Chapter01-Economics and Economic Reasoning1-1CHAPTER ONEECONOMICS AND ECONOMIC REASONINGLearning ObjectivesAfter you teach the material in this chapter, your students should be able to do thefollowing:LO1.Defineeconomics andidentify its components.LO2.Discussvarious ways in which economists use economic reasoning.LO3.Explain real-world events in terms of economic forces, social forces, andpoliticalforces.LO4.Explainhow economic insights are developed and used.LO5.Distinguishamong positive economics, normative economics, and the art ofeconomics.Teaching ObjectivesTo help your students achieve the Learning Objectives above, you should anticipatecommon student difficulties with the material and be prepared to do the following:Defend the concept of scarcity. Many students might feel that the claim thatsociety has too few resources to satisfy all wants assumes that individuals arematerialistic or greedy. Think about approaching the constant evolution of ourwants and desires as a positive thing. (LO1)Link the concept of scarcity to the task of decision-making and coordination. Ifour resources are too few to satisfy our wants, then there is a problem to besolved: which wants will be satisfied and which ones won’t? This problem lies atthe heart of the three coordination problems covered in the chapter. (LO1 andLO2)Defend marginal benefit and marginal cost analysis as the way that individualsmake decisions. Students may think at first that they are being taught a new trickfor decision-making. However, this is not the case. Explain to them that, whetherconscious or not, this type of analysis already underlies all decision-making.(LO2)Connect the concept of opportunity cost with marginal benefit and marginal costanalysis. Economists focus not only on the costs and benefits of choosing acertain action, but also on the costs and benefits of choosing a certain actionPreview Mode
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