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ebook download (eBook PDF) Economics for Today 10th Edition by Irvin B. Tucker all chapter
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vi BRIEF CONTENTS
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CONTENTS
YOU’RE THE ECONOMIST: Mops and Brooms, the Boston Snow Index,
the Super Bowl, and Other Economic Indicators 11
YOU’RE THE ECONOMIST: Does the Minimum Wage Really Help the
Working Poor? 13
vii
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viii CONTENTS
CHECKPOINT: Can the Law of Supply Be Repealed for the Oil Market? 69
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CONTENTS ix
CHECKPOINT: Can Trade Sanctions Affect Elasticity of Demand for Cars? 139
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x CONTENTS
YOU’RE THE ECONOMIST: Why Is Water Less Expensive than Diamonds? 156
YOU’RE THE ECONOMIST: Testing the Law of Demand with White Rats 161
Appendix to Chapter 6: Indifference Curve Analysis 167
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CONTENTS xi
YOU’RE THE ECONOMIST: Recession Takes a Bite Out of Gator Profits 230
CHECKPOINT: Why Don’t Adults Pay More for Popcorn at the Movies? 255
9-4 Comparing Monopoly and Perfect Competition 255
YOU’RE THE ECONOMIST: New York Taxicabs: Where Have All the Fare
Flags Gone? 258
10-2 Price and Output Decisions for a Monopolistically Competitive Firm 272
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xii CONTENTS
YOU’RE THE ECONOMIST: How Oligopolists Compete at the Final Four 286
CHECKPOINT: If You Don’t like It, Mickey, Take Your Bat and Go Home 310
Part 3: Road Map: Market Structures 316
YOU’RE THE ECONOMIST: Pulling Back the Curtain on Income and Wealth
Distribution 328
12-3 Antipoverty Programs 332
YOU’RE THE ECONOMIST: Pulling on the Strings of the Welfare Safety Net 338
YOU’RE THE ECONOMIST: Is Pay for Females Fair? 340
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CONTENTS xiii
YOU’RE THE ECONOMIST: Is Utah Pie’s Slice of the Pie Too Small? 352
YOU’RE THE ECONOMIST: Who Turned out the Lights in California? 363
YOU’RE THE ECONOMIST: Does Airline Deregulation Mean Friendlier Skies? 365
GLOBAL ECONOMICS: Why Is the Climate Change Problem So Hard to Solve? 390
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xiv CONTENTS
YOU’RE THE ECONOMIST: Why the High Cost of Health Care? 470
17-3 Demand-Pull and Cost-Push Inflation 470
Part 5: Road Map: Macroeconomics Fundamentals 477
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CONTENTS xv
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xvi CONTENTS
YOU’RE THE ECONOMIST: The Great Federal Budget Surplus Debate 623
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CONTENTS xvii
YOU’RE THE ECONOMIST: The Wreck of Lincoln Savings and Loan 663
YOU’RE THE ECONOMIST: How Does the FOMC Really Work? 684
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xviii CONTENTS
CHECKPOINT: What Could the Fed Do If It Wanted to Push Interest Rates Down? 698
YOU’RE THE ECONOMIST: Monetary Policy During the Great Depression 709
Appendix to Chapter 26: Policy Disputes Using the Self-Correcting Aggregate
Demand and Supply Model 718
27-4 Applying the AD-AS Model to the Great Expectations Debate 736
27-5 Incomes Policy 738
YOU’RE THE ECONOMIST: Ford’s Whip Inflation Now (WIN) Button 741
Part 7: Road Map: Money, Banking, and Monetary Policy 748
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CONTENTS xix
GLOSSARY 860
INDEX 869
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CHAPTER 2 • Production Possibilities, Opportunity Cost, and Economic Growth 9
AVAILABLE VERSIONS
4 Markets in Action X X X X
7 Production Costs X X X
8 Perfect Competition X X X
9 Monopoly X X X
11 Labor Markets X X X
14 Environmental Economics X X
17 Inflation X X X
21 Fiscal Policy X X X
25 Money Creation X X X
26 Monetary Policy X X X
29 Economies in Transition X X X X
Note: Chapter numbers refer to the complete book, Economics for Today.
xxi
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PREFACE
TEXT FLEXIBILITY
The full version of Economics for Today is easily adapted to an instructor’s preference for the
sequencing of microeconomics and macroeconomics topics. This text can be used in a
macroeconomic–microeconomic sequence by teaching the first four chapters and then
Parts 5 through 7. Next, microeconomics is covered in Parts 2 through 4. Finally, the course
can be completed with Part 8, consisting of three chapters devoted to international economics.
An important design of this text is that it accommodates the two major approaches
for teaching principles of macroeconomics: those who cover both the Keynesian Cross
and AD/AS models, and those who skip the Keynesian model and cover only the AD/
AS model. For instructors who prefer the former, Economics for Today moves smoothly
in Chapters 18–19 (Macroeconomics for Today Chapters 8–9) from the Keynesian model
(based on the Great Depression) to the AD/AS model in Chapter 20 (Macroeconomics
for Today Chapter 10). For instructors using the latter approach, this text is written so
xxiii
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themselves finite and therefore only imperfectly real and individual,
they could not logically take the place which belongs only to the
completely and perfectly individual realisation of the ideal. That
would still fall partly outside them in the nature, as a whole, of the
system which harmoniously includes both ourselves and them. Thus
such beings would be “gods” in the sense of polytheism rather than
God in that of monotheism.
Further, I can see no means of deciding a priori that there could be
only one such being in the universe. Even supposing the series of
finite beings to be itself finite, it is not evident that it could contain
only one “best” member. And supposing it infinite, could there be a
“best” member at all?[224] Also it appears quite beyond the power of
Metaphysics to find either proof or disproof of the existence and
agency of such finite but exalted beings. We cannot say that our
general conception of Reality is such as to negative the suggestion,
and yet again that general conception gives us no positive evidence
in favour of taking it as true. It would certainly be the grossest
presumption to maintain that the Absolute can contain no higher
types of finite individuality than those presented by human society;
on the other hand, it would be equally presumptuous to assert that
we have reasoned knowledge of their existence and their direct
social relation with ourselves. Hence we must, I think, be content to
say that the hypothesis, so far as it seems to be suggested to any
one of us by the concrete facts of his own individual experience, is a
matter for the legitimate exercise of Faith.
§ 9. These reflections may naturally lead to some remarks, which
shall be made as brief as possible, about the so-called philosophical
“arguments for the existence of God,” which played a prominent part
in Metaphysics before their discrediting at the hands of Kant and
Hume.[225] Kant’s great achievement lies in having demonstrated that
the whole force of the “proofs” depends upon the famous ontological
argument, best known in modern Philosophy in the form adopted by
Descartes in the fifth Meditation. Descartes there argues thus:—By
“God” I mean a completely perfect being. Now, existence is a
perfection, and non-existence an imperfection. Hence I cannot think
of a non-existing perfect being without self-contradiction. Hence
God, because by hypothesis perfect, must exist, and is the only
being whose existence logically follows from its definition.
Kant’s even more famous criticism of this famous inference turns
upon the principle which he had learned from his study of Hume, that
logical necessity is “subjective.” If I think of a logical subject as
defined by certain properties, he argues in effect, I am necessitated
to ascribe to it all the predicates implied in that definition. That is, I
must affirm them or contradict myself. Hence, if “existence” is
originally included among the perfections by which the subject “God”
is defined, the proposition God exists is certainly necessary, but is
also tautological, and amounts, in fact, to the mere assertion that “an
existing perfect being is an existing perfect being.” But if the
“existence” spoken of in the predicate is something not included in
the definition of the subject, then you cannot infer it from that
definition. Now “real existence” is not a predicate which can be
included in the definition of a concept. The predicates by which an
imaginary hundred dollars are defined are the same as those of a
real hundred dollars. It is not by the possession of a new predicate,
but by being actually given in a concrete experience, that the real
coins differ from the imaginary. Hence all propositions asserting real
existence are synthetic, (i.e. assert of their subject something which
is not contained in the concept of it), and the real existence of God or
any other object can never be deduced from its definition.[226]
This Kantian criticism has itself been subjected to much criticism,
principally at the hands of Hegel and those subsequent philosophers
who have been specially affected by the Hegelian influence. What
appears to be the general principle of the Hegelian criticism has
been most clearly expressed in English philosophy by Mr. Bradley,
[227]
upon whose discussion the following remarks are chiefly
founded.
In estimating the worth of the ontological proof, we must
distinguish between the general principle implied in it and the
particular form in which it presents that principle. It is manifest that
Kant is perfectly right when he contends that, taking existence to
mean presence in the space and time-order, you cannot reason from
my possession of any idea to the existence of a corresponding
object. You cannot say whatever I conceive must exist as I conceive
it. But the principle of the ontological proof is perhaps not necessarily
condemned by its failure to be thus universally applicable. The
principle involved appears to be simply this. The idea and the reality
outside its own existence as a fact in the time-order which it “means”
or “stands for” are mutually complementary aspects of a whole
Reality which include them both. For there is, on the one side, no
“idea” so poor and untrue as not to have some meaning or objective
reference beyond its own present existence.[228] And, on the other,
what has no significance for any subject of experience is nothing.
Hence in its most general form the ontological argument is simply a
statement that reality and meaning for a subject mutually imply one
another. But it does not follow that all thoughts are equally true and
significant. In other words, though every thought means something
beyond its own existence, different thoughts may represent the
structure of that which they mean with very different grades of
adequacy. That which my thought means may be far from being real
in the form in which I think it.
Now, we may surely say that the more internally harmonious and
systematic my thought is, the more adequately it represents the true
nature of that which it means. If thoroughly systematic coherent
thought may be mere misrepresentation, our whole criterion of
scientific truth is worthless. How freely we use this ontological
argument in practice will be readily seen by considering the way in
which, e.g., in the interpretation and reconstruction of historical facts,
the internal coherency of a systematic and comprehensive
interpretation is taken as itself the evidence of its truth.[229] Hence it
may be argued that if there is a systematic way of thinking about
Reality which is absolutely and entirely internally coherent, and from
its own nature must remain so, however the detailed content of our
ideas should grow in complexity, we may confidently say that such a
scheme of thought faithfully represents the Reality for which it
stands, so far as any thought can represent Reality. That is, while
the thought would not be the Reality because it still remains thought,
which means something beyond its own existence, it would require
no modification of structure but only supplementation in detail to
make it the truth.
But if we have anywhere thought which is thus internally coherent,
and from its own nature must remain so, however knowledge may
extend, we have it surely in our metaphysical conception of the real
as the absolutely individual. Thus the ontological proof appears, in
any sense in which it is not fallacious, to amount merely to the
principle that significant thought gives us genuine knowledge; and
therefore, since the thoroughgoing individuality of structure of its
object is presupposed in all significant thought, Reality must be a
perfect individual. That this perfect individual must further be “God,”
i.e. must have the special character ascribed to it by beliefs based
upon specifically religious emotions, does not follow. How far the
“God” of religion is a correct conception of the metaphysical
Absolute, we can only learn from the analysis of typical expressions
of the religious experience itself. And it is obvious that if by “God” we
mean anything less than the Absolute whole, the ontological proof
ceases to have any cogency. It is impossible to show that the
possibility of significant thought implies the presence of a special
finite being, not empirically known to us, within the Absolute.
The “cosmological” proof, or “argument from the contingency of
the world,” unlike the ontological, has the appearance, at first sight,
of starting with given empirical fact. As summarised by Kant for
purposes of criticism, it runs thus:—“If anything at all exists, there
must be also an absolutely necessary being. Now, I exist myself;
ergo, the absolutely necessary being exists.” To make the proof quite
complete, it would be necessary to show that the being whose
existence is affirmed in the minor premisses, to wit, myself, is not
itself the “absolutely necessary being,” and the argument thus
completed would become in principle identical with the second of the
“proofs” given by Descartes in the third Meditation, where it is
inferred that if I, a dependent being, exist, there must be a God on
whom I and all things depend.[230] As Kant has pointed out, the whole
force of this inference rests upon the previous admission of the
ontological argument. By itself the cosmological proof only
establishes the conclusion that if any dependent existence is real,
independent existence of some kind must be real also. To convert
this into a “proof of the existence of God” you must further go on to
identify the “independent existence” thus reached with the “most
real” or “most perfect” being of the ontological proof. For otherwise it
might be suggested, as is done by one of the speakers in Hume’s
dialogue, that the series of phenomenal events itself, taken as an
aggregate, is the “necessary existence” upon which the “contingent
existence” of each several event depends. “Did I show you the
particular causes of each individual in a collection of twenty particles
of matter, I should think it very unreasonable should you afterwards
ask me what was the cause of the whole twenty. This is sufficiently
explained in explaining the cause of the parts.”
To avoid this objection, we must go on to maintain that only the
“most perfect being” can be an ultimately necessary being, and that
its “necessary existence” is a consequence of its character. This, as
we have seen, is the very assertion made in the ontological proof.
Hence our criticisms of the ontological proof will be equally
applicable to the cosmological. If we combine the two, restating them
in accord with our previous remodelling of the former, the argument
will take the following form. All propositions directly or indirectly refer
to real existence. Hence it would be self-contradictory to assert that
nothing exists. But existence itself is only conceivable as individual.
Hence the absolutely individual must be really existent. And this is
identical with the general principle of our own reasoning in Book II. of
the present work. Clearly, if valid, it is valid simply as an argument
for a metaphysical Absolute; it neither proves that Absolute itself to
be what we mean in religion by God, nor affords any ground for
asserting the existence of God as a finite individual within the
Absolute.[231]
The physico-theological argument, also known as the argument
from design, or the teleological proof, differs from the preceding two
in being in its current forms honestly empirical. In the shape of an
inference from the apparent presence of order and a regard for
human good in the structure of nature to the existence of a wise and
benevolent being or beings as the author or authors of nature, it has
been the most popular of all theistic arguments both in the ancient
world, where, according to Xenophon, it was specially insisted upon
by Socrates, and in the modern defences of theological beliefs
against rationalistic criticism. It must, however, be observed that the
criticisms of Hume and Kant are absolutely fatal to the “argument
from design,” when it is put forward as a proof of the existence of a
God of infinite goodness and wisdom. At best, as Kant says, the
observed order and harmony of Nature would enable us to infer a
finite degree of wisdom and goodness in its author. The assertion of
the absolute harmoniousness and goodness of Nature, which we
require to justify the inference to infinite wisdom and goodness in its
author, goes far beyond the limits of the empirically verifiable, and
can itself only be upheld by some form of the “ontological proof.”
Hence the “argument from design” could at best prove a God whose
wisdom and goodness are, so far as knowable, limited. As Hume
forcibly puts the same point, if the empirically known facts of the
partial adaptation of Nature to human purposes are valid, as they
stand, to prove a wise and good intelligence, are not the equally
well-ascertained facts of the partial want of adaptation equally valid
to prove defective goodness or defective wisdom?[232]
There is a deeper metaphysical reason for this difference between
the results of the physico-theological and of the other “proofs,” which
may be briefly pointed out. The whole conception of the order and
systematic unity of the world as due to preconceived “design” is only
intelligible if we suppose the author of that “design” to be finite, and
subject, like ourselves, to temporal mutability. For in the notion of
design itself are implied the severance of the mentally conceived
ideal from the actuality which waits to be brought into accord with it,
and consequently also the time-process, which we have already
found to be characteristic of all finitude. Hence the physico-
theological proof, by itself, can at best be used to establish the reality
of finite “gods,” not of “God,” because it works throughout with the
categories of finitude.
Upon the logical force of the argument, as thus limited by its initial
assumptions, only one observation need be made. What the
reasoning asserts is not merely that “Nature” is in reality a system
exhibiting individuality and purposive interest, or even “design,” but
that it reveals the particular design of assisting and fostering human
progress. Now, whether this is so or not would appear to be a
question of empirical fact only capable of determination by the
methods applicable to other problems of the same empirical kind.
Probably the lines along which it will have to be decided in the future
are of the following general kind. Evolutionary science seems clearly
to have shown that in the influences it knows, e.g., as “natural” and
again as “sexual selection,” we have processes which lead to
beneficial results without being, so far as we can see, in the least
directed by the conscious “design” of establishing those results.[233]
We should have to ask, then, whether there is actual ground for
holding that such influences are not of themselves sufficient to
account for the development of human civilisation, so far as it is due
to factors belonging to the “environment.” If they are so sufficient, the
“physico-theological” argument for benevolent super-human agency
in moulding the course of human development, becomes
superfluous; if they are not, their failure is, so far, good ground for
the recognition of finite “designing” intelligences of a non-human kind
as forming a factor in our environment. In either case the question
appears to be one of empirical fact, and to be incapable of
determination in advance on general metaphysical grounds.[234] Nor
are we justified in assuming that “design in nature,” supposing it to
exist, must always be directed to securing ends which are either
intelligible to us, or, if intelligible, “benevolent,” in the sense of
furthering our own special human interests. And here I must be
content to leave the subject.
CONCLUSION
§ 1. Can our Absolute Experience be properly called the “union of Thought and
Will”? The Absolute is certainly the final realisation of our intellectual and our
practical ideals. But (1) it includes aspects, such as, e.g. æsthetic feeling,
pleasure, and pain, which are neither Thought nor Will. (2) And it cannot
possess either Thought or Will as such. Both Thought and Will, in their own
nature, presuppose a Reality which transcends mere Thought and mere Will.
§ 2. Our conclusion may in a sense be said to involve an element of
Agnosticism, and again of Mysticism. But it is only agnostic in holding that we
do not know the precise nature of the Absolute Experience. It implies no
distrust of the validity of knowledge, so far as it goes, and bases its apparently
agnostic result on the witness of knowledge itself. Similarly, it is mystical in
transcending, not in refusing to recognise, the constructions of understanding
and will. § 3. Metaphysics adds nothing to our information, and yields no fresh
springs of action. It is finally only justified by the persistency of the impulse to
speculate on the nature of things as a whole.