Economics: the main terms and concepts
Some terms of economics define themselves. Microeconomics analyzes details of the economy, the bahaviour of individuals and businesses in a particular market or set of retailed markets. Macroeconomics analyzes relations among aggregates, such as total output, employment, money supply, and the price level.
What branch of economics analyzes employment?
Economics deals with the production, distribution and use of goods, including material goods or commodities and intangible goods or services. A good is a free good if there is so much of it that people can have all they want at zero price. Water in a mountain stream is an example. A good is an economic good if there is not enough of it for everyone to have all they want at zero price. Coffee on the supermarket shelf is an example. Economics deals only with scarce goods.
What good is an economic good?
The Western /American economy is usually called a private enterprise economy. Government produces some goods: police and fire protection, public education, streets and highways, but most goods are produced by private businesses. We use this term in a broad sense. A farm is a business. So is the office of a doctor, lawyer, or other professional person.
Why is the Western/American economy called ‘a private enterprise
economy’?
In order to carry on production, a business needs inputs, also called factors of production. The most important inputs are labour and capital, which have a special meaning in economics. Labour means any kind of physical or mental effort exerted in production. It includes the work of the corporation executive, lawyer, or college teacher as well as that of the farmer, salesclerk, or plumber.
What does a business need to carry on production?
The term ‘capital’ is especially confusing. In everyday speech it is often used to mean a sum of money representing the assets of a corporation or an individual. We say that a company has a capital of $52 billion or that a person is worth $200,000. Such sums of money are important; but when that is what we mean, we should be careful to say ‘financial capital’.
What term is especially confusing?
In economics the term ‘capital’ used alone means physical capital, or instrument of production. Machinery in an automobile assembly plant is capital. So is the building that houses the machinery. So is any building used for production: a department store, an office building, a hotel. Raw materials and semi-finished goods in the hands of producer are also capital. The factors of production are owned by individuals.
How is the term ‘capital’ understood in economics ?
Revise special words and expressions .
Give Russian equivalents of the following words and expressions: Microeconomics, intangible goods, aggregates, money supply, salesclerk, a lawyer, inputs, financial capital, a department store, to be worth $1, corporation executive, semi-finished goods, markets, the asset of a corporation.
Translate from Russian into English: Макроэкономика, поведение, частнопредпринимательский, общественное образование, скоростное шоссе, особое значение, сумма денег, оборудование, сырье, уровень цен, безработица.
Give synonyms for the following: Material goods, intangible goods, inputs, a sum of money, instruments of production.
Give antonyms for the following: A particular market, an economic good, physical capital, details of the economy.
Find proper definitions to the following terms:
Capital, good, labour, employment, business.
Any privately owned producing unit.
Human effort exerted in production.
Anything that gives satisfaction to a user.
Machinery, buildings and other produced means of production.
The number or percentage of people who are employed of nation’s total work force.
Finish the sentences given below.
Economics deals with the production....
Microeconomics analyzes details of...
Macroeconomics focuses on...
This science of economics is concerned with the facts ...
The economist looks at the totals...
Economists study ...
Scientists examine...(What? How?).
The scientist tries to describe ...(What? How?).
This fact explains ...
The term ‘labour’ defines ...
Use the underlined words and expressions in the sentences of your own.
Translate from Russian into English.
Адам Смит исследовал природу и причины благосостояния нации.
Микроэкономика рассматривает отдельные отрасли промышленности.
Люди зарабатывают деньги, чтобы приобрести товары первой необходимости и что-то для личного удовольствия.
Правительство производит такой товар, как защита от пожаров.
Ограниченные ресурсы создают определенные проблемы для предприятий и отдельных производителей.
Наука, которую мы называем экономикой, основывается на фактах нашей повседневной жизни.
Что мы называем экономической деятельностью?
Разве вы не знаете, что экономика - это политическая наука?
Здания, сырье и даже полуфабрикаты в руках производителя - это капитал.
Согласны ли вы с тем, что экономика-это образ мышления?
Word-formation.
Make new words with the help of different transformations. Use the following models as a guide.
Model I: V + er/or = N (to work - worker).
Model II: V + tion/sion/ion = N (to examine - examination)
Model III. N + al = Adj. (politics - political)
Model IV: N + ic = Adj.(atom - atomic)
Economy, economics, to produce, to distribute, geography, industry, to consume, nature, to use, nation, farm, to circulate, to found, government, to think, to explore, to decide, person, to generate, to relate, agriculture, to employ, to include, medicine, to teach, finance.
Make up sentences with some of the newly-formed words.
Guess the meaning of the underlined words and how they were formed.
LOCATION OF BRITISH INDUSTRY
Here is a brief description of the location of British industry, grouped according to broad geographical areas. London, situated at the head of ocean navigation on the Thames estuary, is Britain’s capital and main communication centre, one of the world’ s most important financial centre, one of the largest ports of the world. It has a working population of over five million, of whom nearly a half are in manufacturing industry. London is the main centre of clothing, and food and drink industries, of printing, of cinema film production, and of the manufacture of furniture, materials for the arts, precision instruments and many other specialised products.
The South Coast or the Cannel coast has been much developed for tourist traffic. Various types of services are offered here to travellers. Southampton is the largest port in Britain for ocean-going liners and its industries include ship repairing, oil refining and synthetic rubber.
East Anglia and Lincolnshire are the most productive agricultural regions. Midland is a vast industrial area with a wide variety of industry, including the manufacture of metals, electrical and engineering products of all kinds, and rubber products. The biggest industrial centres are Birmingham and Nottingham, with the richest coalfield in Britain and the highest output per man (i.e. per miner).
Manchester is the commercial hub of the cotton and man-made fibre textile industries. Liverpool is the second port of Britain, and, after London, the greatest centre of processing imported food-stuffs and raw materials. In Yorkshire 90 per cent of the United Kingdom’s worsted industry and the greater proportion of its woolen industry are found. Shipbuilders and marine engineers inhabit the area of Clydeside, Scotland, with the principal cities of Glasgow and Edinburgh.
Grammar revision: is or are ? Fill in the blanks.
1.Goods ... produced either on farms or in factories. 2. Economics ... concerned with all our material needs. 3. Expensive clothes ... made for rich customers. 4. Money ... needed to buy both essential and non-essential commodities. 5. The data on everyday life ... collected by economists in order to understand the economic system of which we ... part. 6. There ... two main branches of economics: microeconomics and macroeconomics. 7. Employment ... a concern not only of economists, but of politicians as well. 8. Raw materials and semi-finished goods in the hands of producer ... capital. 9. The term capital ... very confusing.
General topic revision: read the text, change Russian terms for their English equivalents, learn the text by heart.
(Экономическая система) is the mechanism through which the use of (труд, земля, природные ресурсы), structures, vehicles, equipment is organised to (удовлетворять желания) of those who live in (общество) . The rules, institutions, and traditions used to coordinate (экономическая деятельность) differ considerably among nations, but all societies must deal with similar economic issues.
The discipline of (экономическая теория) is concerned with the use of available (производственные ресурсы) in a society to satisfy what often are conflicting desires and (потребности) . Economics is concerned with choices: with (оценка и выбор среди альтернатив) , realising that each time we make a choice we also forgo an opportunity.
The economy is a dynamic, constantly changing mechanism. Natural resources, the supply of workers, managers, innovators, equipment, structures, and the amount of technical know-how available (производить полезные товары и услуги) are all in some way limited. The fundamental economic problem is (недостаток/нехватка/дефицит) , the imbalance between our desires and (средства) of satisfying those desires.
Economic analysis is divided into two main branches: (микроэкономика и макроэкономика) . Microeconomics takes a close-up view of the economy by concentrating on the choices made by individual participants in the economy, suсh as ( потребители, рабочие, управляющие предприятиями, и инвесторы) .(Макроэкономика) looks at the economy from a boarder perspective by considering its overall performance and the way various sectors of the economy relate to one another.
Choose one of the given topics and be ready to speak on it:
«Economics and Economy», «What economics is about?», «Macroeconomics and Microeconomics».
Read the following text and remember the most important facts given in this text.