| A | B |
|---|
| economics | study of how individuals and nations make choices about ways to use scarce resources to fulfill their needs and wants |
| resource | any thing that people can use to make or obtain what they need or want |
| scarcity | state in which people do not and cannot have enough income, time, or other resources to satisfy their every desire |
| wants | economists' term for everything people desire beyond basic goods and services that meet their needs |
| land | natural resources and suface land; all things found in nature, on or in the water or earth |
| labor | work people do; often called a human resource |
| capital | all property--machines, buildings, tools , and money--used in the production of other goods and services |
| productivity | ability to produce greater quantities of goods and services in better and faster ways |
| entrepreneurship | ability to start new business, introduce new products and techniques, and improve management techniques |
| factors of production | resources of land, labor, capital, and entrepreneurship used to produce goods and services |
| goods and services | the things people buy |
| technology | any use of land, labor and capital that produces goods and services more efficiently |
| trade-off | exchanging one thing for the use of another, often making unavoidable choices because of the problem of scarcity |
| opportunity cost | value of the next best alternative given up for the alternative that was chosen |
| production possibilities | all the combinations of goods and services that can be produced from a fixed amount of resources in a given period of time |
| economy | all activity in a nation that affects the production, distribution, and the use of goods and services |
| economic model or theory | simplified representation of the real world which shows people's reactions to changes in the economy |
| hypotheses | educated guesses or predictions, used as starting points for investigations |
| values | beliefs or characteristics that an individual or group considers important, such as religious freedom and equal opportunity |
| generalization | statement that pulls together common ideas among facts and is true in most cases |
| goods | the things people buy that are the end results of the factors of production |
| services | the activities done for others for a fee; and end result of the factors of production |
| production-possibility curve | graph that shows combinations of how best to use its resources |
