Professional Documents
Culture Documents
1.1.1
Needs – Goods or services that are essential for living. These can things such as water, basic food and
clothing.
Wants – Goods and services that people would like to have but are not essential for living. For example,
brand name clothing, expensive food and luxury cars.
Scarcity (The economic problem) – Unlimited wants but not enough products. The cause of scarcity is
because of not enough factors of production, the 4 factors of production are…
Land – Natural resources from nature such as trees, forests and oil
Capital – Money required for a business to produce items this includes machinery, robots etc…
Opportunity Cost – A benefit/value that must be given up in order to achieve something else. For
example, if a bakery spends money on a new oven, the opportunity cost of the oven could be a new
refrigerator to store cakes.
Specialisation – Workers/machines specialises in some part of the production process. For example, At a
car factory, some workers cuts metal parts, another worker assembles the product and another paints
the car. Specialisation can help cut costs and create higher quality products.
Division of labour – Production process has been divided into different tasks for a specialised worker to
work on. e.g. painting cars at a car factory.
Increased efficiency because the worker does the same task over and over again.
Workers may become bored doing the same task which results in decreased efficiency
Added Value = Selling price of the product – Cost price (materials etc…) Value added is the difference
between the selling price of a product and the cost to produce it.
Added value can be increased by either charging higher prices for the same product or by reducing the
cost of a product by lowering quality e.g. using cheaper materials.
1.2.1
Economic Sectors
Primary Sector – Extracts and uses the natural resources from the earth. e.g. Fishing, farming
Secondary Sector – Manufacture goods using raw materials from primary sector. e.g. Car manufacturers
and other factories
Tertiary Sector – Provides service to consumers and other sectors of the industry e.g. Restaurants, car
showroom, travel agent
The sector with the most workers is the most important in a country.
or
The sector with most valuable goods/service is the most important in a country.
Factory costs (usually wages) are too high e.g. wages in China/India are cheaper
People spend more on the tertiary sector as they become wealthier. e.g. more restaurants, travel agents
1.2.2
Mixed Economy
Private Sector – Businesses not owned by the government but by private individuals. (Goal = Profit)
Advantages
Disadvantages
Workers may lose jobs to improve efficiency/cut cost (private sector business does not care about
employment rates in countries)
Advantages
Disadvantages
Low efficiency