ответьте на вопросы по тексту 1. How old is the Economics?
2. What branches of economics are there?
3. What is a theory of economics?
4. What is Alfred Marshall’s definition of economics?
5. What is the guiding idea of economics?
6. What are the three vital ingredients of economics?
7. What three fundamental questions has economics to answer according to the great American economist Paul?
8. What is the alternative definition of economics?
9. What is the primary concern of economics?
10. Why is a basic understanding of economics very important for everybody?
11. Why should businessmen understand economics?
12. Where do economists work?
13. What is the job of any economist in general?
14. What jobs do economists perform?
Economics is as old as the human race. When ancient men changed the skins of the animals they hunted for axes they developed economic relations. But economics as a science is relatively new. The first major book on economics “The Wealth of Nations” by Adam Smith (an Englishman) was published in 1776. Since that time the economics has developed rapidly and now there are many branches of it such as microeconomics, international economics and econometrics and many competing schools of the science.
Economics is a theory of how society works. The great economist Alfred Marshall defined economics as “the study of a man in the everyday business of life”. The guiding idea in economics is scarcity (lack of something). In our world everything is scarce: not just gold, diamonds and oil but also food and water. There are not enough resources to give people all they want. Limited resources are both in rich and poor countries. The economists’ job is to evaluate the choices that exist for the use of these resources. Thus we have another characteristic of economics – the choice. Still another aspect of economics is people themselves. People need not only food and clothes but cars, telephones, TV – sets and many other goods. So the three vital ingredients of economics are people, scarcity and choice. Thus we can define economics as the human science which studies the relationship between scarce resources and the choice how to use these resources.
The great American economist Paul said that every economic society has to answer three fundamental questions: What, How and For whom.
What? – What goods to produce with scarce resources: clothes, food, cars, submarines, TV sets, planes?
How? – How to combine basic resources of labor and land to produce the goods and services which we want?
For whom? – How to distribute produced goods and services among people?
Economics has practical value in business. Business executives should understand how economics works to formulate business policies and make reasonable business decisions.
It seems to me that Matilda can be read and useful at any age. Although, probably, children will understand it even better than adults.