{"id":1700,"date":"2012-10-26T12:01:26","date_gmt":"2012-10-26T12:01:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/comp6044\/?p=1700"},"modified":"2012-10-26T12:01:51","modified_gmt":"2012-10-26T12:01:51","slug":"blog-week-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/comp6044\/2012\/10\/26\/blog-week-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Blog Week 2"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

A very heavy book<\/p><\/div>\n

My reading for this module this week has been the incredibly weighty tome \u201ceconomics\u201d, 1994 4th<\/sup> edition by D. Begg, S. Fischer and R . Dornbusch, \u00a0published by McGraw-Hill Book Company in Maidenhead.\u00a0 It is a very easy to read, entry level book which explains economics in a simplified and an advanced version.\u00a0 I stuck with the simplified version.<\/p>\n

Economics is the study of human behaviour with the central issue facing economists being the almost limitless desire for goods and services when the resources the same goods and services depend upon maybe scarce. \u00a0\u00a0Economics studies how society decides which commodities to produce above another.Economics can be split into two areas, microeconomics and macroeconomics, which represent the differing methodologies at play within the field of economics.\u00a0 Microeconomics focuses on individual economic transactions about specific commodities whereas macroeconomics studies the interactions in the economy as a whole.<\/p>\n

A researcher in the field of microeconomics would concentrate their research into why certain people purchase a certain item and then use the data they have collected to extrapolate a theory of human behaviour which can be applied to the general population.\u00a0 One critique that can be levelled at microeconomists is their simplicity allows them to ignore the wider picture.\u00a0 \u00a0Indirect effects can heavily influence an economic decision.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Macroeconomists concern themselves with the economy as a whole.\u00a0 The analysis they undertake tends to focus on GDP, inflation and the labour force.\u00a0 They are more likely to concern themselves with how government policy is affecting the economy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Economies are not the same for each country.\u00a0 There are three different types of economies, firstly, the command economy.\u00a0 The command economy is a term used to describe when a central office makes all economic decisions.\u00a0 Secondly, the free market economy.\u00a0 This term is used to describe a situation where no one is intervening in the market and individuals pursue their own self interests.\u00a0 Despite the lack of regulation it is posited that a invisible hand would guide the market.\u00a0 Lastly, the mixed economy.\u00a0 A mixed economy is one which is a blend of the command economy and the free market economy.\u00a0 Mainly the economy is allowed to follow a free market style but government regulation is needed in certain areas.\u00a0 This is the type of economy which we currently experience in the United Kingdom.<\/p>\n

The study of economics can be undertaken for two reasons.\u00a0 It may explain why things have happened or it may seek to explain what should happen.\u00a0 The first type of economic study is called positive economics and the second type is called normative economics.\u00a0 Normative economics is open to subjective value judgments, whereas in positive economics researchers are likely to come to the same conclusions.<\/p>\n

Next week I will blog about how to undertake economic analysis and the methodologies involved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My reading for this module this week has been the incredibly weighty tome \u201ceconomics\u201d, 1994 4th edition by D. Begg, S. Fischer and R . Dornbusch, \u00a0published by McGraw-Hill Book Company in Maidenhead.\u00a0 It is a very easy to read, entry level book which explains economics in a simplified and an advanced version.\u00a0 I stuck […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":53988,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[261,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics-discipline","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/comp6044\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/comp6044\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/comp6044\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/comp6044\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/53988"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/comp6044\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1700"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/comp6044\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1700\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1705,"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/comp6044\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1700\/revisions\/1705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/comp6044\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/comp6044\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/comp6044\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}