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DEMAND SPACE: The area on or beneath a demand curve. Buyers are willing and able to purchase any demand price-quantity demanded combination that places them on or below the demand curve, but not above. The reason is that the demand curve represents the maximum demand price for a given quantity demanded or the maximum quantity demanded for a given demand price.

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Lesson 3: Scarcity | Unit 3: Opportunity Cost Page: 9 of 17

Topic: The Concept <=PAGE BACK | PAGE NEXT=>

With limited resources and unlimited wants and needs, a lot of opportunities are forgone, a lot of alternatives can't be pursued. This is the idea of opportunity cost.

A definition:

  • Opportunity cost is the highest valued alternative foregone in the pursuit of an activity.
Three points related to this definition:
  • Foregone Alternative: Opportunity cost means NOT doing something else, not producing another good. Using resources to satisfy one want or need means they can't be used to satisfy another.
  • Highest Valued: Opportunity cost is all about giving up the best alternative possible, the most satisfying. Any activity has many alternatives. Opportunity cost is not all of these alternatives, only the most preferred, the highest valued.
  • Pursuit of an Activity: Using resources to produce goods that are consumed to satisfy wants and needs. The key economic activities foregone are production and consumption.

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DEADWEIGHT LOSS

The decrease in the sum of consumer surplus and producer surplus that results from the imposition of a tax. When a tax drives a wedge between demand price and supply price it disrupts what otherwise would be an efficient market equilibrium. Inefficiency arises because while a portion of the sum of consumer and producer surplus is merely transferred to government, a portion of this sum also disappears. The part that disappears is the deadweight loss and is an indicator of the inefficiency of the tax.

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Today, you are likely to spend a great deal of time visiting every yard sale in a 30-mile radius wanting to buy either pink cotton balls or a genuine down-filled comforter. Be on the lookout for cardboard boxes.
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The first U.S. fire insurance company was established by Benjamin Franklin in 1752 in Philadelphia.
"Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work."

-- Peter Drucker, management consultant

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