Eco/365 Trends in Consumption Patters
Trends in Consumption Patterns:
The Meat Industry
ECO/365
July 1, 2013
Trends come and go. It is a fact that people’s wants and desires change on almost a daily basis. In the realm of consumer patterns it may be a little more difficult to follow the changing trends simply because the economy changes just a rapidly as a person’s mind does. Just how much society buys and how frequent will depend on multiple factors that not only have an impact on each one by itself, but the factors also impact each other. By following these patterns economists can predict consumers demands and allow the markets to accommodate as such.
According to Colander, 2010 economics can be thought of as “the study of how human beings coordinate their wants and desires, given the decision-making mechanisms, social customs, and political realities of the society”. One way to think of economics is that it is studying how people buy things, what pushes them to make those choices, what resources are used, and what is the driving force behind those choices. In order to better understand consumer patterns it helps to have a better understanding of economics, more precisely, microeconomics. Microeconomics is “the study of individual choice, and how hat choice is influenced by economic forces” (Colander, 2010). This simply put means to consider the economy from a firm or individual’s point of view and then work the way up to an overview of the economy as a whole. The difference between micro and macro economics is that micro starts with small components and builds the theory, while macro looks at a theory and breaks it down by component to examine. This is how we can determine patterns and trends set by consumption, and even though the two are related, there is really no clearly drawn line as to how different they really are. This can be clarified by looking at the law of supply and demand. The law of supply can be defined as “quantity supplied rises as price rises, other
The Meat Industry
ECO/365
July 1, 2013
Trends come and go. It is a fact that people’s wants and desires change on almost a daily basis. In the realm of consumer patterns it may be a little more difficult to follow the changing trends simply because the economy changes just a rapidly as a person’s mind does. Just how much society buys and how frequent will depend on multiple factors that not only have an impact on each one by itself, but the factors also impact each other. By following these patterns economists can predict consumers demands and allow the markets to accommodate as such.
According to Colander, 2010 economics can be thought of as “the study of how human beings coordinate their wants and desires, given the decision-making mechanisms, social customs, and political realities of the society”. One way to think of economics is that it is studying how people buy things, what pushes them to make those choices, what resources are used, and what is the driving force behind those choices. In order to better understand consumer patterns it helps to have a better understanding of economics, more precisely, microeconomics. Microeconomics is “the study of individual choice, and how hat choice is influenced by economic forces” (Colander, 2010). This simply put means to consider the economy from a firm or individual’s point of view and then work the way up to an overview of the economy as a whole. The difference between micro and macro economics is that micro starts with small components and builds the theory, while macro looks at a theory and breaks it down by component to examine. This is how we can determine patterns and trends set by consumption, and even though the two are related, there is really no clearly drawn line as to how different they really are. This can be clarified by looking at the law of supply and demand. The law of supply can be defined as “quantity supplied rises as price rises, other
References: Colander, D.C. (2010), Economics (8h ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Daniel, C.R., Cross, A.J., & Koebnick, C. (2011, April). Trends in meat consumption in the United States. National Institute of Health Public Access, (), . Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3045642/