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SCARCE GOOD: 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).

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Lesson Contents
Unit 1: Instability
  • Overview
  • Business Cycles
  • Expansionary Good Times
  • Contractionary Bad Times
  • Unit 1 Summary
  • Unit 2: A Simple Cycle
  • Long-Run Trend
  • Contraction
  • Trough
  • Expansion
  • Peak
  • Unit 2 Summary
  • Unit 3: Measurement
  • Indicators
  • Leading
  • Coincident
  • Lagging
  • Unit 3 Summary
  • Unit 4: Causes
  • Complexity
  • Investment
  • The Process
  • Politics
  • The Process
  • Unit 4 Summary
  • Unit 5: Policies
  • Options
  • Expansionary
  • Contractionary
  • Unit 5 Summary
  • Course Home
    Business Cycles

    To purpose of this lesson is to examine the nature and causes of macroeconomic instability, which goes by the handy title business cycles. Business cycles are the recurring expansions and contractions of economic activity that generate the problems of unemployment and inflation. This lesson explores how business cycles can be stabilized with the goal of lessening unemployment and inflation.

    • The notion of business cycles is introduced in the first unit of this lesson, with an eye on what they are and why they are important to study.
    • The four components of a standard, simple business cycle -- expansion, peak, contraction, and trough -- are then presented and discussed in the second unit.
    • The third unit is devoted to several key measures of business cycle activity, especially leading, lagging, and coincident indicators.
    • A couple of the most often discussed causes of business-cycle instability -- investment and politics -- are discussed in the fourth unit.
    • The fifth unit closes out this lesson with an introduction to the expansionary and contractionary economic policies used to stabilize business cycles.

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    INVOLUNTARY EXCHANGE

    The process of unwillingly trading one valuable commodity (good, service, or resource) for another, usually prompted by the coercive powers of government. The key term is "unwillingly," which distinguishes involuntary exchanges from voluntary exchanges, such as those that are the foundation of market transactions.

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    APLS

    YELLOW CHIPPEROON
    [What's This?]

    Today, you are likely to spend a great deal of time strolling around a discount warehouse buying club seeking to buy either a package of blank rewritable CDs or yellow cotton balls. Be on the lookout for poorly written technical manuals.
    Your Complete Scope

    This isn't me! What am I?

    General Electric is the only stock from the original 1896 Dow Jones Industrial Average remaining in the current index.
    "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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