1. Chapter 3
Sections 3 and 4

2. Objectives Analyze market failures Identify examples of public goods
Evaluate how the government allocates some resources by managing externalities
Explain how the government tracks and seeks to influence business cycles
Analyze the governments economic goals
Explain why and how the government encourages innovation

3. Objective 1: Analyze market failures
Market failure – a situation in which the market does not distribute resources efficiently
To understand market failure, recall how a successful free market operates:
choices made by individuals determine what goods get made, how they get made, and who consumes the goods.
Profit incentives attract producers, who, because of competition, provide goods and services that consumers need at a price they can afford
If these conditions are not present, and there is not a properly functioning market system, economist consider it a market failure.
Example: if the government didn’t build roads who would?

4. Objective 2: Identify examples of public goods
Public good – a shared good or service for which it would be impractical to:
make consumers pay individually
exclude nonpayers
Examples: roads, dams, bridges, public parks
Other characteristics:
Any number of consumers can use them without reducing the benefits to any single consumer
For the most part; increasing the number of consumers does not increase the cost of providing the public good

5. Objective 2: Identify examples of public goods
Cost is critical when determining whether something gets produced as a public good. When a good or service is public:
The benefit to each individual is less than the cost that each would have to pay if it were provided privately
The total benefits to society are greater than the total cost
in these circumstances, the market would not provide the good; the government would have to, or else it wouldn’t get done.
Public goods are financed by the public sector – the part of the economy that involves the transactions of the government.
The private sector – the part of the economy that involves transactions of individuals and businesses, would have little incentive to produce public goods

6. Objective 2: Identify examples of public goods
Free Rider Problem – someone who would not choose to pay for a certain good or service, but who would get the benefits of it anyway if it were provided as a public good.
Example – a neighbor is unwilling to pay for fire fighting protection privately, (if they had to). Because fire departments are public goods, the neighbor now has the benefits of fire protection without directly paying themselves. They are a free rider.

7. Objective 3: evaluate how the government allocates some resources by managing externalities
Externality – an economic side effect of a good or service that generates benefits or costs to someone other than the person deciding how much to produce or consume
Positive externalities – have beneficial side effects
Example: Mrs. Garland buys an old house in the neighborhood and fixes it up. Her neighbors were not involved in the economic decision, but they receive benefits in the form of higher property values and a better view
Negative externalities – generate unintended costs
Example: Mr. Folger, your next door neighbor, takes up rapping and holds Friday night rap battles in his backyard. Unfortunately, you hate rap music.

8. Objective 3: evaluate how the government allocates some resources by managing externalities
Government’s Goals – when externalities are present, we have a market failure, because the cost or benefits of a good or service are not assigned properly.
The government encourages the creation of positive externalities
Example: education benefits students yet society as a whole benefits from an educated population
The government aims to limit negative externalities
Example: acid rain from coal burning pollutants

9. Section 4 Promoting Growth and Stability
Chapter 3
Section 4
Promoting Growth and Stability

10. Objective 1: Explain how the government tracks and seeks to influence business cycles
Macroeconomics – the study of behavior and decision making of entire economies
Microeconomics – the study of behavior and decision making in small units like individuals, families and businesses
Business cycle – a period of macroeconomic expansion followed by a period of contraction
Gross domestic product (GDP) – the total value of all final goods and services produced in a particular economy

11. Objective 1: Explain how the government tracks and seeks to influence business cycles
In Washington, armies of economist try to predict whether the nation’s economy will grow or shrink. Economic policymakers try to slow the economy when it grows too rapidly and speed up the economy when it is slow and unproductive.
One way economist measure economic well being is by calculating GDP and using it and other statistics to predict business cycles
Examples:
the government creates public policies that attempt to stabilize the economy, this could be things like regulations on the banks or subsidies to dairy farmers.
Through the way it spends money and influences other macroeconomic factors such as interest rates

12. Objective 2: Analyze the government’s economic goals
The government has three main economic goals:
Employment – jobs for everyone who is able to work. An unemployment rate between 4.5 and 5.5 percent.
Growth – part of the American Dream has always been for each generation to enjoy a higher standard of living than that of the previous generation. In order for that to happen, the economy must grow. GDP is a measure of such growth.
Stability – keeping the economy stable and secure
Giving consumers, producers and investors confidence in the economy
Keeping prices stable – preventing sudden drastic shifts in prices
Regulating and monitoring financial institutions – protects investors from fraud or mismanagement and shields from economic downturns

13. Objective 3: Explain why and how the government encourages innovation
The American economy maintains a far higher standard of living, in terms of GDP, than most of the world
One way to preserve that high standard is by increasing productivity – shifting the production possibilities frontier outward.
Improved technology – the process used to produce a good or service, allows the economy to produce more output from the same or less inputs. (resources)
The governments role in invention, or innovation, is to:
fund research and development projects at universities and private firms
Produce new technologies through government institutions like NASA
Granting patents and copyrights (enables inventors to make huge profits)

14. Objective 3: Explain why and how the government encourages innovation
Example: NASA research led to muscle stimulators for people with paralysis and a scanner that enables thermal imaging