| |
| |
| |
| Introduction | |
| |
| |
| |
| How Much for a Life? Try $3 Million to $5 Million | |
| |
| |
| |
| The New York Times, January 29, 1995 A great deal of economic reasoning is based on the opportunity cost principle—the idea that any decision involving scarce resources must involve costs in terms of forgone alternatives elsewhere | |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| Things That Every Economist Takes for Granted Could Help a Lot of Other People Avoid Some Costly Mistakes, Virginia Postrel, The New York Times, January 3, 2002 | |
| |
| |
| While most people think of economics as a field that studies the stock market and government policy, Virginia Postrel demonstrates how much richer and more insightful the subject is. The “economic way of thinking”—with its emphasis on such ideas as “the margin” and “cost-benefit reasoning”—could keep many individuals from making economic mistakes, if they would only take the time to learn about it | |
| |
| |
| |
| U.S. Is Far More Efficient Than in ’70s—But Also More Determined to Consume | |
| |
| |
| |
| The Christian Science Monitor, May 27, 2004 | |
| |
| |
| One of the major goals in economics is to achieve efficiency in the use of resources. In this article on the subject of automobiles and energy use, Kris Axtman maintains that the United States is far more efficient today than she was three decades ago | |
| |
| |
| |
| Counter-Terrorism: The Private Cost of More Security, Peter Navarro, Los Angeles Times, September 8, 2002 | |
| |
| |
| |
| The danger lies in a severe “productivity shock” that could lead to a gross national product trillions of dollars below what it otherwise would be | |
| |
| |
| |
| Microeconomics | |
| |
| |
| |
| Smoke Signals, The New York Times, New Jersey Sunday Edition, January 10, 1999 | |
| |
| |
| One of the more useful concepts in microeconomics is demand elasticity, which measures the responsiveness of consumer demand to changes in prices | |
| |
| |
| In 1998, the New Jersey legislature doubled the state cigarette tax in an effort to reduce smoking | |
| |
| |
| This article examines the impact that this has had on cigarette sales in both New Jersey and nearby states | |
| |
| |
| |
| The Core of the Problem: Three Hard Years Push West Michigan Apple Growers Out of the Business | |
| |
| |
| |
| The Grand Rapids Press, September 23, 2000 | |
| |
| |
| Increased global competition, plus smaller crops resulting from freezes and blights, have recently forced many apple growers out of business | |
| |
| |
| |
| Sour Times for Cranberry Growers | |
| |
| |
| |
| Agricultural markets, while not exactly perfectly competitive, display many of the characteristics of this sort of competition | |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| Is Wal-Mart Too Powerful?, Anthony Bianco and Wendy Zellner, Business Week, October 6, 2003 | |
| |
| |
| In business, there is big and there is Wal-Mart, the world’s largest company | |
| |
| |
| The authors show how the market power which Wal-Mart exerts depresses wages, dominates suppliers, polices the culture, and disrupts communities | |
| |
| |
| |
| Deregulation Harms Public, Group Claims, Marilyn Geewax, Atlanta-Journal Constitution, June 11, 2002 Consumer’s Union, the nonprofit consumer organization, once originally supported deregulation as a way to lower prices. However | |