Lecture 6: Introduction to basic
concepts
Preliminaries
,Economics
• Origin: Greek words oikos (house) and nomos (laws)
• Laws or rules related to house/ households
• Mankiw: “…households and economies have much in common.”
• Choice of HUL211
• Textbook definitions
• Adam Smith: an inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nation
• Marshall: study of man in the ordinary business of life
• Robbins: a science which studies human behavior as a relationship betwe
ends and scarce means
, Decision making
• People face trade-offs
• HUL211 and, say, HUL212; guns and butter
• Efficiency: getting maximum benefit from the scarce resources; Equity:
whether the benefits are uniformly distributed in the society
• There is always an opportunity cost
• Cost of the opportunity forgone/ next best alternative
• Studying and being in the job market
• People are rational
• People purposefully do the best they can to achieve their objectives
• Marginal benefits and marginal costs, airline pricing
• People respond to incentives
• Attendance policy at IIT, childcare experiment in Israel
• Tax policies
concepts
Preliminaries
,Economics
• Origin: Greek words oikos (house) and nomos (laws)
• Laws or rules related to house/ households
• Mankiw: “…households and economies have much in common.”
• Choice of HUL211
• Textbook definitions
• Adam Smith: an inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nation
• Marshall: study of man in the ordinary business of life
• Robbins: a science which studies human behavior as a relationship betwe
ends and scarce means
, Decision making
• People face trade-offs
• HUL211 and, say, HUL212; guns and butter
• Efficiency: getting maximum benefit from the scarce resources; Equity:
whether the benefits are uniformly distributed in the society
• There is always an opportunity cost
• Cost of the opportunity forgone/ next best alternative
• Studying and being in the job market
• People are rational
• People purposefully do the best they can to achieve their objectives
• Marginal benefits and marginal costs, airline pricing
• People respond to incentives
• Attendance policy at IIT, childcare experiment in Israel
• Tax policies
