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| study of how individuals and societies choose to use the scarce resources that nature and previous generations have provided |
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| the best alternatve that we give up when we make a choice / decision |
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| process of analyzing the additional or incremental costs or benefits arising from a choice or decision |
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| costs that cannot be avoided, regardless of what is done in the future, because they have already been incurred |
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| a market in which profit opportunities are eliminated almost instantaneously |
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the period in England during the late 18th and early 19th centuries, in which new manufacturing technologies and improved transportation gave rise to
(1) the modern factory system
(2) a massive movement of population from country to the cities |
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| branch of economics that examines the functioning of INDVIDUAL industries and the behavior of INDIVIDUAL decision-making units––that is, business firms and households |
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| the branch of economics that examines the economics behavior of AGGREGATES––income, employment, output, and so on––on a national scale |
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| an approach to economics that seeks to understand behavior and the operation of systems WITHOUT making judgments; describes what exists and how it works |
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| an approach to economics that analyzes outcomes of economic behavior, evaluates them as good or bad, and may prescribe courses of action; aka POLICY ECONOMICS |
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| the compilation of data that describe phenomena and facts |
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| a statement or set of related statements about cause and effect, action and reaction |
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| a format statement of a theory, usually a mathematical statement of a presumed relationship between 2+ variables |
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| a measure that can change from time to time or from observation to observation |
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| the principle that irrelevant detail should be cut away |
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| ceteris paribus / all else equal |
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| a device used to analyze the relationships between 2 variables while the values of other variables are held unchanged |
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| post hoc, ergo propter hoc |
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| "after this (in time), therefore because of this"; a common error made in thinking about causation––if Event A happens before Event B, it is not necessarily true that A casued B |
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| the erroneous belief that what is true for a part is necessarily true for the whole |
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| the collection and use of data to test economic theories |
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| in economics, allocative efficiency; an efficient economy is one that produces what people want at the least possible cost |
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| an increase in the total output of an economy |
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| a condition in which national output is growing steadily, w/ low inflation and full employment of resources |
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| Cartesian coordinate system |
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| method of graphing 2 variables that makes use of 2 perpendicular lines against which the variables are plotted |
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| a 2D representation of #s or data |
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| a relationship between 2 variables, X and Y, in which a decrease in X is associated with an increases in Y, and vice versa |
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| on a Cartesian coordinate system, the point at which the horizontal and vertical axes interact |
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| a relationship between 2 variables, X and Y, in which a increase in X is associated with an increases in Y, and vice versa |
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| measurement that indicates whether the relationship between variables is positive or negative and how much of a response there is in Y (variable on the vertical axis) when X (variable on the horizontal axis) changes |
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| graph illustrating how a variable changes over time |
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