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A n s w e r s t o t h e R e v i e w Q u i z Page 2 1. List some examples of the scarcity that you face. Examples of scarcity common to students include not enough income to afford both tuition and a nice car, not enough learning capacity to study for both an economics exam and a chemistry exam in one night, and not enough time to allow extensive studying and extensive socializing. 2. Find examples of scarcity in today’s headlines. A headline in The Sacramento Bee on May 6, 2014 was “Sleep Train Kicks Off Annual ‘Clothing Drive for Foster Kids’.†The story points out that these children face scarcity because “foster children typically arrive in a foster home with just the clothes on their back.†Accordingly, the charity group Sleep Train is looking for donations to provide foster children with more clothing, which means that the foster family will need to provide less clothing. 3. Find an example of the distinction between microeconomics and macroeconomics in today’s headlines. Microeconomics: On May 6, 2014 a headline in The New York Times was “Bayer Buys Merck’s Consumer Business for $14.2 Billion.†This story covers a microeconomic topic because it discusses how two pharmaceutical firms have decided to transfer ownership of the unit producing over-the-counter consumer products for Merck. Macroeconomics: On May 6, 2014, a headline in The Wall Street Journal was “U.S. Trade Gap Narrows as Demand Grows Here and Abroad.†This story covers a macroeconomic topic because it concerns the total amount of international trade in the entire economy. Page 7 1. Describe the broad facts about what, how, and for whom goods and services are produced. What gets produced is significantly different today than in the past. Today the U.S. economy produces more services, such as medical operations, teaching, and hair styling, than goods, such as pizza, automobiles, and computers. How goods and services are produced is by businesses determining how the factors of production, land, labor, capital and entrepreneurship, are combined to make the goods and services we consume. Land includes all natural resources, both renewable natural resources such as wood, and nonrenewable natural resources such as natural gas. Labor’s quality depends on people’s human capital. In the U.S. economy, human capital obtained through schooling has increased over the years with far more people completing high school and attending college than in past years. Finally, for whom are goods and services to be produced depends on the way income is distributed to U.S. citizens. This distribution is not equal; the 20 percent of people with the lowest income earn about 5 percent of the nation’s total income while the 20 percent of people with the highest incomes earn about 50 percent of total income. On the average, men earn more than women, whites more than nonwhites, and college graduates more than high school graduates.
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