Economics: Introduction & Property Rights

Rule of Law

A concept that those who govern are bound by the laws; no one is above the law.

Production Possibility Curve

A curve that shows the possible combinations of products that an economy can produce, given that its productive resources are fully employed and efficiently used.

Free Market

A market with few government restrictions on how a good or service can be produced or sold or on how a factor of production can be employed.

Efficiency

A measure of how well or how productively resources are used to achieve a goal.

Entrepreneur

A person who organizes, manages, and takes on the risks of a business.

Surplus

A situation in which quantity supplied is greater than quantity demanded.

Anarchy

Absence of law or government; chaos, disorder.

Trade off

Alternative that must be given up when one choice is made rather than another.

Socialism

An economic and governmental system based on public ownership of the means of production and exchange.

Capitalism

An economic system based on private ownership of capital

Mixed economy

An economic system that combines private and state enterprises.

Mixed Economic Market

An economic system that has aspects of Free and Command Markets.

Command/Planned economy

An economy in which production, investment, prices, and incomes are determined centrally by a government.

Tangible

Capable of being touched

Opportunity cost

Cost of the next best alternative use of money, time, or resources when one choice is made rather than another

5th Amendment

Criminal Proceedings; Due Process; Eminent Domain; Double Jeopardy; Protection from Self incrimination

Market economy

Economic decisions are made by individuals or the open market.

Traditional economy

Economic system that relies on habit, custom, or ritual to decide questions of production and consumption of goods and services

Prosperity

Good fortune and financial success.

Factors of Production

Land, labor, capital and entrepreneurship; the four groups of resources that are used to make all goods and services

Scarcity

Limited quantities of resources to meet unlimited wants.

Incentive

Motives producers and consumers to act a certain way.

Squatters

People who just pick unoccupied land as their own without paying for it.

Eminent Domain

Power of a government to take private property for public use.

Due Process of Law

Procedures established by law and guaranteed by the Constitution.

Economics

Study of how people and societies use limited resources to satisfy unlimited wants; the management of scarcity and choice.

Property rights

The ability of an individual to own and exercise control over scarce resources.

Underutilization

Using fewer resources than an economy is capable of using.

Economic questions

What to produce?; How to produce?; How much to produce?; and For whom to produce? are example of ____ questions

Rule of Men

doctrine that an individual or government may stand above the law, and rule according to personal whim or choice. The doctrine reflects the belief that standards of justice, equality and impartiality are subjective, not universal. This is the opposite of the rule of law.