微观经济学(英文版)名词解释.doc

微观经济名词解释
CHAPTER 1
Scarcity : the limited nature of society’s resources.
Economics : the study of how society manages its scarce resources.
Efficiency : the property of society getting the most it can from its scarce resources.
Equity : the property of distributing economic prosperity fairly among the members of society.
Opportunity cost : whatever must be given up to obtain some item.
Rational : systematically and purposefully doing the best you can to achieve your objectives.
Marginal changes : small incremental adjustments to a plan of action.
Incentive : something that induces a person to act.
Market economy : an economy that allocates resources through the decentralized decisions of many firms and households as they interact in markets for goods and services.
Property rights : the ability of an individual to own and exercise control over scarce resources.
Market failure a situation in which a market left on its own fails to allocate resources efficiently.
Externality : the impact of one person’s actions on the well-being of a bystander.
Market power : the ability of a single economic actor (or small group of actors) to have a substantial influence on market prices.
Productivity : the quantity of goods and services produced from each hour of a worker’s time.
Inflation : an increase in the overall level of prices in the economy.
Phillips curve : a curve that shows the short-run tradeoff between inflation and unemployment.
Business cycle : fluctuations in economic activity, such as employment and production.

CHAPTER 2
Circular-flow diagram : a visual model of the economy that shows how dollars flow through markets among households and firms.
Production possibilities frontier : a graph that shows the combinations of output that the economy can possibly produce given the available factors of production and the available production technology.
Microeconomics : the study of how households and firms make decisions and how they interact in markets.
Macroeconomics : the study of economy-wide phenomena, including inflation, unemployment, and economic growth.
Positive statements: claims that attempt to describe the world as it is.
Positive statements: claims that attempt to describe the world as it is.

CHAPTER 4
Quantity demanded: the amount of a good that buyers are willing and able to purchase.
Law of demand: the claim that, other things equal, the quantity demanded of a good falls when the price of the good rises.
Demand schedule: a table that shows the relationship between the price of a good and the quantity demanded.
Demand curve : a graph of the relationship between the price of a good and the quantity demanded.
Normal good : a good for which, other things equal, an increase in income leads to an increase in demand.
Inferior good : a good for which, other things equal, an increase in income leads to a decrease in demand.
Substitutes : two goods for which an increase in the price of one good leads to an increase in the demand for the other.
Complements : two goods for which an increase in the price of one good leads to a decrease in the demand for the other.
quantity supplied : the amount of a good that sellers are willing and able to sell.
Law of supply : the claim that, other things equal, the quantity supplied of a good rises when the price of the good rises.
Supply schedule: a table that shows the relationship between the price of a good and the quantity supplied.
Supply curve: a graph of the relationship between the price of a good and the quantity supplied.
Equilibrium : a situation in which the price has reached the level where quantity supplied equals quantity demanded.
Equilibrium price : the price that balances quantity supplied and quantity demanded.
Equilibrium quantity : the quantity supplied and the quantity demanded at the equilibrium price.
Surplus : a situation in which quantity supplied is greater than quantity demanded.
Shortage : a situation in which quantity demanded is greater than quantity supplied.
Law of supply and demand : the claim that the price of any good adjusts to bring the supply and demand for that good into balance.

CHAPTER 5
Elasticity a measure of the responsiveness of quantity demanded or quantity supplied to one of its determinants.
Price elasticity of demand: a measure of how much the quantity demanded of a good responds to a change in the price of that good, computed as the percentage change in quantity demanded divided by the percentage change in price.
Total revenue: the amount paid by buyers and received by sellers of a good, computed as the price of the good times the quantity sold.
Income lasticity of demand: a measure of how much the quantity demanded of a good responds to a change in consumers’ income, computed as the percentage change in quantity demanded divided by the percentage change in income.
Crossprice elasticity of demand: a measure of how much the quantity demanded of one good responds to a change in the price of another good, computed as the percentage change in the quantity demanded of the first good divided by the percentage change in the price of the second good.
Price elasticity of supply: a measure of how much the quantity supplied of a good responds to a change in the price of that good, computed as the percentage change in quantity supplied divided by the percentage change in price.

CHAPTER 6
Price ceiling: a legal maximum on the price at which a good can be sold.
Price floor: a legal minimum on the price at which a good can be sold.
Tax incidence: the manner in which the burden of a tax is shared among participants in a market.

CHAPTER 7
Welfare economics: the study of how the allocation of resources affects economic well-being.
Willingness to pay: the maximum amount that a buyer will pay for a good.
Consumer surplus: a buyer’s willingness to pay minus the amount the buyer actually pays.
Cost：the value of everything a seller must give up to produce a good.
Producer surplus: the amount a seller is paid for a good minus the seller’s cost.
Eficiency: the property of a resource allocation of maximizing the total surplus received by all members of society.
Euity :fairness of the distribution of well-being among the members of society.

CHAPTER 8
Deadweight loss: the fall in total surplus that results from a market distortion, such as a tax.

CHAPTER 10
Externality :the uncompensated impact of one person’s actions on the well-being of a bystander.
Internalizing an externality: altering incentives so that people take account of the external effects of their actions.
Coase theorem: the proposition that if private parties can bargain without cost over the allocation of resources, they can solve the problem of externalities on their own.
Transaction costs: the costs that parties incur in the process of agreeing and following through on a bargain.

CHAPTER11
Excludability:the property of a good whereby a person can be prevented from using it.
Rivalry in consumption: the property of a good whereby one person’s use diminishes other people’s use.
Private goods: goods that are both excludable and rival.
Public goods :goods that are neither excludable nor rival.
Common resources: goods that are rival but not excludable.
Free rider: a person who receives the benefit of a good but avoids paying for it.
Costbenefit analysis: a study that compares the costs and benefits to society of providing a public good.
Tragedy of the commons: a parable that illustrates why common resources get used more than is desirable from the standpoint of society as a whole.

CHAPTER 13
Total revenue: the amount a firm receives for the sale of its output.
Total cost: the market value of the inputs a firm uses in production.
profit :total revenue minus total cost.
explicit costs: input costs that require an outlay of money by the firm.
Implicit costs: input costs that do not require an outlay of money by the firm.
Economic profit: total revenue minus total cost, including both explicit and implicit costs.
Accounting profit: total revenue minus total explicit cost.
Production function: the relationship between quantity of inputs used to make a good and the quantity of output of that good.
Marginal product: the increase in output that arises from an additional unit of input.
Diminishing marginal product: the property whereby the marginal product of an input declines as the quantity of the input increases.
Fixed costs: costs that do not vary with the quantity of output produced.
Variable costs: costs that do vary with the quantity of output produced.
Average total cost: total cost divided by the quantity of output.
Average fixed cost: fixed costs divided by the quantity of output.
Average variable cost: variable costs divided by the quantity of output.
Marginal cost: the increase in total cost that arises from an extra unit of production.
Efficient scale: the quantity of output that minimizes average total cost.
Economies of scale: the property whereby long-run average total cost falls as the quantity of output increases.
Diseconomies of scale: the property whereby long-run average total cost rises as the quantity of output increases.
Constant returns to scale: the property whereby long-run average total cost stays the same as the quantity of output changes.

CHAPTER 14
Competitive market: a market with many buyers and sellers trading identical products so that each buyer and seller is a price taker.
Average revenue: total revenue divided by the quantity sold.
Marginal revenue: the change in total revenue from an additional unit sold.
Sunk cost: a cost that has been committed and cannot be recovered.

CHAPTER 15
Monopoly a firm that is the sole seller of a product without close substitutes.
Natural monopoly: a monopoly that arises because a single firm can supply a good or service to an entire market at a smaller cost than could two or more firms.
Price discrimination: the business practice of selling the same good at different prices to different customers.

CHAPTER 16
Oligopoly :a market structure in which only a few sellers offer similar or identical products.
Monopolistic competition: a market structure in which many firms sell products that are similar but not identical.
Collusion :an agreement among firms in a market about quantities to produce or prices to charge.
Carte : a group of firms acting in unison.
Nash equilibrium: a situation in which economic actors interacting with one another each choose their best strategy given the strategies that all the other actors have chosen.
Game theory: the study of how people behave in strategic situations.
Prisoners’dilemma: a particular "game" between two captured prisoners that illustrates why cooperation is difficult to maintain even when it is mutually beneficial.
Dominant strategy: a strategy that is best for a player in a game regardless of the strategies chosen by the other players.

CHAPTER 17
Monopolistic competition: a market structure in which many firms sell products that are similar but not identical.