ECON102 Chapter 1: Chapter 1 Notes FULL lecture notes for Chapter 1

• School: University of Waterloo
• Department: Economics
• Course: ECON102
• Professor: Angela Trimarchi

Document Summary

Economics studies how: society manages its scarce resources, people use scarce resources to satisfy unlimited human wants. Also: economics is a social science. Economic resources: land: natural resources, labour: physical and mental efforts in production, capital: machinery, equipment, structures, entrepreneurship: puts together resources. People must make choices: making choices leads to costs! Opportunity costs includes direct costs and indirect costs: direct costs: out of pocket costs (explicit, indirect costs: not paid to anyone, but are still costs (implicit) Margins and incentives: choices are made at the margin and are influenced by incentives. Margins: a choice at the margin is a decision to engage in one more unit of an activity. Incentive: a motivation to perform a particular activity. Positive statement: a statement about what is, value free. Normative statement: a statement about what ought to be. Prof: angela trimarchi: based on value judgement. Model: a description of how cause and effect work in some part of the economy.