ECON 102 Final: Subject Expert 78 Page Final Exam Guide - Fall 2015

Microeconomics Multiple choice questions. Please answer all the questions.

1. Scarcity:
A. exists because resources are limited while human wants are unlimited.
B. means we are unable to have as much as we would like to have.
C. will likely be eliminated as technology continues to expand.
D. is not an issue addressed in economics.

2. People are forced to make choices because of:
A. unlimited wants and unlimited resources.
B. limited wants and unlimited resources.
C. unlimited wants and limited resources.
D. limited wants and limited resources.
E. irrational wants and limited resources.

3. Which of the following is closest to the definition of capital?
A. c and e.
B. c and d.
C. Tools, equipment, means of transportation
D. Factories and machinery.
E. Borrowed money.

4. Which one of the following is the most accurate definition of economics?
A. Economics is the study of stocks and bonds.
B. Economics is the study of how people allocate unlimited resources.
C. Economics is the study of how consumers choose to spend their income.
D. Economics is the study of how society chooses to allocate scarce resources.

5. The basic difference between macroeconomics and microeconomics is:
A. microeconomics concentrates on individual markets while macroeconomics focuses primarily on international trade.
B. microeconomics concentrates on the behavior of individual consumers while macroeconomics focuses on the behavior of firms.
C. microeconomics concentrates on the behavior of individual consumers and firms while macroeconomics focuses on the performance of the entire economy.
D. microeconomics explores the causes of inflation while macroeconomics focuses on the causes of unemployment.

6. Which of the following is not a resource?
A. Land.
B. Labor.
C. Money.
D. Capital.

7. Which of the following would an economist classify as capital?
A. 100 shares of Microsoft stock.
B. $50 bill.
C. credit card.
D. lawyer's personal computer.

8. Economics, according to its definition, studies how people:
A. earn and spend money.
B. invest in the stock and bond markets.
C. make choices in the face of scarcity.
D. supply goods in response to demand.

9. Which of the following is the best example of a microeconomic topic?
A. The impact that the money supply has on inflation.
B. The reasons for increases in the price of soft drinks.
C. The effect that federal budget deficits have on the interest rate.
D. The tradeoff between inflation and unemployment.

10. Which of the following is a macroeconomics topic?
A. Wages of textile workers in the Northeast.
B. The cost of producing 10,000 bookcases.
C. The economy's annual growth rate.
D. National demand for fish.
E. Effects of farm subsidies on food prices.

11. An economic theory claims that a rise in gasoline prices will cause gasoline purchases to fall, Ceteris paribus. The phrase "Ceteris paribus" means that:
A. other relevant factors like consumer incomes must be held constant.
B. the gasoline prices must first be adjusted for inflation.
C. the theory is widely accepted but cannot be accurately tested.
D. consumers' need for gasoline remains the same regardless of the price.

12. An economic model is:
A. a plastic scaled version of the economy.
B. a complete depiction of reality.
C. an abstraction from reality.
D. applicable to consumer behavior but not to producer behavior.
E. not an accepted tool of the economics profession.

13. Which of the following sayings best reflects the concept of opportunity cost?
A. "You can't teach an old dog new tricks."
B. "There is no such thing as a free lunch."
C. "I have a baker's dozen."
D. "There's no business like show business."

14. The opportunity cost of watching television is:
A. all of the alternative programs that appear on other stations.
B. zero because there is no money expenditure involved.
C. the alternative use of the time foregone by watching the program.
D. zero if it benefits you.

15. Which of the following does not illustrate opportunity cost?
A. If I study, I must give up going to the football game.
B. If I buy a computer, I must do without a 35" television.
C. More consumer spending now means more spending in the future.
D. If I spend more on clothes, I must spend less on food.

16. When deciding whether to buy a second car, marginal analysis indicates that the purchaser should compare the:
A. benefits expected from two cars with the cost of both.
B. additional benefits expected from a second car with the cost of the two cars.
C. dollar cost of the two cars with the potential income that the cars will generate.
D. additional benefits of the second car with the additional cost of the second car.

17. According to marginal analysis, you should spend more time studying economics if the extra benefit from an additional hour of study:
A. is positive.
B. outweighs the extra cost.
C. exceeds the benefits of the previous hour of study.
D. will raise your exam score.

Suppose that, instead of taking this test, you could either have worked and earned income or partied and had a pleasurable time. Your opportunity cost of taking the test is the

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QUESTION 2

A trend is

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QUESTION 3

A time-series graph measures

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QUESTION 4

Canada has nationalized health care, so that everyone, regardless of their ability to pay, has some access to health care. Based on this observation, Canada has decided that "everyone, regardless of their ability to pay" is the answer to what microeconomic question?

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QUESTION 5

As a shoe factory adds more workers, shoe production grows, reaches a maximum, and then shrinks. In a diagram that has the number of workers on the horizontal axis and the number of shoes on the vertical axis, the relationship between the number of workers and the number of shoes starts as ________ and then, after the maximum point, is ________.

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QUESTION 6

Microeconomics includes the study of the

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QUESTION 7

When Fresh Express Salads decides to mechanically pick all of its lettuce, it directly answers the ________ question.

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QUESTION 8

Proponents of cuts in income tax rates argue that when income tax rates are cut, workers have an incentive to increase their work hours. This argument is based on the assumption that

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QUESTION 9

A choice made by comparing all relevant alternatives systematically and incrementally is

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QUESTION 10

A normative statement

i. can be tested as to whether it is true or false.

ii. is considered negative.

iii. depends on a person's values.

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QUESTION 11

Normative statements

i. describe how the world is.

ii. describe how the world ought to be.

iii. depend on people's values and cannot be tested.

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QUESTION 12

In order to determine whether to major in economics, a rational individual compares the ________ of the decision.

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QUESTION 13

If x increases whenever y decreases, then x and y are

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QUESTION 14

Rational choice

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QUESTION 15

Scarcity results from the fact that

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QUESTION 16

When Delta decides to quit flying to Lithuania, it directly answers the ________ question.

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QUESTION 17

A normative statement

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QUESTION 18

Which of the following statements best describes the study of economics? Economics studies how

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QUESTION 19

Which of the following best defines economics?

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QUESTION 20

In economics, cost is ________, and benefit is ________.

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QUESTION 21

If Jessie studies economics for two hours instead of going to the movies with her friends, then

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QUESTION 22

Going skiing will cost Adam $80 a day. He also loses $40 per day in wages because he has to take time off from work. Adam still decides to go skiing.

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QUESTION 23

If a curve falls and then rises, it

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QUESTION 24

In 2003, Michael Jordan decided to retire from professional basketball. Which of the following was an opportunity cost of his decision?

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QUESTION 25

Which of the following statements is a normative statement?

1. According to a WSJ article, in Britain, drug companies are paying for nurses to study patient charts to identify people with chronic illnesses. "The nurses then recommend which patients should be called in for a check-up and perhaps prescribe new treatment. The work is part of what the industry calls "disease management programs," which the companies say improve care for people with illnesses like diabetes, asthma, or heart disease." Source: Jeanne Whalen, "Drug Makers Finance Nurses for U.K. Doctors." Wall Street Journal, 30 May 2007, Page B1. Which of the following best explains the actions of the drug companies? Select one:

a. Drug companies see this program as a way of educating patients about the various drug choices available to them

b. The companies see this program as a way to market their own products

c. The companies are committed to improving patient care in Britain

d. The companies are doing their part to ease the health care crisis in Britain

2. According to the economic way of thinking, Select one:

a. The value of a good is determined by the cost of the resources used to produce that good

b. A nation's wealth can be increased by shifting the production possibilities frontier inward.

c. Innovation makes it possible to produce good without giving up the production of another good

d. Costs are incurred when scarce resources are used to produce goods.

3. All of the statements are true about markets except Select one:

a. Markets excel at wealth creation because they often provide incentives for self-interested individuals to take socially beneficial actions

b. Markets function even without an administrator to coordinate the consumption and production plans of buyers and suppliers, respectively

c. The most equitable way to distribute goods and services is through markets

d. Markets are generally an efficient way to facilitate the exchange of goods, services, and resources

4. An institutional arrangement that provides people with opportunities and procedures for exchanging goods, services, and resources is called: Select one:

a. Barter

b. A social economy

c. Traded.

d. A market

5. Concerned that California's high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes were not operating at full capacity and therefore not easing congestion as much as they could. In 2006, California lawmakers authorized the state's Department of Motor Vehicles to distribute 85,000 stickers to owners of gasoline-electric hybrid cars. Which of the following are the consequences of this policy?

(i) The stickers increased the demand for hybrid vehicles that qualified for stickers. (ii) The price of hybrid vehicles increased. (iii) The HOV lanes became clogged with hybrid vehicles which further aggravated congestion. Select one:

a. (i) and (ii) only b. (i), (ii) and (iii) c. (ii) and (iii) only d. (i) only

6. Consider the following policy: To make sure that poor people receive emergency treatment, the U.S. government forces emergency rooms to offer free care to poor patients. Which of the following is a consequence of this policy? Select one:

a. Hospitals in poor neighborhoods are likely to close their emergency rooms because of the high cost of providing free treatment to poor patients

b. Hospitals will have to offer higher salaries to doctors and nurses to induce them to work in poor neighborhoods

c. More hospitals are likely to open emergency care facilities in poor neighborhoods because of increased demand

d. The wait time in emergency rooms will fall.

7. Consider the following three statements: (i) The slump in the housing market has led to an increase in unemployment in the housing construction market. (ii) The Federal Reserve decided to keep interest rates unchanged, motivated by the slump in the housing market. (iii) The California Air Resources Board passed a regulation requiring that 10% of all large automobiles sold in California from 2008 onward be zero-emissions vehicles: cars powered by electricity or alternative fuels like hydrogen. Which of the statements is a macroeconomics issue? Select one:

a. (ii) only b. (i), (ii) and (iii) c. (i) and (ii) only d. (ii) and (iii) only

8. Consider the following three statements: (i) The slump in the housing market has led to an increase in unemployment in the housing construction market. (ii) The Federal Reserve decided to keep interest rates unchanged, motivated by the slump in the housing market. (iii) The California Air Resources Board passed a regulation requiring that 10% of all large automobiles sold in California from 2008 onward be zero-emissions vehicles: cars powered by electricity or alternative fuels like hydrogen. Which of the statements is largely a microeconomics issue? Select one:

a. (i) and (iii) only b. None of the above statements is a microeconomics issue c. (iii) only d. (i) only

9. Consider the following two medical procedures for a particular chronic illness. Procedure X has a very high patient survival rate, but patients are likely to suffer significant brain damage that greatly diminishes one's quality of life. Procedure Y has a much lower survival rate, but if a patient survives she is able to lead a full and normal life. If surgeons are compensated only if their patients survive, how will this policy affect the treatment for this illness?

Select one:

a. More of procedure X will be performed although patients are likely to suffer significant brain damage

b. Surgeons have no incentive to treat this illness

c. More of procedure Y will be performed because patients will able to lead full and normal lives

d. Patients have no incentive to seek treatment for this illness

10. Daikin, Possner, and Zoe are discussing what it means to say that people respond to incentives. Here is an extract from their conversation. Daikin: It means that people are required to behave in a cooperative fashion so that the citizens of a nation can coexist peacefully. Possner: It means that people act in ways that society approves. No rational person will do business with immoral characters. Zoe: It means that people undertake certain actions if they know that doing so will result in some form of material reward that they will not otherwise receive. Whose view accords with the economic way of thinking? Select one:

a. Only the views of Daikin and Zoe exhibit the economic way of thinking.

b. Possner's view is the only one that exhibits the economic way of thinking.

c. All three of their views exhibit an economic way of thinking.

d. Zoe's view is the only one that exhibits the economic way of thinking.