Key Questions:
- What is scarcity? Why does it exist? How is it relevant to economics?
- In economic terms, what are resources? Why are they important? What are the 3-4 broad categories of resources?
- What are the fundamental questions that an economic system must answer?
- How does real GDP differ from nominal GDP (conceptually)?
- How are the following different (in theory): capitalism, socialism, communism, Keynesianism?
- How does a free-market system differ from a centrally-planned system?
- What types of countries were originally classified into the categories of First-world, second-world, and third world? Why?
- How has the first-world, second-world, third-world classification system changed? What term & type of country has replaced the “second-world” classification? What does “third-world” now mean?
- How has the growth of incomes/wealth in Western Europe compared to growth in China throughout history?
- What characterized the period of 1950-1973 (rates of growth, location of fast-growing countries, types of economic policies pursued in first world in that era)?
- What characterized the period of late 1970’s to present (which parts of the world grew fast? which didn’t? types of economic policies pursued in the first world)?
- What views, theories, or policies were proposed and promoted by the following economists:
- Adam Smith
- John Maynard Keynes
- Karl Marx
- Nicolai Lenin
- Friedrich Hayek
- Milton Friedman
Important terms:
- resources
- public goods
- scarcity
- GDP
- real vs. nominal
- capital vs. consumer goods
- GDP per capita
- socialism
- capitalism
- communism
- Keynesianism
- feudalism and traditional economies
- mercantilism
- economic “golden age” in world growth
- institutions
- stagflation