Nine Macroeconomic Reviews

1. America Is Considered a Rich Country because Americans Can Choose from an Abundance of Goods and Services. How Can There Be Scarcity in a Land of Abundance?

There can be scarcity in the United States, a land of abundance, because the United States is a market economy. One of the principles upon which free market economics is based is the concept of scarcity (Mastrianna & Hailstones, 1995).

It is assumed that insufficient resources exist with an economy to satisfy fully all demands of all economic actors. The price system within a free market economy is expected to address problems of scarcity, by restricting the ability to purchase. Thus, prices are an informal form of rationing in a free market economy. Price inflation is the operable function in such a situation.

Prices also function in a free market economy with respect to the theory of demand and consumer behavior. In this theory, consumer demand is defined as a function of the quantities of the goods and services that constitute an individual's consumption bundle. An individual's consumption bundle is determined by her or his willingness to trade one good for another, and this willingness is measured by use of the concept of marginal substitution. Price is one of the determining factors in substitution decisions. Price, in turn, is largely a function of the quantity of a product demanded and the quantity of the product supplied.

Scarcity has two components - consumer desires and consumer abili

Related Essays

THE BANK OF CANADA .... CENTRAL BANK This research reviews the history and .... by the occurrence of predetermined macroeconomic developments regulate .... and view a nine percent unemployment .... (2355 9 )

THE BRAZILIAN ECONOMY: A REVIEW This research reviews the economy of Brazil .... on a land occupation site, killing nine people, while .... Table 2 Brazil: Macroeconomic Aggregates As the data presented .... (3677 15 )

ollowing equation illustrates this point (Malinvaud, 1998). ? = (1 -- tG)a > a = (1 -- t)a, where a = unadjusted marginal propensity to consume, ? = adjusted marginal propensity to consume, t = unadjusted tax rate; and tG = adjusted tax rate. As the above equation indicates, the adjusted tax rate (which in this discussion is the tax rate following a tax reduction), because it is lower than the unadjusted tax rate (which is the tax rate prior to a reduction in taxes) has a smaller negative impact on the marginal propensity to consume. Therefore, according to macroeconomic theory (assuming that other elements of fiscal policy and monetary policy do not change) the tax reduction will lead to an increase in the marginal propensity to consume. Increasing the marginal propensity to consume can lead to different effects on an economy depending on the actual status of the economy (Malinvaud, 1998). This situation explains why it is important to correctly adduce the state economy when and if a tax reduction is implemented. If the economy is in recession, a net tax reduction can stimulate both national income and employment levels, which will bring the economy out of recession (Malinvaud, 1998). When an economy is growing but

Category: Economics - N