Mavzu: "mikroiqtisodiyot" fanining mazmuni, maqsadi va vazifalari

2.2 Choices, Costs and Trade-Offs
If we had unlimited resources, and thus an ability to produce all of the goods and 
services everyone wants, we would not have to choose among those desires, and the 
study of economics would not be necessary. 
The essence of economics is to fully understand the implications that scarcity has 
for wise decision-making.
In a world of scarcity, we must make choices or trade-offs.  Because none of us can 
afford to have everything we want, each time we do decide to acquire one good or 
service, we reduce our ability to acquire other things we would also like to have. 
You must choose, and every choice involves a cost. The cost of a choice is the 
value of what must be foregone. The highest-valued or best foregone opportunity 
resulting from a decision is called the opportunity cost. 
“To choose is to lose.” To get more of anything that is desirable, you must accept 
less of something else that you also value.

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Both money prices and nonprice costs, such as the cost of waiting in line, are 
opportunity costs. 
Opportunity cost illustrations: The opportunity cost of going to college must include 
the opportunity cost of your time; the opportunity cost of rearing a child includes 
the opportunity cost of the time spent in child rearing, time that could be used 
pursuing a career or volunteering at a local mission.
There’s no such thing as a free lunch. A lunch may be free to you (i.e.., 
subsidized), but it is not free from society's perspective, because some of society’s 
scarce resources that could have been used to produce something else of value went 
into creation of the lunch.
In the News: Laws and Enforcement Costs 
2.3 Marginal Thinking
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Most choices involve how much of something to do rather than whether or not to do 
something. 
Economists emphasize marginal thinking because the focus is on additional, or 
marginal, choices. Marginal choices involve the effects of adding or subtracting 
from the current situation. 
Always watch out for the difference between average and marginal costs.