经济学原理名词解释
CHAPTER 1
Scarcity : the limited nature of society’s resources.
Economics : the study of how society manages its scarce resources.
Efficiency : the property of society getting the most it can from its scarce resources.
Equity : the property of distributing economic prosperity fairly among the members of society. Opportunity cost : whatever must be given up to obtain some item. Marginal changes : small incremental adjustments to a plan of action.
Market economy : an economy that allocates resources through the decentralized decisions of many firms and households as they interact in markets for goods and services.
Market failure : a situation in which a market left on its own fails to allocate resources efficiently.
Externality : the impact of one person’s actions on the well-being of a bystander.
Market power : the ability of a single economic actor (or small group of actors) to have a substantial influence on market prices.
Productivity : the quantity of goods and services produced from each hour of a worker’s time. Inflation : an increase in the overall level of prices in the economy.
Phillips curve : a curve that shows the short-run tradeoff between inflation and unemployment. Business cycle : fluctuations in economic activity, such as employment and production.
CHAPTER 2
Circular-flow diagram : a visual model of the economy that shows how dollars flow through markets among households and firms.
Production possibilities frontier : a graph that shows the combinations of output that the economy can possibly produce given the available factors of production and the available production technology.
Microeconomics : the study of how households and firms make decisions and how they interact in markets.
Macroeconomics : the study of economy-wide phenomena, including inflation, unemployment, and economic growth.
Positive statements: claims that attempt to describe the world as it is.
Normative statements: claims that attempt to prescribe how the world should be. CHAPTER 3
Absolute Advantage : the comparison among producers of a good according to their productivity.
Opportunity Cost: whatever must be given to obtain some item.
Comparative Advantage : the comparison among producers of a good according to their opportunity cost.
Imports : goods produced abroad and sold domestically.
Exports: goods produced domestically and sold abroad.
CHAPTER 4
Market: a group of buyers and sellers of a particular good or service.
Competitive market: a market in which there are many buyers and many sellers so that each has a negligible impact on the market price.
Quantity demanded: the amount of a good that buyers are willing and able to purchase. Law of demand: the claim that, other things equal, the quantity demanded of a good falls when the price of the good rises.
Demand schedule: a table that shows the relationship between the price of a good and the quantity demanded.
Demand curve: a graph of the relationship between the price of a good and the quantity demanded.
Normal good: a good for which, other things equal, an increase in income leads to an increase in demand.
Inferior good : a good for which, other things equal, an increase in income leads to a decrease in demand.
Substitutes : two goods for which an increase in the price of one good leads to an increase in the demand for the other.
Complements : two goods for which an increase in the price of one good leads to a decrease in