Economics 1021A/B Chapter Notes -Marginal Cost, Marginal Utility, Carbon Footprint

• School: Western University
• Department: Economics
• Course: Economics 1021A/B
• Professor: Jeannie A Gillmore

Document Summary

What we can get is limited by time, income and prices: everyone has some unsatisfied wants. We are limited by productive resources (nature, labour, tools, etc. ) Scarcity describes our inability to satisfy all of our wants: rich and poor alike deal with scarcity, child doesn"t have enough money to buy 2 toys, business woman cannot play golf and attend a meeting. Since we can"t have it all we must choose among available alternatives when faced with scarcity. Choices we make depend on incentive either a reward (encourages an action) or a penalty (discourages an action) Two main areas of economics: microeconomics: choices that individuals and businesses make, how these choices interact in markets, how they are influenced by governments, macroeconomics is the performance of national and global economies. Two big questions in economics: what, how and for whom goods and services are produced (influenced by choices, how do choices in pursuit of self interest promote social interest.