Economic as an academic discipline:
It’s not easy. Economic is a combination of math + statistic + economic. If physics is a mother of engineering, then economic is a mother of finance and majority of business concepts.
Economists study more than just GDP, inflation, stock, price, etc. Economic is a field that you can extend to study many many things. My professor for Price Theory class is now writing papers on homosexuality and family, vegetable and tokens, NBA racial discrimination. Behavioral Economic is a combination of Psychology and Economics. There are also many interesting field in economic such as urban economic, health economic, international economic, law economics.
Most people don’t think economic majors could find a job. Arg hem, Sheryl Sandberg! Well, With an economic degree you could be market analyst, finance analyst, data scientist, consultant- lots of research jobs. Economic major got paid pretty well.
The downside of the major: it’s either you’re done with a bachelor degree and try to find a job or you would go for a PhD. A Master degree in Economic is not really valuable for lots of people; sometimes it works for people like Warren Buffett but economic students often go all out for a PhD instead of a Master.
Interesting economists, their economic theory and books:
Adam Smith– “The Wealth of Nations”: He’s often considered the father of economic discipline. His theory was it works best if the market was a free market where price, supply, and demand could be influenced by “the invisible hands” (the incentive of suppliers and demanders). He also argued that nations would be better off if everybody can pursue their self-interest.
Thomas Malthus– “An Essay on the Principle of Population”: His theory was that population would increase as such rapid rate in the future to the point that there would not be enough food for the whole population.
David Ricardo– “On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation”: Free trade! If France is best at making wine, let the English trades their tea for some French wine and vice versa. Both countries would be better off by specialization.
John Stuart Mill– “Utilitarianism and Other Essays”: Utilitarianism. People act to produce their own best utilities (or happiness).
Alfred Marshall– “Principles of Economics”: Supply and Demand. He’s also famed for his ideas of marginal utility (as you consume more food, at some point you would like to stop because your utility is diminishing after you full).
John Keynes– A well-known macro-economist. He’s so good at it that his ideas became a branch of thought in economic. He studied cost, business cycle, free trade and various other things. One of his theory about cost is that when people get richer; They might consume less because some of them have the tendency to save money.
Milton Freeman– “Capitalism and Freedom”: He challenged many of Keynes’ ideas. He promoted monetarism, natural rate of unemployment (5% unemployment), predicting “stagflation” (stagnate + inflation). One of the most influential economists of our time.
Quickie “Ramen Noodles” economic principles on interest rate, inflation and national debt:
_ If interest rate goes up, people would get more money when they put their money in banks; banks would lend more money out. When there are more money floating around inflation goes up. Vice versa.
_National debt is often exaggerated. Nobody would be able to pay them off. The downside of national debt is the decrease in investment from foreigners to the particular country. Country like Japan, however, has national debt of 208.2 % comparing to their own GDP but it didn’t stop investor from putting money in Japan so there’s other factors as well. I will add more for this part of the answer when I got back to get a book on national debt and why it’s not really a biggie.But it’s not something that everybody should sweat about.
Economies of Scale
The cost of expansion. When you expand your company by increasing your capital and labor, if that actually increased your profit, then you just gain economies of scale.
Price Elasticity
How likely would price change. This depends on the supply and demand curve.
Opportunity cost
If I have 25 bulks, I could buy either a book or a DVD or a fancy pair of cheap shoes. I like book best, DVD second, shoes third. So when I buy my book, my opportunity cost would be a DVD. Opportunity cost is the best-second alternative on your list.
Books that I recommend for people who want to learn the basic fun economic stuffs:
- Freakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner
- The Armchair Economists by Steven Landsburg
- Applied Economics by Thomas Sowell
- Economics by Stephen Slavin (textbook)
- Macroeconomics by Gregory Mankiw (textbook)
* Old edition of textbooks are cheap! I guarantee you the fun of reading all these books!
Essential Economic Concepts for Business:
Supply and Demand– Move each curve around, it’s kinda fun!
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