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Introduction To Agricultural and Natural Resources: Introduction To Economics FREC 150 Dr. Steven E. Hastings
Introduction To Agricultural and Natural Resources: Introduction To Economics FREC 150 Dr. Steven E. Hastings
Introduction To Agricultural and Natural Resources: Introduction To Economics FREC 150 Dr. Steven E. Hastings
Natural Resources
Introduction to Economics
FREC 150
Dr. Steven E. Hastings
Who and How?
• Who is affected by “economics”?
Economics is the social science that deals with allocating scarce resources to
produce good and services to satisfy human wants as fully as possible.
(Hastings)
Economics is a social science that deals with how consumers , producers and
societies choose among the alternative uses of scarce resources in the process
of producing, consuming and exchanging good and services. (Penson et al.)
Economics is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and
consumption of goods and services. (Wikipedia,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics)
All convey the same thing - because of the limited amounts of resources
available, society (we) must make choices as to how to use them.
Important Concepts
Economics has a number of important concepts –
Technology - “ the recipe” for making goods and services from resources
Choices or Making Choices
Opportunity Costs
– Or
– Or
Economics
Sub-disciplines
Labor Economics, International Trade, Production, etc.
Most relevant to us -
Components:
Examples –
Words: American families spend (S) more as their incomes (I) increase.
Graph:
Spending
Income
Economic Theory
Review of Graphs
• We will do a lot of graphs in this class.
• Please review pages 10 – 12 of the text.
• Important concepts are linear and non linear, slope of a line (positive and
negative), etc.
A Model of our Economic System
The Circular Flow “model” of resources, products and income and expenditures illustrates
how our economy works –
What is missing?
The Global Economy
The Global Economy
Issues in Natural Resource
Economics and Agribusiness
– What do you think?
Issues in Natural Resource
Economics and Agribusiness
– What do you think?
• New Technologies
• Land Use
• Environmental Quality
• Globalization
• Food Safety and Quality
• Effects of Macroeconomic Forces (Recession, Inflation,
Interest rates, etc.)
– Direct from the headlines!
Direct from the Headlines!
And More!
And More!
And More!
And More!
And Still More!
Summary
• We are all part of our economic system – we
are resources, consumers and producers.
• We all make “economic” decisions every day.
• Many economic factors affect our current and
future well being.
• It is important to understand our economic
system as well as possible.
• Lecture Sources: Text and Miscellaneous Materials