1- mavzu: Fanning nazariy mashg`ulotlari mazmuni

2.2 Choices, Costs and Trade-Offs
If we had unlimited re­sources, and thus an ability to produce all of the goods and services everyone wants, we would not have to choose among those desires, and the study of economics would not be necessary.
The essence of econom­ics is to fully understand the implications that scarcity has for wise decision-making.
In a world of scarcity, we must make choices or trade-offs. Because none of us can afford to have everything we want, each time we do decide to acquire one good or service, we reduce our ability to acquire other things we would also like to have.
You must choose, and every choice involves a cost. The cost of a choice is the value of what must be foregone. The highest-valued or best foregone opportunity resulting from a decision is called the opportunity cost.
“To choose is to lose.” To get more of anything that is desirable, you must accept less of something else that you also value.
Both money prices and nonprice costs, such as the cost of waiting in line, are opportunity costs.
Opportunity cost illustrations: The opportunity cost of going to college must include the opportunity cost of your time; the opportunity cost of rearing a child includes the opportunity cost of the time spent in child rearing, time that could be used pursuing a career or volunteering at a local mission.
There’s no such thing as a free lunch. A lunch may be free to you (i.e.., subsidized), but it is not free from society's perspective, because some of society’s scarce resources that could have been used to produce something else of value went into creation ­of the lunch.
In the News: Laws and Enforcement Costs
2.3 Marginal Thinking
Most choices involve how much of something to do rather than whether or not to do something.
Economists emphasize marginal thinking because the focus is on additional, or marginal, choices. Marginal choices involve the effects of adding or subtracting from the current situation.
Always watch out for the difference between average and marginal costs.