Economics Review

Chapter 1 1. Describe some of the trade-offs faced by each of the following: 1. a family deciding whether to buy a new car 2. a member of Congress deciding how much to spend on national parks 3. a company president deciding whether to open a new factory 4. a professor deciding how much to prepare for class 5. a recent college graduate deciding whether to go to graduate school 2. You are trying to decide whether to take a vacation. Most of the costs of the vacation (airfare, hotel, and forgone wages) are measured in dollars, but the benefits of the vacation are psychological. How can you compare the benefits to the costs? 3. You were planning to spend Saturday working at your part-time job, but a friend asks you to go skiing. What is the true cost of going skiing? Now suppose you had been planning to spend the day studying at the library. What is the cost of going skiing in this case? Explain. 4. You win $100 in a basketball pool. You have a choice between spending the money now or putting it away for a year in a bank account that pays 5 percent interest. What is the opportunity cost of spending the $100 now? 5. The company that you manage has invested $5 million in developing a new product, but the development is not quite finished. At a recent meeting, your salespeople report that the introduction of competing products has reduced the expected sales of your new product to $3 million. If it would cost $1 million to finish development and make the product, should you go ahead and do so? What is the most that you should pay to complete development? 6. The Social Security system provides income for people over age 65. If a recipient of Social Security decides to work and earn some income, the amount he or she receives in Social Security benefits is typically reduce 6. How does the provision of Social Security affect people's incentive to save while working? 7. How does the reduction in benefits