What Impact Does Scarcity Have on the Production, Distribution, and Consumption of Goods and Services?

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

What Impact Does Scarcity Have on the Production, Distribution, and Consumption of Goods and Services? Curriculum: 2009 Pequea Valley SD Curriculum PEQUEA VALLEY SD Course: Social Studies 12 Date: May 25, 2010 ET Topic: Foundations of Economics Days: 10 Subject(s): Grade(s): Key Learning: The exchange of goods and services provides choices through which people can fill their basic needs and wants. Unit Essential Question(s): What impact does scarcity have on the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services? Concept: Concept: Concept: Scarcity Factors of Production Opportunity Cost 6.2.12.A, 6.5.12.D, 6.5.12.F 6.3.12.E 6.3.12.E, 6.3.12.B Lesson Essential Question(s): Lesson Essential Question(s): Lesson Essential Question(s): What is the problem of scarcity? (A) What are the four factors of production? (A) How does opportunity cost affect my life? (A) (A) What role do you play in the circular flow of economic activity? (ET) What choices do I make in my individual spending habits and what are the opportunity costs? (ET) Vocabulary: Vocabulary: Vocabulary: scarcity, economics, need, want, land, labor, capital, entrepreneurship, factor trade-offs, opportunity cost, production markets, product markets, economic growth possibility frontier, economic models, cost benefit analysis Concept: Concept: Concept: Economic Systems Economic and Social Goals Free Enterprise 6.1.12.A, 6.2.12.A 6.2.12.I, 6.2.12.A, 6.2.12.B, 6.1.12.A, 6.4.12.B 6.2.12.I Lesson Essential Question(s): Lesson Essential Question(s): Lesson Essential Question(s): Which ecoomic system offers you the most What is the most and least important of the To what extent are the five characteristics of satisfaction? (A) economic and social goals? (A) free enterprise capitalism found in the U.S.? (A) Vocabulary: Vocabulary: Vocabulary: economic system, traditional economy, minimum wage, Social Security, inflation, voluntary exchange, free enterprise, private command economy, market economy, fixed income property rights, profit, profit motive, market capitalism, mixed economy, competition, consumer sovereignty, mixed socialism, communism free enterprise economy Page 1 of 2 Curriculum: 2009 Pequea Valley SD Curriculum PEQUEA VALLEY SD Course: Social Studies 12 Date: May 25, 2010 ET Topic: Foundations of Economics Days: 10 Subject(s): Grade(s): Additional Information: Attached Document(s): Page 2 of 2 Curriculum: 2009 Pequea Valley SD Curriculum PEQUEA VALLEY SD Course: Social Studies 12 Date: May 25, 2010 ET Vocab Report for Topic: Foundations of Economics Days: 10 Subject(s): Grade(s): Concept: Scarcity scarcity - economics - need - want - - Concept: Factors of Production land - labor - capital - entrepreneurship - factor markets - product markets - economic growth - Concept: Opportunity Cost trade-offs - opportunity cost - production possibility frontier - economic models - cost benefit analysis - Concept: Economic Systems economic system - traditional economy - command economy - market economy - market capitalism - mixed economy - socialism - communism - Concept: Economic and Social Goals minimum wage - Social Security - inflation - fixed income - Page 1 of 2 Curriculum: 2009 Pequea Valley SD Curriculum PEQUEA VALLEY SD Course: Social Studies 12 Date: May 25, 2010 ET Vocab Report for Topic: Foundations of Economics Days: 10 Subject(s): Grade(s): Concept: Free Enterprise voluntary exchange - free enterprise - private property rights - profit - profit motive - competition - consumer sovereignty - mixed free enterprise economy - Page 2 of 2 Curriculum: 2009 Pequea Valley SD Curriculum PEQUEA VALLEY SD Course: Social Studies 12 Date: May 25, 2010 ET Topic: Global Economics Days: 10 Subject(s): Grade(s): Key Learning: The new global economy is characterized with an increased emphasis on free enterprise, trade and economic integration. Unit Essential Question(s): Should the U.S. continue on its path toward supporting global standards of free trade and increased economic integration. Concept: Concept: Concept: Absolute and Comparative Barriers to International Trade Foreign Exchange and Trade Advantage 6.2.12.H Deficits 6.4.12.C, 6.2.12.L 6.4.12.A, 6.4.12.F Lesson Essential Question(s): Lesson Essential Question(s): Lesson Essential Question(s): Why is comparative advantage the basis for What is the argument between free trade Why has the value of the dollar been iternational trade? (A) and trade barriers? (A) decreasing? (A) Vocabulary: Vocabulary: Vocabulary: exports, imports, absolute advantage, PPF, tariff, quota, protective tariff, revenue tariff, foreign exchange, foreign exchange rate, comparative advantage, opportunity cost protectionists, free traders, infant industries fixed exchange rates, flexible exchange argument, most favored nation clause, rates, floating exchange rates, trade deficits, balance of payments, WTO, NAFTA trade surplus, trade-weighted value of the dollar Concept: Concept: Concept: Economic Development Achieving Economic The Transition to Capitalism 6.4.12.F Development 6.1.12.B 6.4.12.F Lesson Essential Question(s): Lesson Essential Question(s): Lesson Essential Question(s): What obstacles do developing nations face What avenues are open to help developing What recommendations would you have to that make economic growth difficult? (A) countries? (A) help communist countries move toward a more free enterprise system? (A) Vocabulary: Vocabulary: Vocabulary: developing country, primitive equilibrium, micro loan, IMF, World Bank, soft loan, capitalism, privatization, vouchers, Five- takeoff, crude birthrate, life expectancy, zero expropriation, free-trade area, customs Year Plan, Gosplan, collectivization, population growth, external debt, default, union, European Unon, euro, ASEAN, cartel perestroika, Great Leap Forward, solidarity, capital flight black market, capital-intensive, keiretsu, population density Page 1 of 2 Curriculum: 2009 Pequea Valley SD Curriculum PEQUEA VALLEY SD Course: Social Studies 12 Date: May 25, 2010 ET Topic: Global Economics Days: 10 Subject(s): Grade(s): Concept: Concept: Concept: Globalization: Characteristics Global Problems and Applying the Economic Way of and Trends Economic Incentives Thinking 6.2.12.L, 6.5.12.E 6.4.12.G, 6.5.12.E 6.3.12.D, 6.4.12.A, 6.4.12.C, 6.5.12.E Lesson Essential Question(s): Lesson Essential Question(s): Lesson Essential Question(s): Does globalization hurt or help the U.S. What are the negative effects of What changes would you make to our economy? (A) globalization on the environment? (A) current economic system and what economic goal would it support? (A) Vocabulary: Vocabulary: Vocabulary: globalization, multinational, outsourcing, scarcity, subsistence, renewable resource, cost-benefit analysis, opportunity costs, GATT, division of labor, comparative hydropower, biomass, gasohol, modified free enterprise economy advantage, European Coal and Steel nonrenewable resource, glut, pollution, acid Community, Free Trade Area of the rain, pollution permit Americas Additional Information: Attached Document(s): Page 2 of 2 Curriculum: 2009 Pequea Valley SD Curriculum PEQUEA VALLEY SD Course: Social Studies 12 Date: May 25, 2010 ET Vocab Report for Topic: Global Economics Days: 10 Subject(s): Grade(s): Concept: Absolute and Comparative Advantage exports - imports - absolute advantage - PPF - comparative advantage - opportunity cost - Concept: Barriers to International Trade tariff - quota - protective tariff - revenue tariff - protectionists - free traders - infant industries argument - most favored nation clause - balance of payments - WTO - NAFTA - Concept: Foreign Exchange and Trade Deficits foreign exchange - foreign exchange rate - fixed exchange rates - flexible exchange rates - floating exchange rates - trade deficits - trade surplus - trade-weighted value of the dollar - Concept: Economic Development developing country - primitive equilibrium - takeoff - crude birthrate - life expectancy - zero population growth - external debt - default - capital flight - Page 1 of 3 Curriculum: 2009 Pequea Valley SD Curriculum PEQUEA VALLEY SD Course: Social Studies 12 Date: May 25, 2010 ET Vocab Report for Topic: Global Economics Days: 10 Subject(s): Grade(s): Concept: Achieving Economic Development micro loan - IMF - World Bank - soft loan - expropriation - free-trade area - customs union - European Unon - euro - ASEAN - cartel - Concept: The Transition to Capitalism capitalism - privatization - vouchers - Five-Year Plan - Gosplan - collectivization - perestroika - Great Leap Forward - solidarity - black market - capital-intensive - keiretsu - population density - Concept: Globalization: Characteristics and Trends globalization - multinational - outsourcing - GATT - division of labor - comparative advantage - European Coal and Steel Community - Free Trade Area of the Americas - Concept: Global Problems and Economic Incentives scarcity - subsistence - renewable resource - Page 2 of 3 Curriculum: 2009 Pequea Valley SD Curriculum PEQUEA VALLEY SD Course: Social Studies 12 Date: May 25, 2010 ET Vocab Report for Topic: Global Economics Days: 10 Subject(s): Grade(s): hydropower - biomass - gasohol - nonrenewable resource - glut - pollution - acid rain - pollution permit - Concept: Applying the Economic Way of Thinking cost-benefit analysis - opportunity costs - modified free enterprise economy - Page 3 of 3 Curriculum: 2009 Pequea Valley SD Curriculum PEQUEA VALLEY SD Course: Social Studies 12 Date: May 25, 2010 ET Topic: Investment Days: 10 Subject(s): Grade(s): Key Learning: Wealth can grow with the benefits of time and compounding. Unit Essential Question(s): What is the best approach to long
Recommended publications
  • A Hayekian Theory of Social Justice
    A HAYEKIAN THEORY OF SOCIAL JUSTICE Samuel Taylor Morison* As Justice gives every Man a Title to the product of his honest Industry, and the fair Acquisitions of his Ancestors descended to him; so Charity gives every Man a Title to so much of another’s Plenty, as will keep him from ex- tream want, where he has no means to subsist otherwise. – John Locke1 I. Introduction The purpose of this essay is to critically examine Friedrich Hayek’s broadside against the conceptual intelligibility of the theory of social or distributive justice. This theme first appears in Hayek’s work in his famous political tract, The Road to Serfdom (1944), and later in The Constitution of Liberty (1960), but he developed the argument at greatest length in his major work in political philosophy, the trilogy entitled Law, Legis- lation, and Liberty (1973-79). Given that Hayek subtitled the second volume of this work The Mirage of Social Justice,2 it might seem counterintuitive or perhaps even ab- surd to suggest the existence of a genuinely Hayekian theory of social justice. Not- withstanding the rhetorical tenor of some of his remarks, however, Hayek’s actual con- clusions are characteristically even-tempered, which, I shall argue, leaves open the possibility of a revisionist account of the matter. As Hayek understands the term, “social justice” usually refers to the inten- tional doling out of economic rewards by the government, “some pattern of remunera- tion based on the assessment of the performance or the needs of different individuals * Attorney-Advisor, Office of the Pardon Attorney, United States Department of Justice, Washington, D.C.; e- mail: [email protected].
    [Show full text]
  • Public Goods in Everyday Life
    Public Goods in Everyday Life By June Sekera A GDAE Teaching Module on Social and Environmental Issues in Economics Global Development And Environment Institute Tufts University Medford, MA 02155 http://ase.tufts.edu/gdae Copyright © June Sekera Reproduced by permission. Copyright release is hereby granted for instructors to copy this module for instructional purposes. Students may also download the reading directly from https://ase.tufts.edu/gdae Comments and feedback from course use are welcomed: Global Development And Environment Institute Tufts University Somerville, MA 02144 http://ase.tufts.edu/gdae E-mail: [email protected] PUBLIC GOODS IN EVERYDAY LIFE “The history of civilization is a history of public goods... The more complex the civilization the greater the number of public goods that needed to be provided. Ours is far and away the most complex civilization humanity has ever developed. So its need for public goods – and goods with public goods aspects, such as education and health – is extraordinarily large. The institutions that have historically provided public goods are states. But it is unclear whether today’s states can – or will be allowed to – provide the goods we now demand.”1 -Martin Wolf, Financial Times 1 Martin Wolf, “The World’s Hunger for Public Goods”, Financial Times, January 24, 2012. 2 PUBLIC GOODS IN EVERYDAY LIFE TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION .........................................................................................................4 1.1 TEACHING OBJECTIVES: .....................................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Substitution and Income Effect
    Intermediate Microeconomic Theory: ECON 251:21 Substitution and Income Effect Alternative to Utility Maximization We have examined how individuals maximize their welfare by maximizing their utility. Diagrammatically, it is like moderating the individual’s indifference curve until it is just tangent to the budget constraint. The individual’s choice thus selected gives us a demand for the goods in terms of their price, and income. We call such a demand function a Marhsallian Demand function. In general mathematical form, letting x be the quantity of a good demanded, we write the Marshallian Demand as x M ≡ x M (p, y) . Thinking about the process, we can reverse the intuition about how individuals maximize their utility. Consider the following, what if we fix the utility value at the above level, but instead vary the budget constraint? Would we attain the same choices? Well, we should, the demand thus achieved is however in terms of prices and utility, and not income. We call such a demand function, a Hicksian Demand, x H ≡ x H (p,u). This method means that the individual’s problem is instead framed as minimizing expenditure subject to a particular level of utility. Let’s examine briefly how the problem is framed, min p1 x1 + p2 x2 subject to u(x1 ,x2 ) = u We refer to this problem as expenditure minimization. We will however not consider this, safe to note that this problem generates a parallel demand function which we refer to as Hicksian Demand, also commonly referred to as the Compensated Demand. Decomposition of Changes in Choices induced by Price Change Let’s us examine the decomposition of a change in consumer choice as a result of a price change, something we have talked about earlier.
    [Show full text]
  • Public Goods for Economic Development
    Printed in Austria Sales No. E.08.II.B36 V.08-57150—November 2008—1,000 ISBN 978-92-1-106444-5 Public goods for economic development PUBLIC GOODS FOR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT FOR ECONOMIC GOODS PUBLIC This publication addresses factors that promote or inhibit successful provision of the four key international public goods: fi nancial stability, international trade regime, international diffusion of technological knowledge and global environment. Each of these public goods presents global challenges and potential remedies to promote economic development. Without these goods, developing countries are unable to compete, prosper or attract capital from abroad. The undersupply of these goods may affect prospects for economic development, threatening global economic stability, peace and prosperity. The need for public goods provision is also recognized by the Millennium Development Goals, internationally agreed goals and targets for knowledge, health, governance and environmental public goods. Because of the characteristics of public goods, leaving their provision to market forces will result in their under provision with respect to socially desirable levels. Coordinated social actions are therefore necessary to mobilize collective response in line with socially desirable objectives and with areas of comparative advantage and value added. International public goods for development will grow in importance over the coming decades as globalization intensifi es. Corrective policies hinge on the goods’ properties. There is no single prescription; rather, different kinds of international public goods require different kinds of policies and institutional arrangements. The Report addresses the nature of these policies and institutions using the modern principles of collective action. UNITED NATIONS INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT ORGANIZATION Vienna International Centre, P.O.
    [Show full text]
  • Product Differentiation
    Product differentiation Industrial Organization Bernard Caillaud Master APE - Paris School of Economics September 22, 2016 Bernard Caillaud Product differentiation Motivation The Bertrand paradox relies on the fact buyers choose the cheap- est firm, even for very small price differences. In practice, some buyers may continue to buy from the most expensive firms because they have an intrinsic preference for the product sold by that firm: Notion of differentiation. Indeed, assuming an homogeneous product is not realistic: rarely exist two identical goods in this sense For objective reasons: products differ in their physical char- acteristics, in their design, ... For subjective reasons: even when physical differences are hard to see for consumers, branding may well make two prod- ucts appear differently in the consumers' eyes Bernard Caillaud Product differentiation Motivation Differentiation among products is above all a property of con- sumers' preferences: Taste for diversity Heterogeneity of consumers' taste But it has major consequences in terms of imperfectly competi- tive behavior: so, the analysis of differentiation allows for a richer discussion and comparison of price competition models vs quan- tity competition models. Also related to the practical question (for competition authori- ties) of market definition: set of goods highly substitutable among themselves and poorly substitutable with goods outside this set Bernard Caillaud Product differentiation Motivation Firms have in general an incentive to affect the degree of differ- entiation of their products compared to rivals'. Hence, differen- tiation is related to other aspects of firms’ strategies. Choice of products: firms choose how to differentiate from rivals, this impacts the type of products that they choose to offer and the diversity of products that consumers face.
    [Show full text]
  • Institutions and Economics of Water Scarcity and Droughts
    water Editorial Institutions and Economics of Water Scarcity and Droughts Julio Berbel 1 , Nazaret M. Montilla-López 1,* and Giacomo Giannoccaro 2 1 WEARE–Water, Environmental and Agricultural Resources Economics Research Group, Department of Agricultural Economics, Universidad de Córdoba, Campus Rabanales, Ctra. N-IV km 396, E-14014 Córdoba, Spain; [email protected] 2 Department of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, University of Bari “Aldo Moro”, 70126 Bari, Italy; [email protected] * Correspondence: [email protected] Received: 9 November 2020; Accepted: 17 November 2020; Published: 19 November 2020 1. Introduction Integrated water resources management seeks an efficient blend of all water resources (e.g., fresh surface water, groundwater, reused water, desalinated water) to meet the demands of the full range of water users (e.g., agriculture, municipalities, industry, and e-flows). Water scarcity and droughts already affect many regions of the world and are expected to increase due to climate change and economic growth. In this Special Issue, 10 peer-reviewed articles have been published that address the questions regarding the economic effects of water scarcity and droughts, management instruments, such as water pricing, water markets, technologies and user-based reallocation, and the strategies to enhance resiliency, adaptation to scarcity and droughts. There is a need to improve the operation of institutions in charge of the allocation and re-allocation of resources when temporal (drought) or structural over-allocation arises. Water scarcity, droughts and pollution have increased notably in recent decades. A drought is a temporary climatic effect or natural disaster that can occur anywhere and can be short or prolonged.
    [Show full text]
  • Principles of Economics1 3
    Income and working hours across time and countries Scarcity and choice: key concepts Decision-making under scarcity Concluding remarks and summary Principles of Economics1 3. Scarcity, work, and choice Giuseppe Vittucci Marzetti2 SCOR Department of Sociology and Social Research University of Milano-Bicocca A.Y. 2018-19 1These slides are based on the material made available under Creative Commons BY-NC-ND © 4.0 by the CORE Project , https://www.core-econ.org/. 2Department of Sociology and Social Research, University of Milano-Bicocca, Via Bicocca degli Arcimboldi 8, 20126, Milan, E-mail: [email protected] Giuseppe Vittucci Marzetti Principles of Economics 1/26 Income and working hours across time and countries Scarcity and choice: key concepts Decision-making under scarcity Concluding remarks and summary Layout 1 Income and working hours across time and countries 2 Scarcity and choice: key concepts Production function, average productivity and marginal productivity Preferences and indifference curves Opportunity cost Feasible frontier 3 Decision-making under scarcity Constrained choices and optimal decision making Labor choice Income effect and substitution effect Effect of technological change on labor choices 4 Concluding remarks and summary Concluding remarks Summary Giuseppe Vittucci Marzetti Principles of Economics 2/26 Income and working hours across time and countries Scarcity and choice: key concepts Decision-making under scarcity Concluding remarks and summary Income and free time across countries Figure: Annual hours of free time per worker and income (2013) Giuseppe Vittucci Marzetti Principles of Economics 3/26 Income and working hours across time and countries Scarcity and choice: key concepts Decision-making under scarcity Concluding remarks and summary Income and working hours across time and countries Figure: Annual hours of work and income (18702000) Living standards have greatly increased since 1870.
    [Show full text]
  • AP Macroeconomics: Vocabulary 1. Aggregate Spending (GDP)
    AP Macroeconomics: Vocabulary 1. Aggregate Spending (GDP): The sum of all spending from four sectors of the economy. GDP = C+I+G+Xn 2. Aggregate Income (AI) :The sum of all income earned by suppliers of resources in the economy. AI=GDP 3. Nominal GDP: the value of current production at the current prices 4. Real GDP: the value of current production, but using prices from a fixed point in time 5. Base year: the year that serves as a reference point for constructing a price index and comparing real values over time. 6. Price index: a measure of the average level of prices in a market basket for a given year, when compared to the prices in a reference (or base) year. 7. Market Basket: a collection of goods and services used to represent what is consumed in the economy 8. GDP price deflator: the price index that measures the average price level of the goods and services that make up GDP. 9. Real rate of interest: the percentage increase in purchasing power that a borrower pays a lender. 10. Expected (anticipated) inflation: the inflation expected in a future time period. This expected inflation is added to the real interest rate to compensate for lost purchasing power. 11. Nominal rate of interest: the percentage increase in money that the borrower pays the lender and is equal to the real rate plus the expected inflation. 12. Business cycle: the periodic rise and fall (in four phases) of economic activity 13. Expansion: a period where real GDP is growing. 14. Peak: the top of a business cycle where an expansion has ended.
    [Show full text]
  • 1 Unit 4. Consumer Choice Learning Objectives to Gain an Understanding of the Basic Postulates Underlying Consumer Choice: U
    Unit 4. Consumer choice Learning objectives to gain an understanding of the basic postulates underlying consumer choice: utility, the law of diminishing marginal utility and utility- maximizing conditions, and their application in consumer decision- making and in explaining the law of demand; by examining the demand side of the product market, to learn how incomes, prices and tastes affect consumer purchases; to understand how to derive an individual’s demand curve; to understand how individual and market demand curves are related; to understand how the income and substitution effects explain the shape of the demand curve. Questions for revision: Opportunity cost; Marginal analysis; Demand schedule, own and cross-price elasticities of demand; Law of demand and Giffen good; Factors of demand: tastes and incomes; Normal and inferior goods. 4.1. Total and marginal utility. Preferences: main assumptions. Indifference curves. Marginal rate of substitution Tastes (preferences) of a consumer reveal, which of the bundles X=(x1, x2) and Y=(y1, y2) is better, or gives higher utility. Utility is a correspondence between the quantities of goods consumed and the level of satisfaction of a person: U(x1,x2). Marginal utility of a good shows an increase in total utility due to infinitesimal increase in consumption of the good, provided that consumption of other goods is kept unchanged. and are marginal utilities of the first and the second good correspondingly. Marginal utility shows the slope of a utility curve (see the figure below). The law of diminishing marginal utility (the first Gossen law) states that each extra unit of a good consumed, holding constant consumption of other goods, adds successively less to utility.
    [Show full text]
  • Externalities and Public Goods Introduction 17
    17 Externalities and Public Goods Introduction 17 Chapter Outline 17.1 Externalities 17.2 Correcting Externalities 17.3 The Coase Theorem: Free Markets Addressing Externalities on Their Own 17.4 Public Goods 17.5 Conclusion Introduction 17 Pollution is a major fact of life around the world. • The United States has areas (notably urban) struggling with air quality; the health costs are estimated at more than $100 billion per year. • Much pollution is due to coal-fired power plants operating both domestically and abroad. Other forms of pollution are also common. • The noise of your neighbor’s party • The person smoking next to you • The mess in someone’s lawn Introduction 17 These outcomes are evidence of a market failure. • Markets are efficient when all transactions that positively benefit society take place. • An efficient market takes all costs and benefits, both private and social, into account. • Similarly, the smoker in the park is concerned only with his enjoyment, not the costs imposed on other people in the park. • An efficient market takes these additional costs into account. Asymmetric information is a source of market failure that we considered in the last chapter. Here, we discuss two further sources. 1. Externalities 2. Public goods Externalities 17.1 Externalities: A cost or benefit that affects a party not directly involved in a transaction. • Negative externality: A cost imposed on a party not directly involved in a transaction ‒ Example: Air pollution from coal-fired power plants • Positive externality: A benefit conferred on a party not directly involved in a transaction ‒ Example: A beekeeper’s bees not only produce honey but can help neighboring farmers by pollinating crops.
    [Show full text]
  • Public Goods: Examples
    Public Goods: Examples The classical definition of a public good is one that is non‐excludable and non‐rivalrous. The classic example of a public good is a lighthouse. A lighthouse is: Non‐excludable because it’s not possible to exclude some ships from enjoying the benefits of the lighthouse (for example, excluding ships that haven’t paid anything toward the cost of the lighthouse) while at the same time providing the benefits to other ships; and Non‐rivalrous because if the lighthouse’s benefits are already being provided to some ships, it costs nothing for additional ships to enjoy the benefits as well. This is not like a “rivalrous good,” where providing a greater amount of the good to someone requires either that more of the good be produced or else that less of it be provided to others – i.e., where there is a very real opportunity cost of providing more of the good to some people. Some other examples of public goods: Radio and television: Today no one who broadcasts a radio or TV program “over the air” excludes anyone from receiving the broadcast, and the cost of the broadcast is unaffected by the number of people who actually tune in to receive it (it’s non‐rivalrous). In the early decades of broadcasting, exclusion was not technologically possible; but technology to “scramble” and de‐scramble TV signals was invented so that broadcasters could charge a fee and exclude non‐ payers. Scrambling technology has been superseded by cable and satellite transmission, in which exclusion is possible. But while it’s now technologically possible to produce a TV or radio signal from which non‐payers are excluded (so that it’s not a public good), it’s important to note that because TV and radio signals are non‐rivalrous, they are technologically public goods: it’s technologically possible to provide them without exclusion.
    [Show full text]
  • Globalization and Scarcity Multilateralism for a World with Limits
    NEW YORK UNIVERSITY CENTER ON INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION Globalization and Scarcity Multilateralism for a world with limits Alex Evans November 2010 NEW YORK UNIVERSITY CENTER ON INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION The world faces old and new security challenges that are more complex than our multilateral and national institutions are currently capable of managing. International cooperation is ever more necessary in meeting these challenges. The NYU Center on International Cooperation (CIC) works to enhance international responses to conflict, insecurity, and scarcity through applied research and direct engagement with multilateral institutions and the wider policy community. CIC’s programs and research activities span the spectrum of conflict insecurity, and scarcity issues. This allows us to see critical inter-connections and highlight the coherence often necessary for effective response. We have a particular concentration on the UN and multilateral responses to conflict. Table of Contents Globalization and Scarcity | Multilateralism for a world with limits Acknowledgements 2 List of abbreviations 3 Executive Summary 5 Part 1: Into a World of Scarcity 10 Scarcity Issues: An Overview 10 Why See Scarcity Issues as a Set? 17 Part 2: Scarcity and Multilateralism 22 Development and Fragile States 22 Finance and Investment 28 International Trade 36 Strategic Resource Competition 41 Conclusion 47 Endnotes 48 Bibliography 52 Acknowledgements This project would not have been possible without the generous financial assistance of the Government of Denmark, whose support is gratefully acknowledged. Alex would like to offer his sincere thanks to the Steering Group for the Center on International Cooperation’s program on Resource Scarcity, Climate Change and Multilateralism: the governments of Brazil, Denmark, Mexico and Norway; and William Antholis, David Bloom, Mathew J.
    [Show full text]