经济学原理概念解释(海大双语)

1 Getting Started

Scarcity 【稀缺】

Scarcity is the condition that arises because wants exceeds the ability of resources to satisfy them. Faced with scarcity, we must make choices—we must choose among the available alternatives. The choices we make depend on the incentives we face.

Economics Defined【经济学定义】

Economics is the social science that studies the choices that individuals, businesses, governments, and entire societies make as they cope with scarcity, the incentives that influence those choices, and the arrangements that coordinate them.

Economics divides into two parts:【经济学分类】

1 Microeconomics: The study of the choices that individuals and businesses make and the way these choices interact and are influenced by governments.

2 Macroeconomics: The study of the aggregate (or total) effects on the national economy and the global economy of the choices that individuals, businesses, and governments make.

Two big economic questions:【两个经济学问题】

? How do choices determine what, how, and for whom goods and services get produced?? When do choices made in self-interest also promote the social interest?

A tradeoff【取舍】is an exchange—giving up one thing to get something else.

Opportunity cost【机会成本】is the best thing that you must give up to get something—the highest-valued alternative forgone.

Benefit【收益】is the gain or pleasure that something brings.

Benefit is measured by what you are willing to give up.

A rational choice【理性选择】is a choice that uses the available resources to best achieve the objective of the person making the choice.

A choice made at the margin【边际】is a choice made by comparing all the relevant alternatives systematically and incrementally.

Marginal Cost

Marginal cost【边际成本】is the opportunity cost of a one-unit increase in an activity. Marginal benefit【边际收益】is what you gain when you get one more unit of something.

An incentive【激励】is a reward or a penalty—a “carrot” or a “stick”—that encourages or discourages an action.

An economic model【经济学模型】is a description of some feature of the economic world that includes only those features assumed necessary to explain the observed facts.

Natural experiments【自然实验】: A situation that arises in the ordinary course of economic life in which the one factor of interest is different and other things are equal.

A statistical investigation looks for a correlation.

Correlation【相关性】is the tendency for the values of two variables to move together in a predictable and related way.

An economic experiment【经济学实验】puts people in a decision-making situation and varies the influence of one factor at a time to discover how they respond.

Disagreements that can’t be settled by facts are normative statements【模范性描述】—statements about what ought to be.

Disagreements that can be settled by facts are positive statements【实证性描述】—statements about what is.

5 Elasticities Of Demand And Supply

6 Efficiency And Fairness Of Markets

7 Government Actions in Markets

需求价格弹性

The price elasticity of demand is a measure of the responsiveness(响应能力) of the quantity demanded of a good to a change in its price when all other influences on buyer’s plans remain the same.

总收益

total revenue is the amount spent on a good and received by its sellers and equals the price of the good multiplied by the quantity of the good sold.

供给价格弹性

The price elasticity of supply is a measure of the responsiveness(响应能力) of the quantity supplied of a good to a change in its price when all other influences on sellers’ plans remain the same.

需求交叉弹性

the cross elasticity of demand is a measure of the responsiveness(响应能力) of the demand for a good to a change in the price for a substitute or complement when other things remain the same.

配置效率

Allocative efficiency is achieved when the quantities of goods and services produced are those that people value most highly.

边际收益

Marginal benefit is the benefit that people receive from consuming one more unit of the a good or service.

边际成本

Marginal cost is the opportunity cost of producing one more unit of a good or

service and is measured by the slope(斜率) of the production possibilities frontier.

有效配置

Efficient allocation is the highest-valued allocation. To find this allocation,we compare marginal benefit and marginal cost.

消费者剩余

Consumer surplus is the benefit from a good minus（减）the price paid for it,summed(合计) over the quantity consumed.

生产者剩余

Producer surplus is the price of a good minus（减）the marginal cost of producing it ,summed(合计) over the quantity produced.

无谓损失

Deadweight lost,which is the decrease in total surplus that results from an inefficient underproduction or overproduction,measures

the scale（规模）of the inefficiency.

价格上限

Price ceiling (is also called price cap)is a government regulation that places an upper（上面的）limit at price at which a particular good,service,or factor of production may be traded.

价格下限

A price floor is a government regulation that places a lower limit on the price at which a particular good,service,or factor of production may be traded.

8 Global Markets In Action

Comparative advantage(比较优势）:as a ability of a person can perform the activity at a lower opportunity cost than anyone else.

Tariff（关税）: is a tax on a good that is imposed by the importing country when an imported good crosses its international boundary.

Quota（配额）：is a quantitative restriction on the import of a good that limits the maximum quantity of a good that may be imported in a given period.

Subsidy(补贴）：is a payment by the government to a producer.

Dumping(倾销）：a foreign firm sells its exports at a lower price than its cost of production.

Rent seeking(寻租）：is lobbying and other political activity that seeks to capture the gains from trade.

9 Externalities Pollution Education And Health Care

Externality(外部性）：is a cost or a benefit that arises from production and that falls on someone other than the producer or a cost or a benefit that arises from

consumption and that falls on someone other than the consumer.

Marginal private cost(边际私人成本）：is the cost of producing an additional unit of a good or service that is borne by the producer of that goof or service

Marginal external cost(边际外部成本)：is the cost if producing an additional unit of a good or service that falls on people other than the producer

Marginal social cost(边际外部成本）：is the marginal cost incurred by the entire society by the producer and by everyone else on whom the cost falls--and is the sum of marginal private cost and marginal external cost.

(边际收益类似）

10 Production And Cost

Economic depreciation（经济折旧）：is the opportunity cost of the firm using capital that it owns.It is measured as the change in the market value of capital--the market price of the capital at the beginning of a period minus its market price at the end of a period.

The shot run(短期）：is the time frame in which the quantities of some resources are fixed.

The long run(长期）：is the time frame in which the quantities o all resources can be varied.

Marginal product(边际产量）：is the change in total product that results from a one-unit increase in the quantity of labor employed.

Increasing marginal returns(边际报酬递增）：when the marginal product of an additional worker exceeds the marginal product of the previous worker.

(递减类似）

Law of decreasing returns(边际报酬递减规律）：As a firm uses more of a variable factor of production, with a given quantity of fixed factors of production, the marginal product of the variable factor eventually decreases.

Total fixed cost(总固定成本）：is the cost of a firm’s fixed factors of production.

Total variable cost(总变化成本)：is the cost of a firm’s variable factor of production-labor.

(平均即是每一件的成本）

Marginal cost(边际成本)：is the change in total cost that results from a one-unit increase in output .

11Perfect Competition

A price taker【价格接收者】is a firm that cannot influence the price of the good or service that it produces.

A firm’s marginal revenue【边际收入】is the change in total revenue that results from a one-unit increase in the quantity sold.

The firm’s shutdown point【停业点】is the output and price at which price equals minimum average variable cost.

12Monopoly

A natural monopoly【自然垄断】exists when the technology for producing a good or service enables one firm to meet the entire market demand at a lower price than two or more firms could.

A legal monopoly【法律垄断】is a market in which competition and entry are restricted by granting of a public franchise, government license, patent, or copyright.

A single-price monopoly【单一价格垄断】is a firm that must sell each unit of its output for the same price to all its customers.

A price-discriminating monopoly【价格歧视垄断】is a firm that is able to sell different units of a good or service for different prices.

Rent seeking【寻租】is the act of obtaining special treatment by the government to create economic profit or to divert consumer surplus or producer surplus away from others.

Perfect price discrimination【完全价格歧视】extracts the entire consumer surplus by charging the highest price that consumers are willing to pay for each unit.

Regulation【规制】is the set of rules administered by a government agency to influence prices, quantities, entry, and other aspects of economic activity in a firm or industry.

Deregulation【解除规制】is the process of removing regulation on prices, quantities, entry, and other aspects of economic activity in a firm or industry.

Marginal cost pricing rule【边际成本定价规则】is a rule that sets price equal to marginal cost to achieve an efficient output.

Average cost pricing rule【平均成本定价规则】is a rule that sets price equal to

average total cost.

13Monopolistic Competition and Oligopoly

Product differentiation【产品差异】is making a product that is slightly different from the products of competing firms.

The four-firm concentration ratio【四企业集中率】is the percentage of the value of sales accounted for by the four largest firms in the industry.

The Herfindahl-Hirschman Index(HHI)【赫芬达尔-赫希曼指数】is the square of the percentage market share of each firm summed over the largest 50 firms in a market.

A firm has excess capacity【过剩生产力】if the quantity it produces is less that the quantity at which average total cost is a minimum.

A firm’s efficient scale【有效规模】is the quantity of production at which average total cost is a minimum.

A cartel【卡特尔协议】is a group of firms acting together to limit output, raise price, and increase economic profit.

A duopoly【双寡市场】is a market in which there are only two producers.

Game theory【博弈论】is the tool used to analyze strategic behavior—behavior that recognizes mutual interdependence and takes account of the expected behavior of others.

Prisoners’ dilemma【囚徒困境】is a game between two prisoners that shows why it is hard to cooperate, even when it would be beneficial to both players to do so.

A payoff matrix【收益矩阵】is a table that shows the payoffs for every possible action by each player given every possible action by the other player.

Nash equilibrium【纳什均衡】is an equilibrium in which each player takes the best possible action given the action of the other player.