There is a proverb "anything worth doing is worth doing well." Do you think an economist would agree with this proverb?

What will be an ideal response?

Probably not (unless this economist is one of your parents). An economist is likely to tell you that you should follow the Principle of Optimization at the Margin and that you should do something well only if the marginal benefits of doing it well are at least as large as the marginal costs. Suppose you are thinking of painting your room and you have three options: decide not to paint, paint but do a sloppy job, or paint and be meticulously careful. An economist would tell you to paint your room carefully if the marginal benefit of being careful (i.e., the difference between how your room would look if you are careful and how it would look if you are sloppy) is at least as large as the additional cost of painting carefully. Remember that because of scarcity, we cannot have everything we want. Suppose you get 95% of the benefit from painting your room to perfection while doing a sloppy job. The additional 5% in benefits from striving for perfection may well cost more than it is worth, in terms of alternative uses for your time.

Economics

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A small open economy has a current account balance of zero. A rise in its investment demand causes

A) a current account surplus. B) a financial account deficit. C) income to exceed absorption. D) net borrowing from abroad.

Economics

Where does the interest rate fit into the accelerator hypothesis of investment?

A) It helps determine the error-learning parameter, j. B) It helps determine the ratio of desired capital to expected sales, v*. C) It helps determine the depreciation ratio of capital stock to replacement investment. D) Nowhere: the hypothesis says that investment is independent of the interest rate.

Economics