Economics, 14th edition
By Michael Parkin
Email: Richard@qwconsultancy.com
C h a p t e r
1
WHAT IS ECONOMICS?
The Big Picture Where we are going: After completing Chapter 1, the student will have a good sense for the range of questions that economics addresses and will be on the path towards an economic way of thinking. The students will begin to think of cost as a forgone alternative— an opportunity cost—and also about making choices by balancing marginal costs and marginal benefits. Chapter 2 reinforces the central themes of Chapter 1 by laying out a core economic model, the production possibilities frontier (PPF), and using it to illustrate the concepts of tradeoff and opportunity cost. Chapter 2 also provides a deeper explanation, again with a model, of the concepts of marginal cost and marginal benefit, beginning with the concept of efficiency, and concluding with a review of the source of the gains from specialization and exchange.
New in the Fourteenth Edition
When discussing the social interest and four major issues, the issue of financial instability has been replaced with a discussion of social interest issues surrounding the COVID pandemic. The emphasis in this discussion is that often self-interested decisions are not in the social interest (for example, whether to socially distance) so that rules governing behavior may need to be established. The last topic, dealing with Economists in the Economy, now includes a section covering the diversity challenge in economics. It points out that fewer women and minorities receive bachelor’s PhD degrees in economics than in STEM majors in general. It also discusses efforts being made to overcome this lack of diversity. The Economics in the News presenting Mark Zuckerberg’s vision to have the Internet available to the whole world has been eliminated to make room for the coverage of diversity in the profession. This important chapter is not one to gloss over as it lays down an important foundation that can be drawn from as you move through more specific applications later. Students relate well to the section on self and social interest which calls out issues of both efficiency and fairness and is great for class discussion. .
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CHAPTER 1
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