🏷️ LIMITED TIME OFFER: GET 20% OFF GRADE+ YEARLY SUBSCRIPTION →
Log in
Economics
1
answer
0
watching
61
views

People often argue that economic rewards in society should be meritocratic, that is, that everyone should have an equal opportunity to get ahead, and those that do succeed because of their greater ability, hard work, and so on, should then be allowed to enjoy the full fruits of their labor. To accomplish this goal, what would have to be true about the variation in demand and supply curves for human capital among individuals in the population? What types of government policies regarding education might promote meritocracy?

Watch
1
answer
0
watching
61
views

For unlimited access to Homework Help, a Homework+ subscription is required.

Chika Ilonah
Chika IlonahLv10
28 Sep 2019

Unlock all answers

Get 1 free homework help answer.
Already have an account? Log in
Share

Related textbook solutions

Principles of Economics
2nd Edition, 2017
Openstax
ISBN: 9781947172364
Principles of Macroeconomics
2 Edition,
Openstax
ISBN: 9781947172388
Principles of Microeconomics
2 Edition,
Openstax
ISBN: 9781947172340

Related questions

Question 3

We saw in class that the same good can fall in different categories (public/private/club/common resource) depending on circumstances. An example of such a good would be watching a movie at the theater. If a lot of people want to watch it, the movie is a _________. If very few people want to watch it (to the point where a room could not even be filled), the movie is likely to be a _______.

A. a common resource; a public good

B. a public good; a common resource

C. a private good; a club good

D. a club good; a private good

3 points

Question 4

Which of the following statements about the free-rider problem is not true?

A. Individuals have an incentive to free-ride when the good is not excludable.

B. The kinds of goods for which the free rider problem arises are common resources and public good.

C. Markets for goods for which there is a free-rider problem are inefficient because not enough of the good is produced.

D. Goods for which the free-rider problem exists tend to be over provided relative to what would be optimal.

4 points

Question 5

To achieve the efficient provision of public goods, the

A. market should be allowed to operate without government intervention.

B. government must limit the provision of those goods.

C. government must tax producers of those goods.

D. government must either provide those goods or subsidize their production.

3 points

Question 6

Which of the following statements about public goods is not true?

A. Because people cannot be excluded from their consumption and thus have no incentive to pay for them, public goods are underprovided by the market.

B. Efficiency requires that the government provide or fund (subsidize) the provision of all public goods.

C. Efficiency requires that the government provide or fund only the public goods that create more benefits than costs to society.

D. In reality, it is hard to provide public goods efficiently.

3 points

Question 7

Public goods must be provided by the government as the market on its own will fail to provide them. However, even with government provision it is very hard to achieve efficiency. Why?

A. In reality, it is very hard (if not impossible) to accurately estimate the benefits of providing a public good.

B. A. In reality, there can be overruns in the cost of providing the public good.

C. Government decisions about which public goods to provide can be influenced by lobbying by interest groups.

D. All of the above are true.

4 points

Question 8

Which of the following is not a common resource?

A. congested roads

B. clean water

C. wild life, which hunters want to hunt and others want to view.

D. a fireworks display.

3 points

Question 9

Many species of animals must be protected by law to keep them from extinction. Why are cows not one of these endangered species even though there is such a high demand for beef?

A. Cows reproduce at a high rate and have adapted well to their environment.

B. Public policies protect cows from predators and diseases.

C. Cows are privately owned (private goods), whereas many endangered species are owned by no one (common resources).

D.There is a natural ecological balance between the birth rate of cows and human consumption.

3 points

Question 10

Which of the following statements about common resources is not true?

A. Due to the free-rider problem, common resources tend to be overused.

B. Because there is rivalry in the consumption of common resources, whenever one person uses a common resource it is imposing a negative externality on others who might also want to use it.

C. There are no private solutions to the management of common resources.

D. One of the solutions that ensures that common resources are properly managed is their privatization.

3 points

Question 11

In our analysis of the firm’s behavior and goals, when we talk about cost, we include _________, and when we talk about profit, we mean ________.

A. Explicit costs only; economic profit

B. Implicit costs only; economic profit

C. Implicit costs only; accounting profit

D. Explicit + implicit costs; economic profit

E. Explicit + implicit costs; accounting profit

3 points

Question 12

One of the differences between explicit and implicit costs is that

A. explicit costs must be greater than implicit costs.

B. explicit costs do not require a direct monetary outlay, whereas implicit costs do.

C. implicit costs do not require a direct monetary outlay, whereas explicit costs do.

D. implicit costs must be greater than explicit costs.

3 points

Question 13

Which of the following is FALSE:

A. If accounting profit is zero, then economic profit is negative

B. Economic profit takes cost the opportunity cost of time and capital into account

C. Economic Profit = Accounting Profit + Implicit Cost

D. Economic Profit = Accounting Profit – Implicit Cost

3 points

Question 14

Which of the following is an example of an implicit cost?

(i) the owner of a firm forgoing an opportunity to earn a large salary working in Wall Street

(ii) interest paid on the firm's debt

(iii) rent paid by the firm to lease office space

A. (ii) and (iii) only

B. (i) and (iii) only

C. (i) only

D. (iii) only

3 points

With the content of the videos/readings in mind, review the following messages about the company “Holiday Party.”….It is now December 18th and Noel Cringle, the VP of Marketing, was not copied on any of these messages. She found out today that Patty Lewis is in the hospital and was surprised. She has asked you to draft a 100 + word memo - be sure to limit your response to only what you find in the e-mails below. This memo should be addressed to all employees and cc'd to Noel Cringle. This memo should promote a positive and unbiased workplace compliant with Human Resource policies. You should not assume anything beyond what is listed in those e-mails. TO: All Employees DATE: December 1 RE: Christmas Party I’m happy to inform you that the company Christmas Party will be held on December 23rd starting at noon at The Grill House. There will be a cash bar and plenty of drinks! A small band will play traditional carols…feel free to sing-along. And don’t be surprised if our CEO shows up dressed as Santa Claus to light the Christmas tree. Exchanging gifts among employees can be done at this time. Please remember to keep gifts to the agreed $10 limit. The gathering is only for employees. Merry Christmas to you and yours, FROM: Patty Lewis, Human Resources Director ——————————————————————— After multiple incoming e-mails Patty responds: TO: All Employees DATE: December 4 RE: Christmas Party In no way was yesterday’s memo intended to exclude our Jewish employees. We recognize that Hanukkah is an important holiday which often coincides with Christmas. However, from now on we’re calling this party our “Holiday Party”. The same policy also applies to employees who are celebrating Kwanzaa at this time. There will be no tree or Christmas carols sung. Happy holidays to you and yours. FROM: Patty Lewis, Human Resources Director ——————————————————————— After multiple incoming e-mails Patty responds: TO: All Employees DATE: December 8 RE: Christmas Party Regarding the anonymous note I received from a member of Alcoholics Anonymous requesting a non-drinking table, I’m happy to accommodate your request but please remember that if I put a sign on the table that reads “AA Only” you won’t be anonymous any more. Forget about the gift exchange because union members feel that $10 is too much money and the executives believe $10 is a little cheap. NO GIFT EXCHANGE WILL BE ALLOWED. FROM: Patty Lewis, Human Resources Director ——————————————————————— After multiple incoming e-mails Patty responds: TO: All Employees DATE: December 10 RE: Christmas Party What a diverse group we are! I had no idea that December 20 begins the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which forbids eating and drinking during daylight hours. Perhaps the Grill House can hold off on serving your meal until the end of the party…. Meanwhile, I have arranged for members of Over-eaters Anonymous to sit farthest away from the dessert table and for pregnant members to sit closest to the restrooms. Low fat food will be available for those on a diet. We cannot control the salt used in the food. We urge those with high blood pressure to taste first. There will be fresh fruits as dessert for diabetics. Did I miss anything? FROM: Patty Lewis, Human Resources Director ———————————————————————– After multiple incoming e-mails Patty responds: TO: All Employees DATE: December 13 RE: Christmas Party People! People! Nothing sinister was intended by wanting our CEO to play Santa Claus. Even if “Santa” can be arranged to be “Satan” there is no evil connection to our own little “man in a red suit.” FROM: Patty Lewis, Human Resources Director ——————————————————————— After multiple incoming e-mails Patty responds: TO: All #%&$ing Employees DATE: December 16 RE: The #%&$! Christmas Party Vegetarians!!!! I’ve had it with you people!! We’re going to keep this party at the Grill House whether you like it or not. You can just sit at the table farthest from the “Grill of Death” as you so quaintly put it, and you’ll get your %$#&*$ salad bar only including organic tomatoes. But, tomatoes have feelings too, you know. They scream when you slice them. I can hear them now! I hope you have a rotten holiday. Drive drunk and die, you hear me???!! FROM: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!! ——————————————————————— TO: All Employees DATE: December 17 RE: Christmas Party I’m sure I speak for all of us in wishing Patty Lewis a speedy recovery. I’ll continue to forward your cards to her at the hospital. In the meantime management has decided to cancel the Holiday Party and give everyone the afternoon of the 23rd off with full pay. FROM: Terri Bishop, Acting Human Resources Director

WRITE a one-sentence summary of each essay and illustrate their relationship

The Undeserving Rich

By Paul Krugman
Published in the New York Times, Jan. 19, 2014

The reality of rising American inequality is stark. Since the late 1970s, real wages for the bottom half of the workforce have stagnated or fallen, while the incomes of the top 1 percent have nearly quadrupled (and the incomes of the top 0.1 percent have risen even more). While we can and should have a serious debate about what to do about this situation, the simple fact American capitalism as currently constituted is undermining the foundations of middle-class society shouldn't be up for argument.

But it is, of course. Partly this reflects Upton Sinclair's famous dictum: It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it. But it also, I think, reflects distaste for the implications of the numbers, which seem almost like an open invitation to class warfare or, if you prefer, a demonstration that class warfare is already underway, with the plutocrats on offense.

The result has been a determined campaign of statistical obfuscation. At its cruder end, this campaign comes close to outright falsification; at its more sophisticated end, it involves using fancy footwork to propagate what I think of as the myth of the deserving rich.

For an example of de facto falsification, one need look no further than a
recent column by Bret Stephens of The Wall Street Journal, which first accused President Obama (wrongly) of making a factual error, then proceeded to assert that rising inequality was no big deal because everyone has been making big gains. Why, incomes for the bottom fifth of the U.S. population have risen 186 percent since 1979!

If this sounds wrong to you, it should: that’s a nominal number, not corrected for inflation. You can find the inflation-corrected number in the same Census Bureau table; it shows incomes for the bottom fifth actually falling. Oh, and for the record, at the time of writing this elementary error had not been corrected on The Journal’s website.

O.K., that’s what crude obfuscation looks like. What about the fancier version?

I’ve noted before that conservatives seem fixated on the notion that poverty is basically the result of character problems among the poor. This may once have had a grain of truth to it, but for the past three decades and more the main obstacle facing the poor has been the lack of jobs paying decent wages. But the myth of the undeserving poor persists, and so does a counterpart myth, that of the deserving rich.

The story goes like this: America's affluent are affluent because they made the right lifestyle choices. They got themselves good educations, they got and stayed married, and so on. Basically, affluence is a reward for adhering to the Victorian virtues.

What’s wrong with this story? Even on its own terms, it postulates opportunities that don’t exist. For example, how are children of the poor, or even the working class, supposed to get a good education in an era of declining support for and sharply rising tuition at public universities? Even social indicators like family stability are, to an important extent, economic phenomena: nothing takes a toll on family values like lack of employment opportunities.

But the main thing about this myth is that it misidentifies the winners from growing inequality. White-collar professionals, even if married to each other, are only doing O.K. The big winners are a much smaller group. The Occupy movement popularized the concept of the 1 percent, which is a good shorthand for the rising elite, but if anything includes too many people: most of the gains of the top 1 percent have in fact gone to an even tinier elite, the top 0.1 percent.

And who are these lucky few? Mainly they're executives of some kind, especially, although not only, in finance. You can argue about whether these people deserve to be paid so well, but one thing is clear: They didn't get where they are simply by being prudent, clean, and sober.

So how can the myth of the deserving rich be sustained? Mainly through a strategy of distortion by dilution. You rarely see apologists for inequality willing to talk about the 1 percent, let alone the really big winners. Instead, they talk about the top 20 percent, or at best the top 5 percent. These may sound like innocent choices, but they're not, because they involve lumping in married lawyers with the wolves of Wall Street. The DiCaprio movie of that name, by the way, is wildly popular with finance types, who cheer on the title character another clue to the realities of our new Gilded Age.

Again, I know that these realities make some people, not all of them hired guns for the plutocracy, uncomfortable, and they'd prefer to paint a different picture. But even if the facts have a well-known populist bias, they're still the facts and they must be faced.

The False Income-Inequality Narrative

BY JASON L. RILEY

Published in the Wall Street Journal on Sept. 29, 2015

An enduring theme of the Democratic presidential race has been income inequality, coupled with an enduring belief that America’s affluent reached their status at the expense of the poor and the middle class.

Bernie Sanders speaks of little else on the stump. And when not busy dissembling on her handling of email correspondence at the State Department, Hillary Clinton will tell you that the “deck is still stacked in favor of those at the top.” If Joe Biden gets in, expect more of the same. The vice president is said to be contemplating a 2016 bid in large part because struggling middle-income families may have trouble relating to Mrs. Clinton on inequality given her high living since leaving the White House.

This theme, in any case, seems to resonate with voters, which is no huge shock in the sixth year of an economic recovery. Envy and resentment fuel class warfare and lackluster economic growth throughout the Obama presidency have made people less optimistic and more inclined to fault others for their circumstances. A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll this week reports that four-in-five Americans “were either angry because our political system seems to only be working for the insiders with money and power or anxious and uncertain. After all, the economy still feels rocky and unpredictable or both.

Liberals want to address income disparities through wealth redistribution”by taking money from more productive people and giving it to the less productive in the name of fairness as the left defines it. They want to raise income taxes, expand the welfare state, lift minimum wages, and strengthen the bargaining power of unions. Mr. Sanders has been the most explicit about this, even going so far as to propose a wealth tax. Our economic goals have to be redistributing a significant amount of [wealth] back from the top 1%, the senator said in July.

In reality, the left has overstated the problem. And all the focus on divvying up existing wealth instead of creating more risks making matters far worse for the people they are trying to help and the country in general. to the extent that the expanding welfare state allows more people to live without working and therefore without earning income or developing their own human capital supporters of the welfare state are contributing to the very income disparities they so much decry, writes economist Thomas Sowell in his new book, “Wealth, Poverty and Politics.”

Mr. Sowell is the author of more than 30 books over the past four decades, many having to do with what drives different social and economic outcomes among different groups in the U.S. and elsewhere. In his latest tome, he draws from this well of research to do what he has done so well for so long: question basic assumptions behind public policy and follow the facts where they lead him.

One common assumption is that proportionate or random outcomes are the natural order of things and that gaps or disparities are evidence of something wrong. In fact, huge disparities are the norm, not the exception, because the demographic, cultural, and political factors that influence the development of the human capital that makes people productive also tend to be unequal.

In 2013, only 9% of U.S. women with college degrees who gave birth were unmarried, versus 61% of women who were high-school dropouts and unmarried. Harvard's Robert Putnam reports that children from professional families will hear 19 million more words than their working-class peers before the first day of kindergarten.

These children don't have the same prospects. Equal opportunity, in the sense of being judged and rewarded by the same standards as others, cannot possibly mean equal life chances for children born and raised in these very different settings, writes Mr. Sowell. The fact that life is unfair is not the same as saying that a particular institution, or a particular society, is unfair.

The argument that social mobility is a thing of the past in the U.S. also is disputable. Longitudinal studies by the IRS and others that measure the progress of individuals over time show that the American dream is alive and well. One such paper, published by the Pew Charitable Trusts in 2012, measured “whether a person has more or less income, earnings, or wealth than his or her parents did at the same age and concluded that “the vast majority of Americans had higher incomes, while 50% had greater wealth.

In other studies, Pew has found generational stagnation but the authors have noted that it didn't apply to immigrants. If low-income immigrants can rise even when the native-born don't, writes Mr. Sowell, that strongly suggests that American society continues to offer opportunities to move up economically, but that not all groups make the same use of these opportunities.

Mr. Riley, a Manhattan Institute senior fellow and Journal contributor is the author of Please Stop Helping Us: How Liberals Make It Harder for Blacks to Succeed (Encounter Books, 2014).

Weekly leaderboard

Home
Homework Help 3,900,000
Economics 400,000
Start filling in the gaps now
Log in