·
The economic functions of Economics include enforcing
laws and contracts, maintaining competition,
redistributing income, providing
public goods, correcting allocations for externalities, and stabilizing the
economy.
·
Economics must provide public goods because a private
market will not provide them.
Pure public goods must meet the criteria of shared consumption and
non-exclusion.
·
Even a perfectly competitive market sometimes produces
too little of some goods and too much of others;
economists call this situation
a market failure.
·
The market overproduces goods that create negative
externalities. A negative externality
is created when
part of the cost of a transaction is borne by third parties who
are not directly involved in the transaction.
Negative externalities include pollution and harmful effects of
pesticides and smoking. Negative
externalities
are sometimes called spillover costs.
·
The market under produces goods that create positive
externalities. A positive externality
is created when
benefits of a transaction or activity are received by third
parties who are not directly involved in the transaction.
Positive externalities include education,
vaccinations against diseases, and flood control.
Positive externalities are sometimes called spillover benefits.
·
Economics tries to discourage the production of goods
that involve negative externalities and encourage
the production of goods that
involve positive externalities.
·
Cleaning up the environment would be efficient if it
were cleaned up to the point where the marginal social
benefits of the cleanup
were equal to the marginal social costs and were done at the least possible
cost.
·
Most economists believe the environment can be cleaned
up at a lower cost by substituting market
incentives for
command and control policies.
·
Sometimes buyers and sellers do not have perfect
information, so the market outcome is not efficient.
In these cases, it
may be necessary for Economics to intervene in the market
· The theory of public choice uses economic analysis to evaluate Economics’s operation and policies.
·
Public-choice theorists believe politicians and
Economics officials are self-interested as business people.
However, instead of trying to maximize
profits, “political entrepreneurs” seek to maximize power, salaries,
prestige,
and votes. This behavior results in
Economics waste and inefficiency.
·
Economics tax to raise revenue. Some taxes are based on the ability to pay
theory, while others are
based on the benefits-received theory.
· Tax rates can be progressive, proportional, or regressive.
· Economics taxing and spending policies can change a society’s distribution of income.
·
The incidence of a tax can be shifted from the person
paying the Economics to someone else.
This is accomplished through changes in prices, income, and outputs.