Exam 23: Microeconomic Policy, Economic Reasoning, and Beyond

Economists' cost/benefit approach to public policy requires them to assign a monetary value to all gains and losses of everything,including life.This is controversial and difficult,and may introduce biases.Explain why.

Why is it unlikely that government will be able to correct a failure of a market outcome?

"People are at war with themselves. Part of them says that they want to quit smoking, but another part says they need a cigarette right now. Or part of them says they want to be healthy, and another part says they need to satisfy their cravings for fatty food and sweets." These statements are suggesting that:

"I recognize that the market is effective at getting resources to their most valued uses, but I also recognize that the market can produce results that are grossly unfair." This speaker is implying:

Why do we say that competitive markets are efficient?

Courts often estimate the value of human life on the basis of a person's earnings over that person's remaining life span.

Market equilibrium maximizes the sum of:

The group of economists that has stressed the idea of government failure is:

Which of the following statements is true?

A liberal economist would never recommend that policy makers cut union wages.

According to work by Amartya Sen, the best way from a society's point of view to deal with inalienable rights is to:

If government's goal is to raise tax revenue and limit efficiency loss, taxation is most effective when:

When Marxist economists look at labor markets, they:

Most economists believe that:

Mainstream economists focus on:

Economists are trained to be as:

Assume that running in a marathon increases a person's risk of dying from almost negligible to about 1 in 50,000. If people know this risk and still choose to run marathons, economists would most likely conclude that people:

Public choice economists believe that:

Despite their different political views,liberal and conservative economists agree on many policy prescriptions.Explain why.

How does the approach used by most economists to analyze regulations differ from that typically used by politicians? Explain.