Macro & Microeconomics Essays

INTRODUCTION: The report is designed to discuss the economic problems of US for the last few current years and the causes of the problems in reference to the article “Economic Problems Facing the U.S.” by Thomas Heffner (2012). The impact of the problems on the US economy, society and political environment are also discussed in this report.

AW Phillips used a nonlinear function that negatively related unemployment to inflation between 1861 and 1913; he then used this function to explain the relationship between unemployment and inflation for the remaining period up to 1957. These results were adopted by most of the economists at that time since they partly confirmed the working of the competitive market forces of demand and supply.

Very few people have left an influence in terms of their scientific and technological contributions in the 20th century. One of those personalities includes Steve Jobs. Despite his demise, the whole of the technological world is engulfed in inventions and ideas that were introduced and then patented by the man himself.

The firm also dominates the market and sets the prices of products in the market. The firm is able to gain huge opportunity costs as it can deliver the products about the market demands (Dichter & Sala, 2012. pp. 12-13).  On the other hand, the firm may be at the risk of making losses if the consumers change their interests in the market.

The author states that the economics of crime is the study of factors that cause crime and the consequences of criminal activities in the society as well as approaches towards the reduction of the criminal effects on the society. Economics of crime deals with the costs of criminal justice programs and policies and their benefits to the society.

Game theory is a theoretical framework that is used to explain how decisions are made between parties. It was coined by Jonny Neumann who tried to explain how decisions can be made when people have concerns about other people.  Game theory involves players making the decision that benefits themselves jointly or maximizes individual payoff.

Yesterdays were the period of economists who were focused on industrialization and urban development. They were of the view that urban development is the sole driving force of an economy. They proposed subsidies and tax concessions for companies for setting up business in a particular area or region.

As it is shown, much of conventional analysis within microeconomics is centered on the classical firm and its objective of profit maximization. The paper analyses the premises, which underline this objective to understand their relevance,as of today. Important microeconomic theories are discussed in the context to reflect upon their utility.

Consequently, the race for higher education resulted in soaring of tuition fees. Students usually pay these costs from a different number of sources including personal savings, parents’ money, scholarships, student loans and other financial instruments.

Six Sigma uses a variety of quality management procedures to group the workforce into a special infrastructure that is based on the employee’s skills. Every Six Sigma project follows a specific sequence of steps that has its own objectives. Six Sigma is widely used in numerous organizations throughout the world specifically in business areas.

There are some risks associated with our shipping solution which can’t be ignored. The primary risk is the risk of drowning.  This means that in the wake of a dangerous storm or something, the ship stands the risk of being sunk. To mitigate and counter this risk and eventuality, we will have to keep risk transportation measures on the ship.

Recently, in the Caucasus Research Resource Centre program funded by the Carnegie Foundation of New York, Kyurumyan (2009) took the position that we should not be alarmed on the size of government debts and asserted that incurring domestic debts continue to be a sustainable means for addressing public deficits in the medium to the long runs, at least for South Caucasus.

This can only take place as long as the person who owns the private property is compensated. This is regarded as last resort as the government takes businesses enterprises and homes so that it can assemble parcels of land and housing development. It can also help in economic development activities.

While analyzing the current global market economy, it is clear that government intervention is necessary to ensure a sustainable market place. Government regulations on mergers are essential to maintain the balance of market environment since mergers between corporate giants often raise potential challenges to small-scale players and, thereby, they are eventually thrown out of the market.

Using the IS-LM framework IS/LM stands for Investment-Saving/Liquidity Preference-Money Supply. The model shows the changes in interest rate and output of goods and services produced in an economy over a period of time following a shift in government spending.

Microfinance is defined as small-scale financial services catering to the needs of small farmers, fishermen, roadside vendors and small enterprises. NGOs such as the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) and Sanghamitra Rural Financial Services (SRFS) are involved in microfinance activities and have been successfully accomplishing the cause of women empowerment in India for last several years.

 China has one of the world’s fastest growing economies that has attracted large amount of foreign direct investment over the last two decades. It has recorded the highest foreign development among the developing countries since 1993. Out of raw estimates, Chinas total amount of cash it has invested in FDI amounts to 488 billion US dollars between 1988 and 2003. 

United Arab Emirates (UAE) largely depends upon its mammoth oil reserves for its revenue generation. But the desert topography of the emirates lacks in fresh water reserves. The lack of water is compensated by the expensive desalinization plants (Country Profile, 2007, p.5) costing approximately $18 million a day.

The fact that the United States is still the leading economy notwithstanding; this country has managed to capture markets both in the developing and developed nations, especially due to the reduced prices on their products facilitated by cheap labor in the home country.

In 2008, two smart lawyers quietly bought up all the firms and began operations as a monopoly called “Wonks.” To operate efficiently, Wonks employed a management consulting company, which projected a diverse long-run competitive equilibrium. This paper is aimed at providing a descriptive and analytical structure with a critical thought regarding the acquisition of benefits by the stakeholders of the company, including the government, businesses, and consumers.

A number of economic experts and financial analysts have studied this crucial time to find out the cause that led to the economic downfall in a bid to prevent something similar from occurring again, a number of theories have occurred from these studies, but two main ones that will be discussed in this paper are the Monetarist and the Keynesian theories which have garnered a lot of attention over the years (Mishkin, 2010).

As it is shown in the essay, monopoly is a market structure where there is a single producer or seller of the product in the market with no substitutes available. The paper focuses on uncovering of the relative inefficiencies of the monopoly market, compared with other structures. This market produces less output with higher prices.

Among other European airlines, British Airways Company was hit by the crisis, to suffer a drastic loss in business which left some trials even as it continues to recover. The global financial downturn left Europe in a debt crisis, with most of its powerful nations having a huge dept to settle associated with their overspending.

A change in social logic is required. There is a requirement for strong trading standards for dismantling the culture of consumerism. There is also a significant requirement of enabling a stronger trading standard in order to protect the citizens both as consumers and as workers. ‘Steady-state economy’ is the greatest need of the hour. 

If we look at two goods that are substitutes such as margarine and butter, an increase in the butter’s price will lead to an increase in the demand for margarine. In the context of labour supply, when wages increase, the demand for leisure increases as you work fewer hours, and this is the income effect.

Production possibility frontier is a curve that compares the rate of production of goods. For example, if there are two kinds of goods, guns, and butter, and all resources are fully employed while technology remains fixed then the production of more guns would require more resources (capital and labor) moved from the production of butter to guns.

Some of the devastating effects of this crisis whose effects are being felt up to date are the collapse of major financial institutions, some of these institutions were salvaged by bailouts from the government and it caused drastic downturn of stock markets around the globe.

Workers move away from cities with large numbers of immigrants or avoid such places. Therefore, the proportion of immigrants in cities is endogenous and economists have to evaluate data to analyze immigrants’ impacts on wages and employment. To evaluate this impact, Borjas divided people into strategic groupings based on various social factors.

The Americans with creative minds should use all available talents to overcome initial difficulties as a result of changes. Let them negotiate with the government for financing of the many business projects to be implemented by the middle class. Each member should have a role in the Union of middle-class citizens.

The currency crisis occurred in the south east Asia region since 1997, at different intervals in each affected country and spread across other South East Asian countries after, beginning from Thailand. It was primarily caused by macroeconomic and financial factors, although the political other factors interfered with the correction of the crisis.

Nominal GDP ($US) Real GDP (US$) Year Qatar UK Qatar UK 2000 17,759,889,598 1,475,705,855,651 17,759,889,598 1,465,447,721,600 2001 17,538,461,033 1,468,026,486,253 18,345,670,537 1,444,907,958,910 2002 19,363,735,706 1,601,617,206,235 18,781,508,929 1,565,608,217,239 2003 23,533,790,531 1,855,666,938,776 20,045,818,170 1,810,406,769,538 2004 31,675,273,812 2,196,860,009,521 28,433,818,503 2,141,189,093,100 2005 43,040,108,650 2,295,844,712,163 34,077,679,058 2,242,035,851,722 2006 60,496,701,553 2,452,969,436,251 51,052,068,821 2,383,838,130,467 2007 79,546,975,729 2,825,526,440,057 71,406,620,942 2,764,702,974,615 2008 115,019,776,905 2,648,935,779,074 93,664,313,441 2,571,782,309,781 2009

The rate of unemployment in Germany has been around 5.4 percent by end of 2012. This is because the demand for labor is a derived demand and the low demand for German products from its 17 Euro countries. This is because of a crisis in other parts of German markets such as Cyprus. Germany could deal with structural changes efficiently.

European Union is comprised of 28 member states including Poland and the United Kingdom which are required to follow the codes of conduct that are being legitimized by the European Union. The United Kingdom has been an immensely prominent state for immigrants from several other states to seek a better standard of life and some are asylum seekers.

The income taxes were reduced to half of the prevailing rates at that point of time and the corporate tax rates were also reduced from 39% to 30%. At present the debt obligations of Puerto Rico has piled up to 87 billion dollars and the country with 3.7 million residents is all set to go bankrupt.

In the case of technology as an input, decreasing returns to scale would lead to a decreasing average cost in output. For constant returns to scale, the average cost in output would be constant. When the technology factor exhibits increasing returns to scale, the average cost would decrease in the output (Ferguson, pg47).

Wal-Mart is one of the biggest retailer stores that have expanded globally to more than 15 countries in the world including UK, China, Japan, Canada, Brazil and Argentina with over 8,500 retail stores. It employs over two million employees and made it to the top of Fortune 500 list for its highest number of sales.

Firms tend to use pricing tactics, such as price discrimination, in the hope of gaining a high competitive advantage. Pundits argue whether firms must use or not such a pricing technique because of its nature. This notion brings interesting arguments, which may be used to provide firms with salient reasons about when to use it and when they should not.

In the book, it is made clear that the conflict of classical liberalism and central planning was not concerned about the shared objective of improving the well-being of the largest number of populations but concern on the way to achieve the specified goal.

The insurance industry has greatly impacted and been impacted by the market. The industry has evolved and has managed to survive and flourish in a short period of time. The factors affecting the insurance market in a positive and negative manner are fully utilized so as to benefit from the opportunities and counter the risks that the industry faces.

My experience in the practice of economics is limited – but from what I have experienced at high school, I know this will be a field that I greatly enjoy. Two of the subjects I have always loved the best in my high school experience are math and history, and I think the way that economics must take both of these into account is truly fascinating.

No freedom is viable without economic freedom. The world has witnessed the failure of the planned economy with the fall of the former USSR. However, certain features of the planned economy are still visible in the form of socio-political interventions that take place in mixed economy capitalism. Such policy interventions by the government are dangerous.

Eutrophication Potential (EP)-Comparing this is insignificant since both the forms; the diesel engine and the fuel cell have the same amount of eutrophication potential. While one has the Nox emissions occurring in the areas where the vehicle is operating the Fuel cell for the electric vehicle produces these emissions at the refinery.

He emphasized upon the aspect of freedom. While in England for a short while, he wrote Economic Sophisms, which were a collection of his dialogues and sarcastic writings with an intention of criticizing the fallacy driven French economic ideas. He wrote most of his works in and around 1848 when France was gradually accepting socialism.

Wayne Swan is of the opinion that the Australian economy is in a strong position and warrants a positive economic outlook despite uncertainty in global economic circles (Australian Government, 2010). Australia registered an annual growth of 3.2% in the GDP till the second quarter of 2010 which is unlike other developed economies that have displayed either slower growth or negative growth.

Outsourcing basically involves contracting out non-core business functions to a provider external to an organization. In other words, when two organizations enter into an outsourcing agreement, one agrees to exchange a certain service or set of services for payment by the other.

Tissot, one of the branded Swiss watch manufacturers founded in 1853 came into the limelight by manufacturing the first anti-magnetic watch in 1929-30. In present times, Tissot is associated with various sporting events developing more accurate timing systems for a specific event. During this tenure, there are several factors that affected the sales and profitability of the company to sustain itself in the industry.

This essay discusses the several types of inflation and the impact created by these types, along with determining and discussing which type of inflation actually creates the most damage to the economy. The term deflation means that the prices of goods and services, in general, are on a decline during the financial period.

Generally, people are willing to pay more for higher quality products whereas they hardly purchase low quality products at higher rate. Therefore, every customer tends to scrutinize product/service quality (if possible) before they make a purchase. Usually, customers categorize products on the basis of predetermined quality grades and these grade levels play a crucial role in influencing product/service demand.

China’s economy is facing a decreasing labor supply with the government formulating policies that are likely to accelerate the decline in the country’s workforce. Economic planners in this country face the task of making the necessary transitions that can help in avoiding a slump in the growth of the country’s economy.

These influence economic indicators which are reflectors of economic advancements within demography. Politics determines the peace and the level of stability in a country. These two, on the other hand, affect economic growth. Indonesia has been a victim of poor governance and weak political structures for a long time.