Core Concepts of Money, Supply, and Monetary Policy

Understanding Money and Its Functions

  • Store of value: Money allows transferring purchasing power into the future. However, it’s an imperfect store due to inflation eroding its value.
  • Unit of account: Money provides the common terms for quoting prices and recording debts.
  • Medium of exchange: Money is used to facilitate transactions for goods and services.

Money Classifications (Aggregates)

Money supply is often categorized into different aggregates:

  • M0/MB (Monetary Base): Currency in circulation plus bank
Read More

Understanding Free Trade: Benefits, Barriers, and Commercial Policies

Free Trade and Barriers

Free trade (barriers to trade)

  • Absolute and Comparative Advantage and Heckscher-Ohlin theory assume free trade and a perfect market (no tariff or differentiated taxes).
  • Earnings from trade can be mathematically proven.
  • Graphically: points of after-trade consumption are always beyond the PPF.

Gains from Free Trade

  • Economic Gains: Increase in the standard of living and economic growth resulting from a country’s engaging in free international trade.
  • Political Gains: Increases in
Read More

Understanding Economic Activity: Key Concepts & Systems

Understanding Economic Activity

Economic activity encompasses all human actions aimed at organizing the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services.

Needs and Goods

Needs can be basic, such as food, housing, or energy, or non-essential, like a car. Goods are products, both tangible (food) and intangible (services), that satisfy these needs.

Resources

Resources are the natural substances and materials used to produce goods that meet human needs. These resources originate from the Earth’

Read More

Socio-Economic Factors Impacting Marketing Strategies

Socio-Economic Factors and Marketing

The socio-economic framework significantly impacts marketing practices. While satisfying consumer needs is universally applicable, the concept of ‘benefit’ requires careful consideration within different socio-economic contexts. The differences between socialist and capitalist socio-economic frameworks are substantial. Capitalist economies generally align with the free market model, while socialist economies adhere to planned development principles.

Socio-Economic

Read More

Understanding Foreign Exchange Risk Exposure: Types and Examples

Types of Foreign Exchange Risk Exposure

  1. Types of foreign exchange risk exposure

Transaction Risk

Transaction Risk is the risk of an exchange rate changing between the transaction date and the subsequent settlement date. Thus, it is the gain or loss arising on conversion.

This type of risk is primarily associated with imports and exports. If a company exports goods on credit, then it has a figure for debtors in its accounts. The amount it will finally receive depends on the foreign exchange movement

Read More

Core Concepts in National and International Economics

National Economy

The domestic economy comprises numerous smaller economic units. It’s an entity that can operate within its own sphere while maintaining a common unitary nature.

The national economy has been defined as an organized unit of individual and corporate economies existing in a superimposed state, encompassing the financial economy within the state itself.

International Economics

This field studies the economic behavior of entire economies by examining fundamentals such as:

  • Total economic output
  • General
Read More