HOW People Make Decisions 3
Principle1:People Face Tradeoffs 3
Principle2:The Cost of Something
IsWhatYouGiveUPtoGetIt 4
Principle3:Rational People Think at the Margin 5
Principle:People Respond to Incentives 6
……

书摘
Case Study
ARE NATURAL RESOURCES A LIMIT TO GROWTH?
The world’s population is far larger today than it was a century ago,and many people are enjoying a much higher standard of living.A perennial debate concerns whether this growth in population and living standards can continue in the future. Many commentators have argued that natural resources provide a limit to how much the world’s economies can grow.At first,this argument might seem hard to ignore.If the world has only a fixed supply of nonrenewable natural resources.how can population f production?and living standards continue to grow over time? Eventually,won’t supplies of o订and minerals start to run out?When these shortages start to occur,wonj t they stop economic growth and?perhaps f even force living standards to fall? Despite the apparent appeal of such arguments,most economists are less concerned about such limits to growth than one might guess.They argue that technological progress often yields ways to avoid these limits.If we compare the economy today to the economy of the past,we see various ways in which the use of natural resources has improved.Modern cars have better gas mileage.New houses have better insulation and require less energY to heat and c001 them.More efficient oil rigs waste less Oil in the process of extraction.Recycling allows some nonrenewable resources to be reused.The development of alternative fuels,such as ethanol instead of gasoline,allows us to substitute renewable for nonrenewable resources. Fifty years ago,some conservationists were concerned about the excessive use of tin and copper.At the time.these were crucial commodities:Tin was used to make many food containers,and copper was used to make telephone wire.Some people advocated mandatory recycling and rationing of tin and copper so that supplies would be available for future generations.Today,however,plastic has replaced tin as a material for making many food container
……

HOW People Make Decisions 3
Principle1:People Face Tradeoffs 3
Principle2:The Cost of Something
IsWhatYouGiveUPtoGetIt 4
Principle3:Rational People Think at the Margin 5
Principle:People Respond to Incentives 6
……

要理解和掌握经济学的逻辑和思维方法,就需要对经济学原理或基础知识进行系统的学习,而经济学教科书的内容总是与特定时代相联系的,因此经济学教科书的内容既是历史精华的浓缩,也是时代进步和思想演进的体现,本书简洁明快、有趣的文字和层次分明的内在逻辑使之成为*便捷和*实用的经济学入门教材。