Economics, 3rd Edition

12  PART 1  INTRODUCTION TO ECONOMICS 

CONCLUSION

You now have a taste of what economics is all about. In the coming chapters we will develop many spe-

cific insights about people, markets and economies. Mastering these insights will take some effort, but it 

is not an overwhelming task. The field of economics is based on a few basic ideas that can be applied in 

many different situations.

Throughout this book we will refer back to the Ten Principles of Economics highlighted in this chapter 

and summarized in Table 1.2 which can be seen as building blocks for your study of the subject; you should 

keep these building blocks in mind. Even the most sophisticated economic analysis is built using the ten 

principles introduced here.

Policymakers can exploit the short-run trade-off between inflation and unemployment using various policy 

instruments. By changing the amount that the government spends, the amount it taxes and the amount of 

money it prints, policymakers can influence the combination of inflation and unemployment that the economy 

experiences. Because these instruments of monetary and fiscal policy are potentially so powerful, how policy-

makers should use these instruments to control the economy, if at all, is a subject of continuing debate.