Abstract
Economics is the social science of making sufficient choices or decisions and studies how people interact in their society economically. This paper introduces the subject of economics and unfolds what it is all about. We live in a society where economics is a valuable need in order for us to understand and handle any problems that may occur in the future. The basic economic problem is scarcity, where people’s wants and needs are unlimited. Every time a need is satisfied, a new need is then created thus, creates the unlimited wants and needs of the human characteristic. The problem of scarcity results in allocation, which is the process of choosing needs that will be gratified and how many resources we will use in order to satisfy them. Because there are so many wants waiting to be satisfied, there are only so many resources to fulfill those wants. Limited resources are the condition of there not being enough resources to fulfill all wants and needs.
Introduction
Since economics is all about making choices, people must understand the cost and benefits of any choice in order to make competent choices. Opportunity cost and Opportunity benefits guide the decisions process of individuals and countries and determine the goods to which they are going to be produced. However, Opportunity cost is the option that you must give up when you make a choice, and opportunity benefit is what you gain by making a certain decision. An example of opportunity cost and opportunity benefit is assumed one night you have a stack of homework waiting for you to do, but when your parents get home, they demand that you go out with them to eat dinner and catch a flick afterward. Yet you really want to do your homework and study, but you give up your education time to spend the night with your parents. Your opportunity cost of this is what you give up, and that is your study time; however, you do gain a benefit from giving up your homework, and that is a movie and a casual dinner with your parents.
Every society has basic economic questions, and when responding to these questions, societies must balance the needs of individuals with the needs of society together. The subject Economics is divided into two separate branches: microeconomics which examines the choices of individuals regarding one product, one firm, or one industry, and macroeconomics examines the conduct of the whole economy at once. Everything in life has a theory; in economics, the importance of theory is a simplified description of reality. The economic theory helps to understand the economic systems, which are the combination of social and individual decision-making it uses to answer the three economic questions. Economist uses an ideological tool called a budget constraint that is the mixture of goods that can be acquired although it is given a limited amount of income. A person goes through life they will make economic decisions as a consumer, as a worker, and as a citizen that will make an understanding of economic theory an important part of everyday life. (Cubitt, 2005).
Countries such as the United States use a variance of approaches in order to answer the basic economic questions. A market economy is buyers and sellers and is the state of trade as determined by prices, supply, and demand. The question of what to produce is decided by individual consumers and producers in the marketplace by using the price system. A command economy is all about government planners deciding what is produced and available for sale. A traditional economy is where prices are set because of holidays. A mixed economy is a combination of a market, command, and traditional economy. Although the U.S. has a great economy, the main economic problem still lies in our hands. Scarcity and choice exist in all economies. However, like our society, other societies use different combinations of individual and social choices to allocate resources.
Modern Economics
Modern economics vs. political economy, as it used to be called-dates back to1776. It begins with the American Revolution. A man named Adam Smith, a Scottish philosopher, published a book called Smith’s work is considered the first example of modern economics. In some places, Smith is most famous for suggesting that businesses always try to monopolize markets and raise prices. Economists credit Adam Smith’s theory of the invisible hand – the idea that a market economy will operate so that no one can be made better off without making someone else worse off. It is as if an invisible hand is guiding the markets when in reality, the markets merely reflect the activities of those trading in them.
When prices for some widely consumed good or service surge or when some company s profits appear to reach stratospheric levels, the popular press seems to return to St. Augustine and ask what is the just price. Others maintain that economics began much, much earlier. Economics figures in most national elections. John Kennedy was elected during the recession that plagued the prior administration; the recession ended in the second month of Kennedy s term as he demonstrated a combination of timing and luck matched by few Presidents. Franklin D. Roosevelt s landslide victory in 1936-based on his efforts to turn back the Great Depression- set the course for the next several decades of U.S. politics. The economy is telling us what s happening and what could happen next. To understand the economy, you have to look at how the economy is measured, scaled, and gauged. How big, rich fast-growing it is. The economy in the United States and increasingly throughout the world is organized into markets. Markets are where we trade things- someone s labor, time, and effort for his wage; or hard-earned dollars for a car.
Markets are rather old-maybe as old as civilization itself. Markets are crucial to understanding the economy. They include much more than the stock market, although that one is quite interesting. Markets exist for almost anything-time and labor, art, cars, things we make, and services we buy. Most markets have common elements, patterns that make buying a car and getting a second opinion before surgery almost the same thing. As the axiom goes, the only constant changes. In the economy, changes occur all the time. They are what shift prices ad gives rise to opportunities.
Economics is the rules of the game, how we organize society. Most of what we see as important in everyday life is organized by the economy. On a day-to-day basis, economics has to do with what kind of job we have or don’t have; with how much money we can earn; with what things cost; with whether we can save and invest enough for a comfortable future; with how much we need tomorrow and with how well off our children will be in coming years. Economics is why we have jobs. Why we work, why we earn incomes, why money matters, and why markets are important. Economic ideas contribute to the way our society is organized. That the kind of organization we have today has evolved gradually doesn’t t make the principles behind it any less important. It evolved through history to the current arrangement and is still changing and evolving. The social fabric is always likely to be changing. Many of the principles behind the current organization depend on economics and include many ideas.
Principles of economics include Private property- we can own land, houses, tools, books, and all kinds of other goods and use them, or dispose of them, as we wish. Another is a job. We have jobs and earn income with our labor. Human rights-we do to own other people and don’t have pre-emptive rights to someone else s labor and property. Markets- the way we exchange private property or exchange labor for income is through a voluntary bargaining process called a market. We use money as a way to store wealth and to buy and sell things we own, including our own labor.
The thing that distinguishes markets and money from other elements of the economy is that they are a little more fundamental. In almost any society based on private property, both money and markets are present. Not much private property is needed to give rise to markets and money just enough so that people have some things to exchanges and need a way to keep track of how much money they have. Trading has been practiced since before recorded history. Ancient tribes traded with one another to get essential tools that were hard to make locally. (Samuelson, 2005) Today economist speaks of gains form trade.
The most misunderstood part of economics is in public debates. Recently the political arena has echoed with arguments over the budget deficit and the national debt. We hear every possible opinion, from claims that we are about to drown in our own red ink, to suggestions that we ignore the debt, to claims that cutting our taxes will lead to larger tax revenues for the government and a drop in the deficit. Some of these arguments are involved; the difference between the national debt and the budget deficit is rather straightforward. Each year the government collects taxes and spends money. When expenditures exceed revenues, the government is left with a gap. This gap is the deficit.
Expenditures cover a wide range of items, including social security benefits, Medicare and Medicaid payments, salaries of government workers, foreign aid, and government purchases from paper clips to jet planes. The numbers and reports on the national debt have another important complication. The government saves some revenues by investing them in Treasury bonds. Measurement of economics has a venerable history. For a long time, people thought the only thing to economics was measuring or counting. Forecasts almost always require numbers- at times to provide a forecast that really gets specific, at other times to make a vague forecast look specific enough to be worth paying for. (Fontaine, 2005) Sometimes economics drives the way we measure. As we look at the unemployment rate, deciding what we measure often involves understanding the economy and its various sectors and markets larger.
Some longer-term issues related to the deficit are also legitimate concerns. Over the last few decades, the proportion of total income that America saves and invests in forth future has declined. If we invest less today, there will be less wealth tomorrow. One reflection of the decline in savings is the rise of the deficit. Simply worrying about the deficit, some politicians argue, is the wrong response. Increasing savings is the right response. Japan, in its peak years of economic growth, had far more savings and a far larger than in the United States.
One of the more recent developments in mathematics, physics, and related sciences is a collection of studies alternately referred to as complexity theory, self-organization, and chaos theory. While some commentators may argue that economics has a special claim on chaos, there are interesting parallels between many of these studies and economics. (Keen, 2004) One of the ideas behind these theories is that at times a collection of objects- animals, computer programs, people, or almost anything else-will seem to become very well organized without any systematic communication or planning.
The economy surrounds us, and it plays a large part in our lives. It has more impact than the weather on how we live and how well we live. Economics runs through other parts of our lives as well. If the economy is in a recession or a depression, it hits a lot of people. The economy helps us keep track of the nation’s standing. The economic system has grown since Adam Smith s book. Right now, since the economy is good, it is easy to get jobs. During a recession or a depression, the economy is the indication of what is going wrong and what to fix. Everyday life is circled around the economy. The different kinds of markets provide a different understanding. The stock market also is an indicator of the economy. The stock market shows the sales and wealth of the different markets around our country. If the economy is good, we know it. It shows everywhere, and politicians don’t hesitate to base an election on how well they did or how awful the economy was under another politician. It will make or break the politician.
All of the businesses have common factors. They all provide products in the form of goods or services. For example, books, food, fitness training, utilities, etc., some of the products provided by businesses are needed by customers. They are, in essence, providing necessities, for example, basic food and clothing. Some businesses, on the other hand, provided products that customers can be persuaded to want through advertising. For example, luxury food, fashion clothing, or a holiday, etc. A business may therefore be defined as; an organization that provides goods or services which satisfy customer needs and wants.
Profit Maximisation
The objective of profit maximization brings with it an imperative question to be considered in great detail; should businesses maximize profits? Businesses have a social responsibility. They need to aim to reduce pollution, improve safety levels, and preserve jobs, etc. firms, in the effort to maximize profits, go against many social and ethical issues, for example, if materials needed by a firm can be found cheaper abroad, profit-maximizing firms will by from countries whose political regimes, the U.K. public may not approve of. It is argued, however, that in order to pay attention to aspects, such as pollution levels, and preservation of jobs, etc., the firm needs to be financially stable. In other words, they need to be making a profit. The importance of profit is just one aspect of the profit-maximizing position of a firm, which adopts the profit-maximizing objective. (Ernst, 2007).
In a short conclusion to the profit-maximizing objective of a firm, one might suggest that there is only one valid definition of a business’s purpose: to create a customer. Profits, then, are the results of being in business. They test how efficiently a business has created a customer in terms of the cost to the business in relation to the revenue gained through the customer.
The size of a firm displays a close correlation to sales revenue. As such, sales revenue is often considered a surrogate. It is said that although high levels of profit bring with it benefits to the owners or shareholders of a firm, high levels of sales revenue, on the other hand, brings with it benefits for managers, for example, higher levels of income.
One major difference to note between profit maximization and revenue maximization is the term to which the objectives are set. A firm whose overall objective is profit maximization is said to have such an objective set long term. In other words, the objective is hoped to be met over a five-year period. A firm whose overall objective, on the other hand, is revenue maximization, is said to have such an objective set short term, the objective is hoped to be met over a two-year period. (Fullbrook, 2004) Perhaps another significant difference to note is that of by whom such objectives have been set. Managers had both the ability and motivation to pursue objectives other than Profit Maximisation, and as we will see soon, this ability and motivation of firm’s managers extend to them being able to pursue Non-Maximising objectives, for example, Social Benefit. Similarly to Revenue Maximisation, controllers of a firm are more interested in objectives that satisfy them, such as Salary, prestige, and status, and job security. (MacKenzie, 2003).
As with those who commit to Revenue Maximising objectives, those who set Growth Maximisation as their objective do so with consideration of what growth the owners in the firm want to see, such as profit, sales, and market share. These different sets of objectives are reconciled by concentrating on the growth of the size of the firm, which in turn will bring with it high salaries and status for managers and larger profits and market shares to keep the shareholders happy. As with the Profit Maximising objective, growth maximization has to limit factors or constraints, both managerial and financial. Finding a product or a market to expand can prove problematic to the management team of a firm. Having found an area of expansion, the management team also faces the limitation of remaining in control of such expansions.
In order to become a growth-driven company, investments need to be made. The funds required for such investments are ever-increasing and can be obtained by either internal investments by the use of retained profit, or external investments funded by borrowing, the latter creating further liabilities for the firm. (Amos, 1994) If either of the aforementioned means of investments is not closely controlled, the risk of either takeovers or shareholder revolt is increased, which intern would have a knock-on effect on the job security of management. Ensuring that the growth of demand is matched equally by the growth in capital supplied can satisfy the above constraints. Control of the leverage revenue will help to keep the level of borrowing in check. Control of the liquidity ratio can prevent a firm from becoming insolvent. Finally, via the retention ratio, profits can be distributed sufficiently in order to keep shareholders happy.
Social Benefit
Businesses have a significant contribution to social welfare; we visited this idea earlier when discussing the profit maximization objective of a firm, where one stated the importance of pollution reduction and job security etc. By paying attention to the social welfare of consumers and employees, those within firms will benefit. Namely, suppliers of capital, labor, and other resources that have in the past received substantial returns for their contribution to the improvement of social welfare. Consumers can also benefit where social benefit is the key objective of a firm, through increasing the quality and quantity of the goods and services available to them for consumption.
The public can, in many ways, be the backbone of a firm. They state that the very existence of certain firms is a result of public consent and that as such, those firms that are amongst the most successful tend to be those that exercise socially responsible behavior. It is said that Social Benefit is not a maximizing objective because, in order to be an objective, it would be required to be measurable. Rather, the social benefit is considered in terms of what combinations of goods and services should be produced? How many goods and services should be provided? And finally, how they should be distributed.
There are five main maximization objectives of a firm. You will have noticed throughout the descriptions a mention of the differentiation between managers and owners of a firm. Most large firms tend to be run by professional management teams rather than the owner of the firm. As such, conflicts in the interests or direction of the firm can and do happen. Such conflicts occur as a result of differences between the objectives of the owners and of the managers, also referred to as controllers. The main aim of the owner of a firm is that of maximization of the overall value of the firm, whether that is maintained through profit maximization, revenue maximization, management utility theory, company growth, or indeed social benefit.
The above conflicting interests of a firm’s progression can be better defined as the principal-agent problem, whereby objectives, different to those of the principle, also referred to as the owner, are pursued by the agent, also referred to as the controller or manager. The problem or conflict occurs when the principle has difficulty enforcing their contracts upon the agent or when the monitoring of the agent to verify that they are furthering the principle’s objectives becomes unjustifiably costly.
Conclusion
In economics, profits are not merely an objective; they are, in fact, the very reason for the existence of the business enterprise. The statement alone opens discussions regarding the existence of a firm. For Example, A charity shop, by its very nature, does not thrive on profit as a means of existence, rather, it relies on the generosity of the general public, and therefore it would be fair to suggest that the objective of most charity shops is a social benefit. The nature of a business, its size, location, and management model will all together determine the route to which the company wishes to follow. Thus the objectives it will set. When looking into any business, large or small, one will see that no single decision is clear, there are many clouds surrounding the smallest of decisions, and so the analysis of firms, and in particular, the objectivity of a firm, cannot be made in black and white, there is simply too much about the organization, macro and microeconomics, politics and social factors to consider, all of which are ever-changing.
References
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