Definition – Opportunity cost is the next best alternative foregone. If we spend that £20 on a textbook, the opportunity cost is the restaurant meal we cannot afford to pay. If you decide to spend two hours studying on a Friday night. The opportunity cost is that you cannot have those two hours for leisure. …
Seigniorage is the profit created by issuing currency, where the face value is higher than the intrinsic value. (production costs) Seigniorage income can also relate to the interest a Central Bank charges from lending commercial banks money. Seigniorage explained Early forms of money had a face value equal to the production costs – e.g. gold …
Definition: Economic inactivity means that people (aged 16-64) are not involved in the labour market – they are neither working or actively seeking employment. Economic inactivity includes students, early retirees and the long-term sick. There are 8.5 million counted as economically inactive in the UK. The unemployed who are seeking working and willing and able …
Globalisation is a complex and controversial issue. This is a look at some of the main benefits and costs associated with the greater globalisation of the world economy. Definition of Globalisation The process of increased integration and co-operation of different national economies. It involves national economies becoming increasingly inter-related and integrated. Globalisation has involved: Greater …
A list and definition of different types of economic costs. Fixed Costs (FC) The costs which don’t vary with changing output. Fixed costs might include the cost of building a factory, insurance and legal bills. Even if your output changes or you don’t produce anything, your fixed costs stay the same. In the above example, …
Definition An economic good is a good or service that has a benefit (utility) to society. Also, economic goods have a degree of scarcity and therefore an opportunity cost. This is in contrast to a free good (like air, sea, water) where there is no opportunity cost – but abundance. Free goods cannot be traded …
Funding free licence fees for over-75s cost the government £608m in 2013-14 – about a fifth of the BBC’s budget. By 2021/22 funding free license fees for the over-75s would cost £745m. Under the new scheme, pensioners receiving pension credit will be eligible for a free license, but the rest of pensioners over 75 will …
Definition of Productive efficiency Productive efficiency is concerned with producing goods and services with the optimal combination of inputs to produce maximum output for the minimum cost. To be productively efficient means the economy must be producing on its production possibility frontier. (i.e. it is impossible to produce more of one good without producing less …