ECON102 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Opportunity Cost, Marginal Utility, Marginal Cost

• School: University of Waterloo
• Department: Economics
• Course: ECON102
• Professor: Weihua Zhuang

Document Summary

Economics is the social science that studies the choices that individuals, businesses, governments make as they cope with scarcity and incentives that influence choices. Microeconomics is the study of choices that individuals and businesses make, the way those choices interact in markets and the influence of governments ex wages, prices. Macroeconomics is the study of the performance of the national and global economies. Deals with aggregates, or economy-wide measures ex inflation, national income, unemployment. Goods and services are the objects that people value and produce to satisfy human wants. Goods: physical items we are willing to pay for ex jeans, shoes, and cars. Services: tasks performed by others we are willing to pay for ex haircuts goals: can be individual or social in nature ex friendship, love, power production: any activity that results in the conversion of resources into goods and services. Main topics generating discussion and tension between self interest and social interest.