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March 8, 2026 

AmosWEB means Economics with a Touch of Whimsy!

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AR: The abbreviation for average revenue, which is the revenue received for selling a good, per unit of output sold, found by dividing total revenue by the quantity of output. Average revenue actually goes by a simpler and more widely used term... price. Average revenue is really a fancy-schmancy term for the price received by a seller for selling a good. However, using the longer term average revenue let's us see the connection with other terms, like total revenue, marginal revenue, and quantity.

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Lesson Contents
Unit 1: The Concept
  • A Definition
  • So What?
  • Unit 1 Summary
  • Unit 2: Resources
  • Factors
  • Working Together
  • Free or Scarce?
  • Comparisons
  • Unit 2 Summary
  • Unit 3: Opportunity Cost
  • The Concept
  • Economic Cost
  • Unit 3 Summary
  • Unit 4: College Cost
  • Out of Pocket
  • What Else?
  • Unit 4 Summary
  • Unit 5: THE Problem
  • No Free Lunch
  • Solutions?
  • Unit 5 Summary
  • Course Home
    Scarcity

    In this lesson you'll see why scarcity tends to make economists grumpy. You'll see that scarcity is a perpetual condition that exists because people have unlimited wants and needs, but limited resources. You'll also see how this scarcity problem underlies the common notion of cost, which is integral to the study of economics. The five units contained in this lesson provide a tour through the economic problem of scarcity.

    • The first unit, A Big Problem, examines the fundamental concept of scarcity -- the combination of limited resources and unlimited wants and needs -- that is virtually synonymous with the study of economics.
    • The second unit, Resources, discusses the four basic categories of limited resources -- labor, capital, land, and entrepreneurship -- which produce the goods that are used to satisfy unlimited wants and needs.
    • In the third unit, Opportunity Cost, we take a look at the notion of opportunity cost and see how it is related to the scarcity problem.
    • We then turn out attention in the fourth unit, College Cost, to a simple example of the explicit and implicit costs of attending college.
    • The fifth and final unit, THE Big Problem, in this lesson then ponders why scarcity is considered THE economic problem and provides a little insight into why economists are grumpy.

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    INCREASING RETURNS TO SCALE

    A given proportional change in all resources in the long run results in a proportional greater change in production. Increasing returns to scale exists if a firm increases ALL resources--labor, capital, and other inputs--by a given proportion (say 10 percent) and output increases by more than this proportion (that is more than 10 percent). This is one of three returns to scale. The other two are decreasing returns to scale and constant returns to scale.

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    APLS

    BROWN PRAGMATOX
    [What's This?]

    Today, you are likely to spend a great deal of time strolling around a discount warehouse buying club hoping to buy either a half-dozen helium filled balloons or a packet of address labels large enough for addresses of both the sender and the recipient. Be on the lookout for rusty deck screws.
    Your Complete Scope

    This isn't me! What am I?

    A lump of pure gold the size of a matchbox can be flattened into a sheet the size of a tennis court!
    "If you don't have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?"

    -- John Wooden, Basketball coach

    NE
    Nash Equilibrium
    A PEDestrian's Guide
    Xtra Credit
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