GEO 702 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Market Structure, Barter, Heredity
• Economic Systems and their Relevance to Sustainability
• Introduction
•No e ill egage i a ost geeral otetual assoiatio ith production and
consumption patterns, before considering a summary of the major types of economic
systems, and then reviewing some new economic models, structures and approaches that
might be more compatible with sustainable development and a green economy.
• Whe e speak to eooi issues, development ill e stressed istead of growth.
Sustainability has 3 basis of pillar and when we talk about economic issues, which is one of
the three pillars, we are talking about the development and not the growth - we are not
thinking of population growth by itself because although the population is growing, this
population needs more food, water, housing, convenience etc so the growth itself is not
important but development and sustainability are the focus. So when we speak about
economic issues, instead of growth we are thinking about development -development
needs to be discussed more
• Definition of Economics
• •A soial siee that studies ho individuals, governments, firms and nations make
choices on allocating scarce resources to satisfy their unlimited wants.
Economics is a part of social science - economics studies how people, individuals such as
govts, companies/organizations are making choices about having and allocating scare
resources to fulfill/satisfy their unlimited wants. For ex: if you want to buy something you
need to have money but money can't always buy a service or good. For example:
happiness, skills: you want to pay piano, keyboard - you can't pay someone to learn these
skills immediately you need time and the ability to learn.
In terms of economics, there are some issues as you can't economically pay for everything
- you can't pay to be successful. One such issue is also climate change or global warming
because you by yourself can't do anything because it's a global issue. It is connected to
other people, nations, firms wtc and all as a whole must work together. When there is a
scare resource: ex there is no clean water, no sufficient clean air then even if you have
money, you can't pay someone money to give you clean air to breathe. So there are some
scare resources and economics focuses on them and economics talks about how these
issues can be related to the other to pillars; environment and social to get a sustainable
world.
• Economics can generally be broken down into:
It can generally be broken down into macro and micro economics.
• Macroeconomics: concentrates on the behavior of the aggregate economy.
Macro concentrates on behaviour as a whole. It looks as economics from the top as a
whole and the behaviour of the aggregate economy
• But micro economics focuses on individuals, on firms, on people and it it narrows down
economic issues into specific details
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Economic systems and their relevance to sustainability. Economics is a part of social science - economics studies how people, individuals such as govts, companies/organizations are making choices about having and allocating scare resources to fulfill/satisfy their unlimited wants. For ex: if you want to buy something you need to have money but money can"t always buy a service or good. For example: happiness, skills: you want to pay piano, keyboard - you can"t pay someone to learn these skills immediately you need time and the ability to learn. In terms of economics, there are some issues as you can"t economically pay for everything. One such issue is also climate change or global warming because you by yourself can"t do anything because it"s a global issue. It is connected to other people, nations, firms wtc and all as a whole must work together.
