本书以英语语言的学习应用和经济学专业知识的掌握为宗旨,系统介绍了理论经济学和应用经济学各学科的基础知识和基本问题。全书共有16单元,内容涉及微观经济学、宏观经济学、人口资源与环境经济学、世界经济、国际贸易学、财政学和金融学等。精编版在*版的基础上,以保证原教材系统性和完整性为前提,节选原教材*为精华的内容整合成一册,以方便教学需要。本书在原*版的基础上,主要从三个方面进行了修订和完善:一是根据经济发展实践变化情况,对书中各单元的主要数据及材料进行了更新,使之更加贴近实际,更好地反映现实经济状况;二是对书中各单元的练习题做了适当精简和更新,使之更加切合教学实际和需要;三是为了使本书内容更好地体现经济学相关理论的核心内容及其系统性、逻辑性和*进展,对书中一些课文的内容进行了替换和补充,尤其对第六单元主课文“通货膨胀”和副课文“失业”以及第十一单元主课文“人口”,都做了较大幅度的调整和完善。

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COST OF PRODUCTION
1. What Are Costs?
Cost is one of the major factors with which profit-maximizing firms must deal wisely. Successful managers are certainly aware that it is the level of cost relative to revenue that determines the firm’s overall profitability. We begin our discussion of costs at Hungry Helen’s Cookie Factory. Helen, the owner of the firm, buys flour, sugar, chocolate chips, and other cookie ingredients. She also buys the mixers and ovens and hires workers to run this equipment. She then sells the resulting cookies to consumers. By examining some of the issues that Helen faces in her business, we can learn some lessons about costs that apply to all firms in the economy.
(1) Total Revenue, Total Cost, and Profit
We begin with the firm’s objective. To understand what decisions a firm makes, we must understand what it is trying to do. It is conceivable that Helen started her firm because of an altruistic desire to provide the world with cookies or, perhaps, out of love for the cookie business. More likely, Helen started her business to make money.
Economists normally assume that the goal of a firm is to maximize profit, and they find that this assumption works well in most cases.
What is a firm’s profit? The amount that the firm receives for the sale of itsoutput (cookies) is called its total revenue. The amount that the firm pays to buy inputs (flour, sugar, workers, ovens, etc.) is called its total cost. Helen gets to keep any revenue that is not needed to cover costs. Profit is a firm’s total revenue minus its total cost.
Profit=Total Revenue?Total Cost
Helen’s objective is to make her firm’s profit as large as possible.
To see how a firm goes about maximizing profit, we must consider fully how to measure its total revenue and its total cost. Total revenue is the easy part: It equals the quantity of output the firm produces times the price at which it sells its output.
If Helen produces 10,000 cookies and se

Unit One ................................................................................................001 Text: Demand and Supply .................................................................................................001 Additional Text: Price Elasticity of Demand ....................................................................012 Unit Two ................................................................................................018 Text: Cost of Production ...................................................................................................018 Additional Text: Economies and Diseconomies of Scale .................................................027 Unit Three .............................................................................................033 Text: Monopoly ..................................................................................................................033 Additional Text: Perfect Competition ..............................................................................043 Unit Four ...............................................................................................048 Text: Oligopoly ...................................................................................................................048 Additional Text: Monopolistic Competition ....................................................................057 Unit Five ...............................................................................................062 Text: Gross Domestic Product ..........................................................................................062 Additional Text: Sources of Economic Development.......................................................071 Unit Six .................................................................................................078 Text: Inflation ............................................................................