ECON 2010 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Scientific Method, Opportunity Cost, Macroeconomics

• School: CU-Boulder
• Department: Economics
• Course: ECON 2010
• Professor: Christian Hennigan

Document Summary

10:05 am: economists play 2 roles, scientists: try to explain the world, engineers (policy advisors): try to improve it. Economist as a scientist: as scientists, economists employ the scientific method, dispassionate development and testing of theories about how the world works, assumptions, simplify the complex world & make it easier to understand, ex. Interacting in 2 markets: market for goods & services, market for factors of production (inputs) When the slope is more steep = opportunity cost is higher. Positive statements: descriptive: attempt to describe the world as it is (factual, doesn"t have to be true, confirm or refute by examining evidence: minimum-wage laws cause. I am wearing a red shirt (doesn"t have to be a red shirt) unemployment . Normative statements: prescriptive: attempt to prescribe how the world should be: the government should raise the minimum wage . **usually normative statements are disguised as positive statements.