unit – хозяйственная единица
household – домашнее хозяйство
to charge – назначать цену
income - доход
field of economics – сфера (область) экономики
suppliers of labour – поставщики рабочей силы
applied economics – прикладная экономика
labour economics – экономика труда
cost-benefit analyses – анализ “затраты-выгоды”; анализ выгодности затрат
demand - спрос
supply - предложение
market equilibrium – равновесие рынка
total national output – общий объем продукции, совокупный продукт
level of price – уровень цен
rate of inflation – уровень инфляции
consumption patterns – структура потребления
aggregate - совокупный
gross national product (GNP) – валовый национальный продукт (ВНП)
production facilities – производственные мощности
prosperity - процветание
well-being – благосостояние, благополучие
Economics is divided into two major branches: macroeconomics and microeconomics.
The word “micro” means small, and microeconomics means economics in the small.
Microeconomics deals with the functioning of individual industries and the behaviour of individual economic decision-making units: single business firms and households. The choices of firms about what to produce, how much to charge and the choices of households about what to buy and how much of it to buy help to explain why the economy produces the things it does.
Another big question that microeconomics addresses is who gets the things that areproduced. Why do we have poverty? Who is poor? Why do some jobs pay more than others? Why do teachers or plumbers or baseball pitchers get paid for what they do?
Think again about all the things you consume in a day, and then think back to that view out over a big city. Somebody decided to build those factories. Somebody decided to construct the roads, build the housing, produce the cars, knit the T-shirts, and smoke the bacon. Why? What is going on in all these buildings? It is easy to see that understanding individual micro decisions is very important to any understanding of your society.
The distribution of products and income among all these units is also analyzed by microeconomics. In this field of economics individuals are considered both as suppliers of labour and as consumers of goods. Firms are also studied as suppliers of products and as consumers of labour and capital. Microeconomics theory is used widely in many areas of applied economics. For example, it is used in industrial organization, labour economics, international trade, cost-benefit analyses and many other economic subfields.
The central components of microeconomics are demand, supply and market equilibrium. Demand refers to how individuals or households form their demands for different goods and services. Supply refers to how firms decide which and how many goods or services they will supply and what combination of factors of production they should employ in supplying them. Market equilibrium refers to how markets enable these supplies and demands to interact. There was a long period in the 19th and early in the 20th centuries when microeconomic questions dominated in economics.
Macroeconomics adds it all up and looks at the economy in the large. Macroeconomics deals with economic factors such as total national output and income, unemployment, level of price, and the rate of inflation. Instead of trying to understand what determines the output of a single firm or industry or the consumption patterns of a single household or group of households, we turn to the factors that determine national output, or national product. Macroeconomics turns from household income to national income.
While microeconomics focuses on individual product prices and relative prices, macroeconomics looks at the price level and the general rate of inflation. Microeconomics questions how many people will be hired (or fired) this year in the steel industry or in the high-tech firms around a definite region – what factors determine how much labour a firm or an industry will hire. Macroeconomics deals with aggregate employment and unemployment: how many jobs exist in the country, and how many people who are willing to work will not be able to find work.
Microeconomics, then, looks at the individual unit - the household, the firm, the industry. It sees and examines the “trees”. Macroeconomics looks at the whole, the aggregate. It sees and analyzes the “forest”.
Macroeconomic theory is largely concerned with what determines the size of gross national product (GNP), its stability and its relationship to unemployment and inflation. The GNP is the value of all goods and services produced by a country during a given period, even if production facilities are in another country. The key to prosperity in an economy is steady growth in national output. When growth in nation’s output exceeds its growth in population, this improves the well-being of the population of a country.
