Government Failures, Rent Seeking, and Public Choice
Introduction Definitions and Basics ● Rent Seeking, by David R. Henderson, from the Concise Encyclopedia of Economics ● "Rent seeking" is one of the most important insights in the last fifty years of…
Market Failures, Public Goods, and Externalities
Introduction Definitions and Basics ● Definition: Market failure, from Answers.com ● An economic term that encompasses a situation where, in any given market, the quantity of a product demanded by consumers does not…
Roles of Government
Introduction Definitions and Basics ● Public Goods and Externalities, from the Concise Encyclopedia of Economics ● Most economic arguments for government intervention are based on the idea that the marketplace cannot provide public…
Fiscal Policy
Definitions and Basics ● Fiscal Policy, from the Concise Encyclopedia of Economics ● Fiscal policy is the use of government spending and taxation to influence the economy. When the government decides on the…
Income Inequality
Definitions and Basics ● Robert Frank on Inequality , podcast on EconTalk. November 15, 2010 ● Robert Frank of Cornell University talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about inequality. Is there a role…
Profit
Introduction ● Profits, from the Concise Encyclopedia of Economics ● Capitalists earn a return on their efforts by providing three productive inputs. First, they are willing to delay their own personal gratification. Instead…
Income Distribution
Introduction ● Income distribution refers to four different topics in economics. See also the related College Economics Topic, Income Inequality. When you look around you, it's obvious that some people are richer…
Economic Development
Introduction Definitions and Basics ● Third World Economic Development, from the Concise Encyclopedia of Economics ● The development experiences of Third World countries since the fifties have been staggeringly diverse—and hence very informative. Forty…
Productivity
Introduction Definitions and Basics ● Productivity, from the Concise Encyclopedia of Economics ● Productivity—the amount of output per unit of input—is a basic yardstick of an economy's health. When productivity is growing, living standards…
Environmentalism
Introduction Definitions and Basics ● Natural Resources, from the Concise Encyclopedia of Economics ● The earth's natural resources are finite, which means that if we use them continuously, we will eventually exhaust them. This…
