SCARCE RESOURCE: A resource with an available quantity less than its desired use. Scarce resources are also called factors of production. Scarce goods are also termed economic goods. Scarce resources are used to produce scarce goods. Like the more general society-wide condition of scarcity, a given resource is scarce because it has a limited availability in combination with a greater (potentially unlimited) productive use. It's both of these that make it scarce. In other words, even though an item is quite limited it will not be a scarce resource if it has few if any uses (think pocket lint and free good).

     See also | scarcity | goods | services | factors of production | resources | market | exchange | price | opportunity cost | scarce good | free good | free resource |

SCARCE RESOURCE, AmosWEB GLOSS*arama, http://www.AmosWEB.com, AmosWEB LLC, 2000-2023. [Accessed: February 7, 2023].

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Economic profit, the difference between the total revenue received by a firm and the total opportunity cost of production, that is attributable to innovation, the initial application of new products, technologies, or ideas. Innovation profit is one of two sources of economic profit. The other is monopoly profit that arises due to market control. The generation of innovation profit is an important incentive that by rewarding individual innovative behavior enables society-wide benefits from the resulting innovations.

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Today, you are likely to spend a great deal of time at an auction trying to buy either hand lotion, a big bottle of hand lotion or a lighted magnifying glass. Be on the lookout for the last item on a shelf.
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