Economics Quiz
Short Answer (one sentence) – Choose 8, 4 from each section (5 points each)
Framework
What is the Gini Coefficient?
The Gini coefficient is the statistical measure of income or wealth distribution in a nation that was developed by Italian statistician Garrado Gini.
What is Social Capital?
Social Capital is the value of a network amongst connected people that have some level of trust and has an economic benefit.
What is Surplus?
Surplus is when there is an excess of a good or an offer service; when the supply of a good is greater than the demand for it, then there is a surplus of the supplied good.
What is a Predatory State?
A predatory state is an economic state that seeks to maximize the profits of the wealthy and the government at the cost of the middle and lower-class.
US/UK
What is Fordism and in what economic system was it dominant? …show more content…
Fordism was an economic stage issued in the early 20th century by Henry Ford after inventing the assembly line, which mass production was the dominant system.
What is peonage and how does it fit into the U.S. economic system?
Peonage is debtor servitude or debtor slavery, where individual works until their debt are paid off. After chattel slavery ended, there was a significant shift to peonage to support the U.S. southern economy Post-Civil War.
What is Neoliberal Capitalism?
Neoliberal Capitalism is the ideology of giving control of economic factors in the private sector; often associated with supply-side economics and self-regulation, sometimes referred to as Reaganomics in the U.S.
What is moral hazard in the context of economic policy?
Moral hazard is the willingness to engage in riskier activity when insured, knowing that the negative consequence of individuals is safeguarded.
Long Answer (one paragraph) - Choose 3, at least one from each section (20 points each)
Introduction
What are the problems with GDP as a measure of economic
prosperity?
GDP is very limited and falls short of appropriately measuring economic prosperity. GDP does not take into account other things that are essential to defining economic prosperity from effects on ecology, quality of life, community, and human development. It would be more useful if it measured like other indicators like the index of sustainable economic welfare, the genuine progress indicator or Human Development Index, which has a holistic approach to measuring economic prosperity.
What are the two different points of view on freedom?
The two viewpoints of freedom are the freedom of choice and unequal access to freedom. The freedom of choice is the liberty to decide without a mandate; economist Milton Freedom popularized this concept. The other view held on freedom is there is unequal access to it. The disparate access is due to unequal distribution of resources and the more resources an individual holds, the more freedom they leverage. US/UK
How did land expansion affect the U.S. economy?
Land expansion helped grow the U.S. economy substantially. It provided the opportunity for specific citizens of the U.S. to get land for free or near free, giving them a steady start to economically prosper. Furthermore, free land allowed for completive capitalism. Many people were able to pursue enterprises with the assistance of land expansion, otherwise many of the individuals would not have been able to do so.
Extra credit:
Use the framework about a successful polity/civil society to discuss what is happening in Catalonia.
A thriving civil society is always confronting competing ideologies and viewpoints. Democracy in a civil society provides ample opportunity for collective decisions to occur. A consensus allows for more people to participate in decision making. However, a democratic society is not always stable. With collective decisions, it is easier for standpoints to shift and destabilize a country. Recently in Catalonia, a referendum was held to decide separation from Spain. 90% voted for the separation, but less than half of Catalans voted. This occurrence is a product of democracy, of a prosperous civil society in Europe. In Catalonia, collective decisions are at work, even if it threatens Spain, a country that once didn't have democracy.
Framework
What is the Gini Coefficient?
The Gini coefficient is the statistical measure of income or wealth distribution in a nation that was developed by Italian statistician Garrado Gini.
What is Social Capital?
Social Capital is the value of a network amongst connected people that have some level of trust and has an economic benefit.
What is Surplus?
Surplus is when there is an excess of a good or an offer service; when the supply of a good is greater than the demand for it, then there is a surplus of the supplied good.
What is a Predatory State?
A predatory state is an economic state that seeks to maximize the profits of the wealthy and the government at the cost of the middle and lower-class.
US/UK
What is Fordism and in what economic system was it dominant? …show more content…
Fordism was an economic stage issued in the early 20th century by Henry Ford after inventing the assembly line, which mass production was the dominant system.
What is peonage and how does it fit into the U.S. economic system?
Peonage is debtor servitude or debtor slavery, where individual works until their debt are paid off. After chattel slavery ended, there was a significant shift to peonage to support the U.S. southern economy Post-Civil War.
What is Neoliberal Capitalism?
Neoliberal Capitalism is the ideology of giving control of economic factors in the private sector; often associated with supply-side economics and self-regulation, sometimes referred to as Reaganomics in the U.S.
What is moral hazard in the context of economic policy?
Moral hazard is the willingness to engage in riskier activity when insured, knowing that the negative consequence of individuals is safeguarded.
Long Answer (one paragraph) - Choose 3, at least one from each section (20 points each)
Introduction
What are the problems with GDP as a measure of economic
prosperity?
GDP is very limited and falls short of appropriately measuring economic prosperity. GDP does not take into account other things that are essential to defining economic prosperity from effects on ecology, quality of life, community, and human development. It would be more useful if it measured like other indicators like the index of sustainable economic welfare, the genuine progress indicator or Human Development Index, which has a holistic approach to measuring economic prosperity.
What are the two different points of view on freedom?
The two viewpoints of freedom are the freedom of choice and unequal access to freedom. The freedom of choice is the liberty to decide without a mandate; economist Milton Freedom popularized this concept. The other view held on freedom is there is unequal access to it. The disparate access is due to unequal distribution of resources and the more resources an individual holds, the more freedom they leverage. US/UK
How did land expansion affect the U.S. economy?
Land expansion helped grow the U.S. economy substantially. It provided the opportunity for specific citizens of the U.S. to get land for free or near free, giving them a steady start to economically prosper. Furthermore, free land allowed for completive capitalism. Many people were able to pursue enterprises with the assistance of land expansion, otherwise many of the individuals would not have been able to do so.
Extra credit:
Use the framework about a successful polity/civil society to discuss what is happening in Catalonia.
A thriving civil society is always confronting competing ideologies and viewpoints. Democracy in a civil society provides ample opportunity for collective decisions to occur. A consensus allows for more people to participate in decision making. However, a democratic society is not always stable. With collective decisions, it is easier for standpoints to shift and destabilize a country. Recently in Catalonia, a referendum was held to decide separation from Spain. 90% voted for the separation, but less than half of Catalans voted. This occurrence is a product of democracy, of a prosperous civil society in Europe. In Catalonia, collective decisions are at work, even if it threatens Spain, a country that once didn't have democracy.