, macroeconomics has been characterized by further integration as to micro-based modeling of sectors, including rationality of players, efficient use of market information, and imperfect competition.[46] This has addressed a long-standing concern about inconsistent developments of the same subject.[47] Macroeconomic analysis also considers factors affecting the long-term level and growth of national income. Such factors include capital accumulation, technological change and labor force growth. [48][49]
Growth
Growth economics studies factors that explain economic growth – the increase in output per capita of a country over a long period of time. The same factors are used to explain differences in the level of output per capita between countries. Much-studied factors include the rate of investment, population growth, and technological change. These are represented in theoretical and empirical forms (as in the neoclassical growth model) and in growth accounting.[50][51]
Depression and unemployment
- See also: Circular flow of income, Aggregate supply, Aggregate demand, Great Depression, and Unemployment
Inflation and monetary policy
- See also: Money, Quantity theory of money, Monetary policy, History of money, and Milton Friedman
Money is a means of final payment for goods in most price system economies and the unit of account in which prices are typically stated. It includes currency held by the nonbank public and checkable deposits. It has been described as a social convention, like language, useful to one largely because it is useful to others. As a medium of exchange, money facilitates trade. Its economic function can be contrasted with barter (non-monetary exchange). Given a diverse array of produced goods and specialized producers, barter may entail a hard-to-locate double coincidence of wants as to what is exchanged, say apples and a book. Money can reduce the transaction cost of exchange because of its ready acceptability. Then it is less costly for the seller to accept money in exchange, rather than what the buyer produces.[52]
At the level of an economy, theory and evidence are consistent with a positive relationship running from the total money supply to the nominal value of total output and to the general price level. For this reason, management of the money supply is a key aspect of monetary policy.[53][54]
Fiscal policy and regulation
National accounting is a method for summarizing aggregate economic activity of a nation. The national accounts are double-entry accounting systems that provide detailed underlying measures of such information. These include the national income and product accounts (NIPA), which provide estimates for the money value of output and income per year or quarter. NIPA allows for tracking the performance of an economy and its components through business cycles or over longer periods. Price data may permit distinguishing nominal from real amounts, that is, correcting money totals for price changes over time.[55][56] The national accounts also include measurement of the capital stock, wealth of a nation, and international capital flows.[57]
International economics
International trade studies determinants of goods-and-services flows across international boundaries. It also concerns the size and distribution of gains from trade. Policy applications include estimating the effects of changing tariff rates and trade quotas. International finance is a macroeconomic field which examines the flow of capital across international borders, and the effects of these movements on exchange rates. Increased trade in goods, services and capital between countries is a major effect of contemporary globalization.[58][59][60]
Comparative advantage
International trade
- See also: European Union, World Trade Organization, North American Free Trade Agreement, and ASEAN
Poverty and development
The distinct field of development economics examines economic aspects of the development process in relatively low-income countries focussing on structural change, poverty, and economic growth. Approaches in development economics frequently incorporate social and political factors.[61][62]
Economic systems is the branch of economics that studies the methods and institutions by which societies determine the ownership, direction, and allocaton of economic resources. An economic system of a society is the unit of analysis. Among contemporary systems at different ends of the organizational spectrum are socialist systems and capitalist systems, in which most production occurs in respectively state-run and private enterprises. In between are mixed economies. A common element is the interaction of economic and political influences, broadly described as political economy. Comparative economic systems studies the relative performance and behavior of different economies or systems.[63][64]
International finance
- See also: Sovereign wealth fund
History of economic thought
The city states of Sumer developed a trade and market economy based originally on the commodity money of the Shekel which was a certain weight measure of barley, while the Babylonians and their city state neighbors later developed the earliest system of economics using a metric of various commodities, that was fixed in a legal code.[65] The early law codes from Sumer could be considered the first (written) economic formula, and had many attributes still in use in the current price system today... such as codified amounts of money for business deals (interest rates), fines in money for 'wrong doing', inheritance rules, laws concerning how private property is to be taxed or divided, etc.[66] For a summary of the laws, see Babylonian law and Ancient economic thought.
Economic thought dates from earlier Mesopotamian, Greek, Roman, Indian, Chinese, Persian and Arab civilizations. Notable writers include Aristotle, Chanakya, Qin Shi Huang, Thomas Aquinas and Ibn Khaldun through to the 14th century. Joseph Schumpeter initially considered the late scholastics of the 14th to 17th centuries as "coming nearer than any other group to being the 'founders' of scientific economics" as to monetary, interest, and value theory within a natural-law perspective.[67] After discovering Ibn Khaldun's Muqaddimah, however, Schumpeter later viewed Ibn Khaldun as being the closest forerunner of modern economics,[68] as many of his economic theories were not known in Europe until relatively modern times.[69]
Two other groups, later called 'mercantilists' and 'physiocrats', more directly influenced the subsequent development of the subject. Both groups were associated with the rise of economic nationalism and modern capitalism in Europe. Mercantilism was an economic doctrine that flourished from the 16th to 18th century in a prolific pamphlet literature, whether of merchants or statesmen. It held that a nation's wealth depended on its accumulation of gold and silver. Nations without access to mines could obtain gold and silver from trade only by selling goods abroad and restricting imports other than of gold and silver. The doctrine called for importing cheap raw materials to be used in manufacturing goods, which could be exported, and for state regulation to impose protective tariffs on foreign manufactured goods and prohibit manufacturing in the colonies.[70][71]
Physiocrats, a group of 18th century French thinkers and writers, developed the idea of the economy as a circular flow of income and output. Adam Smith described their system "with all its imperfections" as "perhaps the purest approximation to the truth that has yet been published" on the subject. Physiocrats believed that only agricultural production generated a clear surplus over cost, so that agriculture was the basis of all wealth. Thus, they opposed the mercantilist policy of promoting manufacturing and trade at the expense of agriculture, including import tariffs. Physiocrats advocated replacing administratively costly tax collections with a single tax on income of land owners. Variations on such a land tax were taken up by subsequent economists (including Henry George a century later) as a relatively non-distortionary source of tax revenue. In reaction against copious mercantilist trade regulations, the physiocrats advocated a policy of laissez-faire, which called for minimal government intervention in the economy.[72][73]
Classical political economy
Publication of Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations in 1776, has been described as "the effective birth of economics as a separate discipline."[74] The book identified land, labor, and capital as the three factors of production and the major contributors to a nation's wealth.
In Smith's view, the ideal economy is a self-regulating market system that automatically satisfies the economic needs of the populace. He described the market mechanism as an "invisible hand" that leads all individuals, in pursuit of their own self-interests, to produce the greatest benefit for society as a whole. Smith incorporated some of the Physiocrats' ideas, including laissez-faire, into his own economic theories, but rejected the idea that only agriculture was productive.
In his famous invisible-hand analogy, Smith argued for the seemingly paradoxical notion that competitive markets tended to advance broader social interests, although driven by narrower self-interest. The general approach that Smith helped initiate was called political economy and later classical economics. It included such notables as Thomas Malthus, David Ricardo, and John Stuart Mill writing from about 1770 to 1870.[75]
While Adam Smith emphasized the production of income, David Ricardo focused on the distribution of income among landowners, workers, and capitalists. Ricardo saw an inherent conflict between landowners on the one hand and labor and capital on the other. He posited that the growth of population and capital, pressing against a fixed supply of land, pushes up rents and holds down wages and profits.
Thomas Robert Malthus used the idea of diminishing returns to explain low living standards. Population, he argued, tended to increase geometrically, outstripping the production of food, which increased arithmetically. The force of a rapidly growing population against a limited amount of land meant diminishing returns to labor. The result, he claimed, was chronically low wages, which prevented the standard of living for most of the population from rising above the subsistence level.
Malthus also questioned the automatic tendency of a market economy to produce full employment. He blamed unemployment upon the economy's tendency to limit its spending by saving too much, a theme that lay forgotten until John Maynard Keynes revived it in the 1930s.
Coming at the end of the Classical tradition, John Stuart Mill parted company with the earlier classical economists on the inevitability of the distribution of income produced by the market system. Mill pointed to a distinct difference between the market's two roles: allocation of resources and distribution of income. The market might be efficient in allocating resources but not in distributing income, he wrote, making it necessary for society to intervene.
Value theory was important in classical theory. Smith wrote that the "real price of every thing ... is the toil and trouble of acquiring it" as influenced by its scarcity. Smith maintained that, with rent and profit, other costs besides wages also enter the price of a commodity.[76] Other classical economists presented variations on Smith, termed the 'labour theory of value'. Classical economics focused on the tendency of markets to move to long-run equilibrium.
Marxism and neo-classicism
Marxist (later, Marxian) economics descends from classical economics. It derives from the work of Karl Marx. The first volume of Marx's major work, Capital, was published in German in 1867. In it, Marx focused on the labour theory of value and what he considered to be the exploitation of labour by capital.[77][78] The labour theory of value held that the value of a thing was determined by the labor that went into its production. This contrasts with the modern understanding that the value of a thing is determined by what one is willing to give up to obtain the thing.
A body of theory later termed 'neoclassical economics' or 'marginalism' formed from about 1870 to 1910. The term 'economics' was popularized by such neoclassical economists as Alfred Marshall as a concise synonym for 'econonic science' and a substitute for the earlier, broader term 'political economy'.[79][80] This correspnded to the influence on the subject of mathematical methods used in the natural sciences.[2] Neoclassical economics systematized supply and demand as joint determinants of price and quantity in market equilibrium, affecting both the allocation of output and the distribution of income. It dispensed with the labour theory of value inherited from classical economics in favor of a marginal utility theory of value on the demand side and a more general theory of costs on the supply side.[81]
In microeconomics, neoclassical economics represents incentives and costs as playing a pervasive role in shaping decision making. An immediate example of this is the consumer theory of individual demand, which isolates how prices (as costs) and income affect quantity demanded. In macroeconomics it is reflected in an early and lasting neoclassical synthesis with Keynesian macroeconomics.[82][83]
Neoclassical economics is occasionally referred as orthodox economics whether by its critics or sympathizers. Modern mainstream economics builds on neoclassical economics but with many refinements that either supplement or generalize earlier analysis, such as econometrics, game theory, analysis of market failure and imperfect competition, and the neoclassical model of economic growth for analyzing long-run variables affecting national income.
Keynesian economics
Keynesian economics derives from John Maynard Keynes, in particular his book The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1936), which ushered in contemporary macroeconomics as a distinct field.[84][85] The book focused on determinants of national income in the short run when prices are relatively inflexible. Keynes attempted to explain in broad theoretical detail why high labour-market unemployment might not be self-correcting due to low "effective demand" and why even price flexibility and monetary policy might be unavailing. Such terms as "revolutionary" have been applied to the book in its impact on economic analysis.[86][87][88]
Keynesian economics has two successors. Post-Keynesian economics also concentrates on macroeconomic rigidities and adjustment processes. Research on micro foundations for their models is represented as based on real-life practices rather than simple optimizing models. It is generally associated with the University of Cambridge and the work of Joan Robinson.[89] New-Keynesian economics is also associated with developments in the Keynesian fashion. Within this group researchers tend to share with other economists the emphasis on models employing micro foundations and optimizing behavior but with a narrower focus on standard Keynesian themes such as price and wage rigidity. These are usually made to be endogenous features of the models, rather than simply assumed as in older Keynesian-style ones.
Other schools and approaches
Other well-known schools or trends of thought referring to a particular style of economics practiced at and disseminated from well-defined groups of academicians that have become known worldwide, include the Austrian School, Chicago School, the Freiburg School, the School of Lausanne and the Stockholm school. Contemporary mainstream economics is sometimes separated into the MIT, or Saltwater, approach, and the Chicago, or Freshwater, approach.
Within macroeconomics there is, in general order of their appearance in the literature; classical economics, Keynesian economics, the neoclassical synthesis, post-Keynesian economics, monetarism, new classical economics, and supply-side economics. Alternative developments include ecological economics, institutional economics, evolutionary economics, dependency theory, structuralist economics, world systems theory, thermoeconomics, econophysics and technocracy.
Economics in practice
Being an economist
The professionalization of economics, reflected in the growth of graduate programs on the subject, has been described as "the main change in economics since around 1900".[90] Most major universities and many colleges have a major, school, or department in which academic degrees are awarded in the subject, whether in the liberal arts, business, or for professional study. The Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel (colloquially, the Nobel Prize in Economics) is a prize awarded to economists each year for outstanding intellectual contributions in the field. In the private sector, professional economists are employed as consultants and in industry, including banking and finance. Economists also work for various government departments and agencies, for example, the national Treasury, Central Bank or Bureau of Statistics.
Economists' tools
Contemporary mainstream economics, as a formal mathematical modeling field, could also be called mathematical economics.[91] It draws on the tools of calculus, linear algebra, statistics, game theory, and computer science.[92] Professional economists are expected to be familiar with these tools, although all economists specialize, and some specialize in econometrics and mathematical methods while others specialize in less quantitative areas. Heterodox economists place less emphasis upon mathematics, and several important historical economists, including Adam Smith and Joseph Schumpeter, have not been mathematicians. Economic reasoning involves intuition regarding economic concepts, and economists attempt to analyze to the point of discovering unintended consequences.
Theory
Mainstream economic theory relies upon a priori quantitative economic models, which employ a variety of concepts. Theory typically proceeds with an assumption of ceteris paribus, which means holding constant explanatory variables other than the one under consideration. When creating theories, the objective is to find ones which are at least as simple in information requirements, more precise in predictions, and more fruitful in generating additional research than prior theories.[93]
In microeconomics, principal concepts include supply and demand, marginalism, rational choice theory, opportunity cost, budget constraints, utility, and the theory of the firm.[94][95] Early macroeconomic models focused on modeling the relationships between aggregate variables, but as the relationships appeared to change over time macroeconomists were pressured to base their models in microfoundations. The aforementioned microeconomic concepts play a major part in macroeconomic models – for instance, in monetary theory, the quantity theory of money predicts that increases in the money supply increase inflation, and inflation is assumed to be influenced by rational expectations. In development economics, slower growth in developed nations has been sometimes predicted because of the declining marginal returns of investment and capital, and this has been observed in the Four Asian Tigers. Sometimes an economic hypothesis is only qualitative, not quantitative.[96]
Expositions of economic reasoning often use two-dimensional graphs to illustrate theoretical relationships. At a higher level of generality, Paul Samuelson's treatise Foundations of Economic Analysis (1947) used mathematical methods to represent the theory, particularly as to maximizing behavioral relations of agents reaching equilibrium. The book focused on examining the class of statements called operationally meaningful theorems in economics, which are theorems that can conceivably be refuted by empirical data.[97]
Empirical investigation
Economic theories are sometimes tested empirically, largely through the use of econometrics using economic data.[98] The controlled experiments common to the physical sciences are difficult and uncommon in economics, and instead broad data is observationally studied; this type of testing is typically regarded as less rigorous than controlled experimentation, and the conclusions typically more tentative. Statistical methods such as regression analysis are common. Practitioners use such methods to estimate the size, economic significance, and statistical significance ("signal strength") of the hypothesized relation(s) and to adjust for noise from other variables. By such means, a hypothesis may gain acceptance, although in a probabilistic, rather than certain, sense. Acceptance is dependent upon the falsifiable hypothesis surviving tests. Use of commonly accepted methods need not produce a final conclusion or even a consensus on a particular question, given different tests, data sets, and prior beliefs.
Criticism based on professional standards and non-replicability of results serve as further checks against bias, errors, and over-generalization,[99][95] although much economic research has been accused of being non-replicable, and prestigious journals have been accused of not facilitating replication through the provision of the code and data.[100] Like theories, uses of test statistics are themselves open to critical analysis,[101][102][103] although critical commentary on papers in economics in prestigious journals such as the American Economic Review has declined precipitously in the past 40 years.[104] This has been attributed to journals' incentives to maximize citations in order to rank higher on the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI).[105]
In applied economics, input-output models employing linear programming methods are quite common. Large amounts of data are run through computer programs to analyze the impact of certain policies; IMPLAN is one well-known example.
Experimental economics has promoted the use of scientifically controlled experiments. This has reduced long-noted distinction of economics from natural sciences allowed direct tests of what were previously taken as axioms.[106][107] In some cases these have found that the axioms are not entirely correct; for example, the ultimatum game has revealed that people reject unequal offers. In behavioral economics, psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky have won Nobel Prizes in economics for their empirical discovery of several cognitive biases and heuristics. Similar empirical testing occurs in neuroeconomics. Another example is the assumption of narrowly selfish preferences versus a model that tests for selfish, altruistic, and cooperative preferences.[108][109] These techniques have led some to argue that economics is a "genuine science.".[8]
Game theory
Game theory is a branch of applied mathematics that studies strategic interactions between agents. In strategic games, agents choose strategies that will maximize their payoff, given the strategies the other agents choose. It provides a formal modeling approach to social situations in which decision makers interact with other agents. Game theory generalizes maximization approaches developed to analyze markets such as the supply and demand model. The field dates from the 1944 classic Theory of Games and Economic Behavior by John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern. It has found significant applications in many areas outside economics as usually construed, including formulation of nuclear strategies, ethics, political science, and evolutionary theory.[110]
Economics and other subjects
Economics is one social science among several and has fields bordering on other areas, including economic geography, economic history, public choice, energy economics, cultural economics, and institutional economics.
Law and economics, or economic analysis of law, is an approach to legal theory that applies methods of economics to law. It includes the use of economic concepts to explain the effects of legal rules, to assess which legal rules are economically efficient, and to predict what the legal rules will be.[111][112] A seminal article by Ronald Coase published in 1961 suggested that well-defined property rights could overcome the problems of externalities.[113]
The relationship between economics and ethics is complex. Many economists consider normative choices and value judgments, like what needs or wants, or what is good for society, to be political or personal questions outside the scope of economics. Once a person or government has established a set of goals, however, economics can provide insight as to how they might best be achieved.
Others see the influence of economic ideas, such as those underlying modern capitalism, to promote a certain system of values with which they may or may not agree. (See, for example, consumerism and Buy Nothing Day.) According to some thinkers, a theory of economics is also, or implies also, a theory of moral reasoning.[114]
The premise of ethical consumerism is that one should take into account ethical and environmental concerns, in addition to financial and traditional economic considerations, when making buying decisions.
On the other hand, the rational allocation of limited resources toward public welfare and safety is also an area of economics. Some have pointed out that not studying the best ways to allocate resources toward goals like health and safety, the environment, justice, or disaster assistance is a sort of willful ignorance that results in less public welfare or even increased suffering.[115] In this sense, it would be unethical not to assess the economics of such issues. In fact, state agencies all over the world, including the federal agencies in the United States, routinely conduct economic analysis studies toward that end.
Energy economics relating to thermoeconomics, is a broad scientific subject area which includes topics related to supply and use of energy in societies. Thermoeconomists argue that economic systems always involve matter, energy, entropy, and information.[116]Thermoeconomics is based on the proposition that the role of energy in biological evolution should be defined and understood through the second law of thermodynamics but in terms of such economic criteria as productivity, efficiency, and especially the costs and benefits of the various mechanisms for capturing and utilizing available energy to build biomass and do work.[117][118] As a result, thermoeconomics are often discussed in the field of ecological economics, which itself is related to the fields of sustainability and sustainable development.
Georgescu-Roegen introduced into economics, the concept of entropy from thermodynamics (as distinguished from the mechanistic foundation of neoclassical economics drawn from Newtonian physics) and did foundational work which later developed into evolutionary economics. His work contributed significantly to bioeconomics and to ecological economics.[119][120][121][122][123]
Criticisms of economics
The dismal science is a derogatory alternative name for economics devised by the Victorian historian Thomas Carlyle in the 19th century. It is often stated that Carlyle gave economics the nickname "dismal science" as a response to the late 18th century writings of The Reverend Thomas Robert Malthus, who grimly predicted that starvation would result, as projected population growth exceeded the rate of increase in the food supply. The teachings of Malthus eventually became known under the umbrella phrase "Malthus' Dismal Theorem". His predictions were forestalled by unanticipated dramatic improvements in the efficiency of food production in the 20th century; yet the bleak end he proposed remains as a disputed future possibility, assuming human innovation fails to keep up with population growth.[124]
Some economists, like John Stuart Mill or Leon Walras, have maintained that the production of wealth should not be tied to its distribution. The former is in the field of "applied economics" while the latter belongs to "social economics" and is largely a matter of power and politics.[125]
In The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith addressed many issues that are currently also the subject of debate and dispute. Smith repeatedly attacks groups of politically aligned individuals who attempt to use their collective influence to manipulate a government into doing their bidding. In Smiths day, these were referred to as factions, but are now more commonly called special interests, a term which can comprise international bankers, corporate conglomerations, outright oligopolies, monopolies, trade unions and other groups.[126]
Economics per se, as a social science, does not stand on the political acts of any government or other decision-making organization, however, many policymakers or individuals holding highly ranked positions that can influence other people's lives are known for arbitrarily use a plethora of economic theory concepts and rhetoric as vehicles to legitimize agendas and value systems, and do not limit their remarks to matters relevant to their responsibilities.[127] The close relation of economic theory and practice with politics[128] is a focus of contention that may shade or distort the most unpretentious original tenets of economics, and is often confused with specific social agendas and value systems.[129]
In Steady State Economics 1977, Herman Daly points out the logical inconsistencies between the emphasis placed on economic growth and the energy and environmental realities confronting us.[130] Like Frederick Soddy, Daly argued that our preoccupation with monetary flows at the expense of thermodynamics principles misleads us into believing that technological advance is limitless, and that perpetual economic growth is not only physically possible, but morally and ethically desirable as well. In Wealth, Virtual Wealth and Debt, (George Allen & Unwin 1926), Frederick Soddy turned his attention to the role of energy in economic systems. He criticized the focus on monetary flows in economics, arguing that "real" wealth was derived from the use of energy to transform materials into physical goods and services. Soddy's economic writings were largely ignored in his time, but would later be applied to the development of biophysical economics and ecological economics and also bioeconomics in the late 20th century.[131]
Issues like central bank independence, central bank policies and rhetoric in central bank governors discourse or the premises of macroeconomic policies[132] (monetary and fiscal policy) of the States, are focus of contention and criticism.[133][134][135][136] Deirdre McCloskey, a longstanding critic of economics, claims that her criticisms have gone largely unheard over the years,[137] although her contention is controversial.[138]
Criticism of assumptions
Economics has been subject to criticism that it relies on unrealistic, unverifiable, or highly simplified assumptions. Regardless of whether they are mathematical assumptions, examples include the assumption of perfect information, with its corollaries of profit maximization and rational choices.[139] [140][141]
Mainstream economics is often criticized by heterodox economics, as well as some within the mainstream community, for its focus on formalized mathematical theorems and technique over content, and its relative lack of attention to institutions, uncertainty, and real world problems.[142][143] Heterodox schools have emphasized unquantifiable Knightian uncertainty, imperfect information, social institutions, and the enormous complexity of economic systems and agents. Although much of the most groundbreaking economic research in history involved concepts rather than math, today it is nearly impossible to publish a non-mathematical paper in top economic journals.[144] Disillusionment on the part of some students with neoclassical economics led to the post-autistic economics movement, which began in France in 2000.
David Colander, an advocate of complexity economics, has also commented critically on the mathematical methods of economics, which he associates with the MIT approach to economics, as opposed to the Chicago approach (although he also states that the Chicago school can no longer be called intuitive). He believes that the policy recommendations following from Chicago's intuitive approach had something to do with the decline of intuitive economics. He notes that he has encountered colleagues who have outright refused to discuss interesting economics without a formal model, and he believes that the models can sometimes restrict intuition.[145] More recently, however, he has written that heterodox economics, which generally takes a more intuitive approach, needs to ally with mathematicians and become more mathematical.[91] "Mainstream economics is a formal modeling field", he writes, and what is needed is not less math but higher levels of math. He notes that some of the topics highlighted by heterodox economists, such as the importance of institutions or uncertainty, are now being studied in the mainstream through mathematical models without mention of the work done by the heterodox economists. New institutional economics, for example, examines institutions mathematically without much relation to the largely heterodox field of institutional economics.
In his 1974 Nobel Prize lecture, Friedrich Hayek, known for his close association to the heterodox school of Austrian economics, attributed policy failures in economic advising to an uncritical and unscientific propensity to imitate mathematical procedures used in the physical sciences. He argued that even much-studied economic phenomena, such as labor-market unemployment, are inherently more complex than their counterparts in the physical sciences where such methods were earlier formed. Similarly, theory and data are often very imprecise and lend themselves only to the direction of a change needed, not its size.[146] In part because of criticism, economics has undergone a thorough cumulative formalization and elaboration of concepts and methods since the 1940s, some of which have been toward application of the hypothetico-deductive method to explain real-world phenomena.[147]
See also
- Lists
Notes
- ^ Harper, Douglas (November 2001). "Online Etymology Dictionary - Economy" (HTML). Retrieved on October 27, 2007.
- ^ a b Clark, B. (1998). Political-economy: A comparative approach. Westport, CT: Preager.
- ^ Robbins, Lionel (1945). An Essay on the Nature and Significance of Economic Science. London: Macmillan and Co., Limited., p. 16
- ^ Friedman, David D. (2002). "Crime," The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics. Accessed October 21, 2007.
- ^ The World Bank (2007). "Economics of Education." Accessed October 21, 2007.
- ^ Iannaccone, Laurence R. (1998). "Introduction to the Economics of Religion," Journal of Economic Literature, 36(3), pp. 1465–1495. Accessed October 21, 2007.
- ^ Nordhaus, William D. (2002). "The Economic Consequences of a War with Iraq", in War with Iraq: Costs, Consequences, and Alternatives, pp. 51–85. American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Cambridge, MA. Accessed October 21, 2007.
- ^ a b Lazear, Edward P. (2000). "Economic Imperialism". Quarterly Journal Economics 115 (1): pp. 99–994.
- ^ Becker, Gary S. (1976). The Economic Approach to Human Behavior. Links to chapter previews. University of Chicago Press.
- ^ Blaug, Mark (2007). "The Social Sciences: Economics," Microeconomics, The New Encyclopædia Britannica, v. 27, pp. 347–49. Chicago. ISBN 0852294239
- ^ Varian, Hal R. (1987). "Microeconomics", The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics, v. 3, pp. 461–63. London and New York: Macmillan and Stockton. ISBN 0-333-37235-2
- ^ Davis, John B. (2006). "Heterodox Economics, the Fragmentation of the Mainstream, and Embedded Individual Analysis,” in Future Directions in Heterodox Economics. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
- ^ James M. Buchanan (1987). "Opportunity Cost", The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics, v. 3, pp. 718–21.
- ^ The Economist's definition of Opportunity Cost
- ^ Groenewegen, Peter (1987). "Division of Labour", The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics, v. 1, pp. 901–05.
- ^ Johnson, Paul M. (2005)."Specialization," A Glossary of Political Economy Terms.
- ^ Yang, Xiaokai, and Yew-Kwang Ng (1993). Specialization and Economic Organization. Amsterdam: North-Holland.
- ^ Adam Smith, Biography: The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics: Library of Economics and Liberty
- ^ Cameron, Rondo (1993, 2nd ed.). A Concise Economic History of the World: From Paleolithic Times to the Present, Oxford, pp. 25, 32, 276–80.
- ^ Samuelson, Paul A., and William D. Nordhaus (2004). Economics,ch. 2, "Trade, Specialization, and Division of Labor" section, ch. 12, 15, "Comparative Advantage among Nations" section," "Glossary of Terms," Gains from trade.
- ^ Findlay, Ronald (1987). "Comparative Advantage", The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics, v. 1, pp. 514–17.
- ^ Kemp, Murray C. (1987). "Gains from Trade", The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics, v. 2, pp. 453–54.
- ^ Baumol, William J. (2007). "Economic Theory" (Measurement and ordinal utility). The New Encyclopædia Britannica, v. 17, p. 719.
- ^ Hicks, John Richard (1939). Value and Capital. London: Oxford University Press. 2nd ed., paper, 2001. ISBN 978-0198282693.
- ^ Brody, A. (1987). "Prices and Quantities", The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics, v. 3, p. 957.
- ^ Jordan, J.S. (1982). "The Competitive Allocation Process Is Informationally Efficient Uniquely." Journal of Economic Theory, 28(1), p. 1–18.
- ^ Cf. Barr (2004) pp. 72–79, whose list of market failures is melded with failures of economic assumptions, which are (1) producers as price takers (i.e. presence of oligopoly or monopoly; but why is this not a product of the following?) (2) equal power of consumers (what labour lawyers call an imbalance of bargaining power) (3) complete markets (4) public goods (5) external effects (i.e. externalities?) (6) increasing returns to scale (i.e. practical monopoly) (7) perfect information.
- ^ Stiglitz (2000) Ch.4, states the sources of market failure can be enumerated as natural monopolies, information asymmetries, incomplete markets, externalities, public good situations and macroeconomic disturbances.
- ^ Lippman, S. S., and J. J. McCall (2001). "Information, Economics of," International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, pp. 7480–7486. Abstract.
- ^ Laffont, J.J. (1987). "Externalities", The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics, v. 2, p. 263–65.
- ^ Blaug, Mark (2007). "The Social Sciences: Economics". The New Encyclopædia Britannicav. 27, p. 347. Chicago. ISBN 0852294239
- ^ Kneese, Allen K., and Clifford S. Russell (1987). "Environmental Economics", The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics, v. 2, pp. 159–64.
- ^ Samuelson, Paul A., and William D. Nordhaus (2004). Economics, ch. 18, "Protecting the Environment." McGraw-Hill.
- ^ http://www.eoearth.org/by/Topic/Ecological%20economics
- ^ "Environmental Economics". NBER Working Group Descriptions. National Bureau of Economic Research. Retrieved on 2006-07-23.
- ^ Colman, D and Young, T (1989) Principles of Agricultural Economics: Markets and Prices in Less Developed Markets and Prices
- ^ Coase, The Nature of the Firm (1937)
- ^ Freeman, R.B. (1987). "Labour Economics", The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics, v. 3, pp. 72–76.
- ^ Schmalensee, Richard (1987). "Industrial Organization", The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics, v. 2, pp. 803–808.
- ^ Ross, Stephen A. (1987). "Finance", The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics, v. 2, pp. 322–26.
- ^ NA (2007). "managerial economics". The New Encyclopaedia Britannica. Chicago: The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, v. 7, p. 757. ISBN 0852294239.
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References
- Nicholas Barr (2004) Economics of the Welfare State, 4th ed., Oxford University Press
- Joseph E. Stiglitz (2000) Economics of the Public Sector, 3rd ed., Norton Press
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