SUSTAIN 1S03 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Marginal Utility, Resource Productivity, Blast Furnace
13 Dec 2017
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Regulates temp, supplies clean air, water, breaks down waste, provides shelter and food. Assigned economic value: trillion a year, per inhabitant on earth (missing about a third of our entire system of gdp. Ability to maximize benefit with available resources. Trade off based on decision to move economy in one direction or another. Specialization can allow an economy to focus in 1 area to maximize benefit from available resources. What influences productivity? (output as a nation) If demand increased and supply doesn"t, price goes up and vice versa. Concept that an individual"s goal is to maximize utility. Marginal utility: increase of utility per unit of consumption. Highly elastic: small change in price leads to huge change in supply or demand. Highly inelastic: significant change in price only creates a marginal change in supply. We can substitute if we have the buying power.
