Microeconomics Samuelson Essay

Explain how the cool head might provide the essential positive economic analysis to implement the normative value judgments of the warm heart. Do you agree with Marshall’s view of the role of the teacher? Do you accept his challenge? In order to achieve the ultimate goal of economic science which is to â€Å"improve the living conditions of people in their everyday lives† (*) a cool head attitude has the knowledge and wisdom acquired through a lifetime relation to the economic momentum. Balancing this with a warm heart compassion vision, and a willingness to improve society, is the most appropriate way to use certain economic models in order to acquire economic sustainability with social improvement. We agree with Marshall’s view which was conceived through a social corporate responsibility. We, as leaders, accept his challenge through developing projects which should be not only profitable but also socially accepted and with respect to the environment. Also, we should use our cool heads to objectively take challenges and make difficult decisions that will lead us to a prosperous society with a sustainable economic growth. Some scientists believe that we are rapidly depleting our natural resources. Assume that there have only two inputs (labor and natural resources) producing two goods (concerts and gasoline) with no improvements in society’s technology over time. A. Show what would happen to the PPF over time as natural resources are exhausted. B. How would invention and technological improvement modify your answer? On the basis of this example, explain why it is said that â€Å"economic growth is a race between depletion and invention. It is said that economic growth is a race between depletion and invention because the continuous use of the natural resources of a country will tend to deplete them, over a long period of time but in the contrary, the invention of new technologies can extend a country PPF – making a race between them, since both things usually happens at the same time. Chapter 2 1. Question 1 . – What determines the composition of national output? In some cases, w e say that there is â€Å"consumer sovereignty† meaning that consumers decide how to spend their income on the basis of taste and market prices. In other cases, decisions are made by political choices of legislatures. Consider the following examples: transportation, education, police, energy efficiency of appliances, health-care coverage, television advertising. For each, describe whether the allocation is by consumer sovereignty or by political decision. Would you change the method of allocation for any of these goods? National Output includes the total amount of goods and services that a country is capable to produce in a certain period of time. It is also known as the country? A country has the responsibility to decide what outputs to produce and in what quantity, how to produce them and for whom should they be produced. In a market society, the national output is influenced by consumer tastes and the resources and technology available in the country. On the other hand, governments may intervene to compensate for market failures that usually occurs inside a country, or to fund social programs. Here there are some examples that show mixed economies between consumer sovereignty and government interventions. Generally speaking transportation means are controlled by the private sector through companies that provide transportation services such as airlines, company taxis, trains, etc. Inside a country, there also exists public transportation for those people who can not afford the private one. In Peru, specially for the ground transportation, the government plays a fundamental role regulating tariffs, taxes and making sure we have a safe an organized transportation system in the country for the society. Education In a country generally exists public and private education. Usually, private schools tend to have a higher price but also delivering high quality and it is market driven. There are different private schools with different prices in the market. On the other hand, public education is provided by the government to lower socio economic levels in order to make education accessible to the whole population. Government applies procedures in order to maximize its quality. In Peru for example the government is trying to break the poverty cycle incentivizing the rural population to attend school through monetary allowances. There are also regulations in terms of the requirements asked for being a public teacher, the education syllabus of the country, etc. Police Police is a government regulated service to the population which is part of the arm forces of a country. Its function is to assure security to the population. However, in some countries where there is scarce resources allocated to this public entity, private police petrol are created. In Peru even in rural areas where police is not present, communities organize themselves to fight against crime. Energy efficiency of appliances Energy is a strategic scarce resource for a country. Therefore, the importance of having government regulations to control it, its tariffs while having private companies supplying the service in order to assure this service on the long term to the community. Health care coverage Health care is a private and public good also. Government provides health care services to the majority of the population by building public hospitals and providing insurance coverage programs. Usually private health care provides a higher quality service and is accessible to higher socio-economic levels of the population. Television advertising It is a consumer sovereignty good, driven basically by program ratings and market price. Usually, the government owns public television channels but even in those cases the advertising is not controlled. What government usually does is to control advertising of some products such as cigars, or the time and programs where you can advertise such products. Would you change the method of allocation for any of these goods? We would not change the method of allocation for any of the goods mentioned above. We think that in the examples mentioned, a mixed economy of public and private goods is the best to make services accessible to the whole population while having a market driven economy. However, if we customized this question to the Peruvian reality, we think that an example where government could intervene more is the banking regulations entity which should improve the credit policies in order to create a sustainable finance growth. 2. Question 3. – This chapter discusses many â€Å"market failures† areas in which the invisible hand guides the economy poorly, and describes the role of government. It is possible that there are, as well, â€Å"government failures† government attempts to curb market failures that are worse than the original market failures? Think of some examples of government failures. Give some examples in which government failures are so bad that it is better to live with the market failures than to try and correct them. A possible failure can be represented by a tax system that discourages private and foreign investments in the country that at the end will affect government’s income. Another example is a bad monetary policy in which inorganic emission of currency will impact over inflation rate dramatically, affecting purchasing power of nationals (Peru 1985) . During this time Peru suffered more than 7000% inflation generating scarcity of basic goods and creating a parallel black market. During this time, another bad example would be that the banking system was nationalized and generated a lack of confidence in the population towards the banking system, loosing a high percentage of the savings of the population decreasing the country’s investment.