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February 9, 2010

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FAVORABLE BALANCE OF TRADE: An imbalance in a nation's balance of trade in which the payments for merchandise exports received by the country exceed payments for merchandise imports paid by the country. This is also termed a balance of trade surplus. It's considered favorable because more goods are exported out of the country than are imported in, meaning that foreign production is replaced with domestic production, which then increases domestic employment and income. A balance of trade surplus is often the source of a balance of payments surplus.

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DISMAL SCIENCE:

A term for the study of economics developed during the late 18th and early 19th century when economists concluded that continued population growth would push wages and living standards to a minimal subsistence level and keep them there. It persists to the present time because economics continue to point out that actions result in opportunity cost, that nothing is free, and that eventually society has to pay the price for what it does.

The notion that economics is a dismal science emerged out of the work of several late-18th and early-19th century scholars, most notably Thomas Malthus and David Ricardo.

As Malthus, Ricardo, and their contemporaries pioneered the development of the economics discipline, they pondered (among many things) topics like population, the supply of labor, and worker wages. In so doing, they concluded--erroneously as it turns out--that continued population growth would push wages and living standards to a minimal subsistence level and keep them there. According to these early economists, the prospects for humanity were bleak, miserable, and well... downright dismal.

Not Too Dismal

What they failed to adequately consider, however, were technology, capital investment, and limited population growth. Technological advances, by improving the quality of capital and increasing the skills of labor, made workers more productive, leading to increased wages and boosted living standards. Continued capital investment had a similar result. In addition, as living standards rose, people chose to have smaller families, which resulted in lower rates of population growth, which also led to increased wages.

Dismal Scarcity

Although the human condition is not nearly as bleak as anticipated by Malthus and Ricardo, economic dismality persists largely due to the persistent problem of scarcity. Combining unlimited wants and needs with limited resources means that everyone cannot have everything that they want. While politicians and others are fond of telling people what they can have, economists are generally in the position of telling people what they cannot have.

The bottom line is that the human condition can improve and living standards can rise, but complete utopia is unlikely.

<= DISINFLATION DISPOSABLE INCOME =>

Recommended Citation:

DISMAL SCIENCE, AmosWEB Encyclonomic WEB*pedia, http://www.AmosWEB.com, AmosWEB LLC, 2000-2010. [Accessed: February 9, 2010].

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