Economic Concepts and Applications: The Contemporary New Zealand Environment (5e)

The fifth edition of Economic Concepts and Applications continues to echo the great nineteenth-century economist, Alfred Marshall, who said that economics is ‘a study of mankind in the ordinary business of life’.

Economics, at its core, is about making decisions: the course of study chosen by a student; the job chosen by a job seeker; the goods purchased by a consumer; the crops planted by a farmer; the pricing decisions of a producer; a government’s decision to raise or lower taxes – all are economic decisions and have economic consequences. Some decisions have little impact on the economy, while others can have a global impact. This text aims to help the reader apply economic concepts and models to the real world.

The fifth edition of this popular textbook covers economic concepts, theories and models required by students of introductory economics courses. The author seeks to show students how economic tools can be used to understand the economic forces present in our daily lives. Global warming and globalisation are examples of contemporary issues raised for discussion.

The text has a clear flow of essential economic principles and uses appendices to elaborate on more technical content.

Key market

• Students studying introductory courses on the New Zealand economy.
• New Zealand Diploma in Business students of the Economic Environment 520 course.
• Students studying the essentials of microeconomic and macroeconomic principles.

Preface to the fifth edition
Acknowledgements
List of abbreviations

Part One: Resources and sustainability
  1 Allocating resources to maximise human welfare
  2 Governments, markets and economic performance.....

Part Two: The price mechanism
  3 Demand and supply
  4 Elasticity of demand and supply, and government policies

Part Three: Theory of the Firm
  5 Costs of production
  6 Market structure and the revenue of a firm
  7 Business decision-making strategy

Part Four: Market failure and government intervention
  8 Allocative efficiency in a pure market economy
  9 Social goods and externalities
10 Government intervention

Part Five: The macroeconomic environment
11 Circular flow of a nation’s economy
12 Economic activity, the price level and living standards
13 The labour market
14 Aggregate demand and aggregate supply
15 Money and financial markets

Part Six: Macroeconomic policy
16 Monetary policy
17 Fiscal policy
18 The public sector in New Zealand

Part Seven: The environment of international trade
19 Benefits and costs of international trade
20 Balance of payments: a country’s balance sheet
21 Foreign exchange market
22 New Zealand’s development in a globalising economy

References
Glossary
Index

• Learning outcomes at the beginning of each chapter help students to make connections to their course content.
• News articles and case studies show how economics applies to everyday life.
• Definition boxes help students check their understanding.
• End-of-chapter exercises reinforce student learning.
• Tables provide up-to-date information on the New Zealand economy.
• Figures present economic concepts clearly.
• Appendices contain more advanced content.
• Historical content shows how economic policy influences economic activity over time and how contemporary issues may impact on the economy in the future.
• A range of supplements to this text is available to students and instructors who adopt this text. Click on the Downloads tabs to find out more.

James Stewart is a senior lecturer in economics at Unitec Institute of Technology. James teaches economics for the New Zealand Diploma in Business and Unitec’s Bachelor of Business and, in 2000, he received the Unitec Institute of Technology award for teaching excellence. In 2005–2006, James was the head of the economics department at the Monterey Peninsula College in California and, in 2011, he visited the F H Jaanneum, University of Applied Science, in Graz, Austria, where he taught the Economics of Financial Markets for the Global Business programme. James’s research is centred on fisheries economics.

He is particularly interested in the impact of the quota management system (QMS) on the small fisher. His most recent publication is on concentration of quota and Annual Catch Entitlements (ACE) in the New Zealand fishery.

• Students studying introductory courses on the New Zealand economy.
• New Zealand Diploma in Business students of the Economic Environment 520 course.
• Students studying the essentials of microeconomic and macroeconomic principles.