ECON 113A Lecture 8: Econ 113A History25 August 2014
11 Jan 2017
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Unattended consequences: doing something to achieve a goal and having unintended consequences. Example: seat belt laws causes less fatalities but raises number of accidents because drivers feel safer with seat belt on. Critical things of economists: too focused on theories and can be cavalier about historians, will use any data, does(cid:374)"t (cid:373)atte(cid:396) if it"s (cid:396)elia(cid:271)le o(cid:396) (cid:374)ot. The(cid:455) just (cid:449)a(cid:374)t so(cid:373)e data to test thei(cid:396) theo(cid:396)ies. Positi(cid:448)e (cid:894)fa(cid:272)tual (cid:272)lai(cid:373) a(cid:271)out (cid:449)hat is, (cid:449)as, (cid:449)ill (cid:271)e(cid:895) it"s a state(cid:373)e(cid:374)t a(cid:271)out (cid:396)ealit(cid:455) that does(cid:374)"t have any evaluation) can be true, false, or uncertain. Normative (value claim about what should have been) Example: slavery is bad and should have never happened. 1)scarcity (means of resources people use to attain their ends, not enough, has to be allocated, its inescapable) Opportunity costs: give up something to get another thing. All choices involve opportunity costs (best forgone alternative in terms of time and money). Incentives (tax on cigarettes, advertisements to sway people from smoking)
