Article Analysis

Article Analysis

University of Phoenix

ECO/365: Principles of Microeconomics

October 19, 2009

�

Article Analysis

Economists "study changes occurring in specific countries or individual sectors of an economy; some ask fundamental questions about the nature of economic decisions; some address proposals to change government policies" (Undergraduate Economics, 2009, para. 4). One way economists do this is by analyzing trends in consumption patterns such as natural gas usage. Analyzing trends requires an understanding of basic economic principles such as the definitions of economics, microeconomics, law of supply, and law of demand, and factors that lead to a change in supply and a change in demand which will be addressed in this paper. Knowledge of these basic principles will aid in analyzing the article Report by Oklahoma City-based consulting company: Decline in natural gas usage due to more than rocky economy (Carter, 2009).

Economics

According to Colander (2008), economics is defined as "the study of how human beings coordinate their wants and desires, given the decision-making mechanisms, social customs, and political realities of the society" (p.

economics

Economics

Figure 1

4); and involves three central problems that economies face, (a) "what, and how much to produce, (b) how to produce it, and (c) for whom to produce it" (p. 5); and how those problems are solved. Economics involves more than what the average person realizes; it is more than the state of finances of a country. Economics is a science and a study of human behavior in consumption, resources, scarcity, production, distribution, and choices. Resources include not only physical assets of material, land, buildings, equipment, and people, but non-physical resources of time, knowledge, and talent that people possess.

Microeconomics

Microeconomics is a category of economics. According to Colander (2008), microeconomics is defined as "the study of individual choice, and...