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CAPITAL: One of the four basic categories of resources, or factors of production. It includes the manufactured (or previously produced) resources used to manufacture or produce other things. Common examples of capital are the factories, buildings, trucks, tools, machinery, and equipment used by businesses in their productive pursuits. Capital's primary role in the economy is to improve the productivity of labor as it transforms the natural resources of land into wants-and-needs-satisfying goods.
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Lesson Contents
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Unit 1: The Method |
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Unit 2: Theory |
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Unit 3: Verification |
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Unit 4: Science and Practice |
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Unit 5: Cause and Effect | |
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Economic Science
In this lesson you'll see why and how the scientific method is a process of discovery. You'll see that it's a process of building theories to explain the workings of the world (the economy) by proposing then testing hypotheses. The five units making up this lesson will guide you through the basics of the scientific method and how it's used in the study of economics. - The first unit, The Method, introduces the scientific method, especially its' four key components -- theories, principles, hypothesis, and data.
- The second unit, Theory, then takes a closer look at theories, including the central role played by abstraction.
- In the third unit, Verification, we focus on the process of verification -- how and why hypothesized relationships about the workings of the economy are compared with actual data.
- We then turn out attention in the fourth unit, Science and Practice, to a simple example of how the scientific method is used to test a hypothesized relation between course grades and where students are seated in a classroom.
- The fifth and final unit in this lesson, Cause and Effect, examines the role that cause and effect plays in the scientific method and economic science.
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INCREASING MARGINAL RETURNS In the short-run production by a firm, an increase in the variable input results in an increase in the marginal product of the variable input. Increasing marginal returns typically surface when the first few quantities of a variable input are added to a fixed input. This is one of two alternatives for marginal returns. The other is decreasing marginal returns. A related phenomenon for long-run production is increasing returns to scale.
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WHITE GULLIBON
[What's This?]
Today, you are likely to spend a great deal of time touring the new suburban shopping complex looking to buy either 500 feet of telephone cable or a package of 4 by 6 index cards, the ones with lines. Be on the lookout for slow moving vehicles with darkened windows.
Your Complete Scope
This isn't me! What am I?
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More money is spent on gardening than on any other hobby.
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"We succeed in enterprises (that) demand the positive qualities we possess, but we excel in those (that) can also make use of our defects." -- Alexis de Tocqueville, Statesman
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BPEA
Brookings Papers on Economic Activity
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