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Prize in Economic Sciences

Economists measure economic growth by calculating increases in gross domestic product (GDP) but, actually, it involves much more than just money. New medicines, safer cars, better food, more efficient ways of heating and lighting our homes, the internet and increased opportunities for communication with other people over greater distances – these are just a few of the things included in growth.

Over the last two centuries, for the first time in history, the world has seen sustained economic growth. This has lifted vast numbers of people out of poverty and laid the foundation of our prosperity. This year’s laureates in the economic sciences, Joel Mokyr, Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt, explain how innovation provides the impetus for further progress.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the 2025 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel with one half to Joel Mokyr “for having identified the prerequisites for sustained growth through technological progress” and the other half jointly to Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt “for the theory of sustained growth through creative destruction.”

Learn more about this year’s prize in economic sciences
Press release: https://bit.ly/48DlmwY
Popular information: https://bit.ly/3Ip1eUW
Advanced information: https://bit.ly/46D8mFa

THE PRODUCTION POSSIBILITIES FRONTIER.

ITS DEFINITION
The Production Possibilities Frontier (PPF) is a graph or curve that shows all the different combinations of output of two goods that can be produced using available resources and technology.

ITS USEFULNESS
The Production Possibilities Frontier tries to explain the concepts of scarcity, choice, and tradeoffs (opportunity cost).
It provides insight into how goods and services should be produced.

ITS SHAPE
The shape of the PPF depends on whether there are increasing, decreasing, or constant costs. When we have increasing cost we have a concave ppf, decreasing we have convex and downward sloping(straight) ppf if the cost is constant.

EFFICIENT, INEFFICIENT AND UNATTAINABLE POINTS
Points that lie on the PPF(such as B, C, and D) illustrate combinations of output that are productively efficient (We cannot determine which points are allocatively efficient without knowing preferences in this case). All those points above the ppf (such as X) are unattainable and those that are inside the ppf (such as A) are inefficient (because some resources are not being utilize or employed).

ITS SLOPE
The slope of PPC is marginal opportunity cost which states that for production of every successive unit of one good we need to sacrifice more and more of another good. Thus, this slope indicates the opportunity cost of producing one good versus the other good, and the opportunity cost can be compared to the opportunity costs of another producer (or a nation) to determine comparative advantage.

In conclusion, the production possibilities curve not only shows what can be produced it also show how goods and services should be produced. The ppf shows the point in which a country's economy is at its most efficient, producing consumer goods and services by optimally allocating resources.

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PROBABILISTIC SAMPLING METHODS

These are sampling methods in which the researcher is required to utilize the principle of randomization (or chance procedure) in at least one of the stages of the sample process. There are four basic types, namely: Simple Random Sampling, Systematic Random Sampling, Stratified Sampling and Cluster Sampling.

a) SIMPLE RANDOM SAMPLING
In this method, the entire process of sampling is guided by chance procedures. It is the most scientific of sampling methods and is the model on which scientific sampling is based. However, it is not commonly used in the social sciences and the humanities because it can sometimes lead to unrepresentative samples in circumstances in which diversities in the population have to be meaningfully reflected in the sample being drawn up.
Procedure for simple random sampling is as follows:
Firstly, secure a list of the entire population in which every subject is listed only once. The list is the sampling frame.
Secondly, number every subject in the list
Third, use a mechanical device (balloting, dice, table of random numbers) to select the subjects that will constitute the sample.

b) SYSTEMATIC RANDOM SAMPLING
Often confused with the simple random method. It is, however, more systematic as the name suggests.
The procedure is as follows:
1. Secure a list of the entire population in which every subject is listed once.
2. Number every subject in the list
3. Determine the sample size you want to draw from the population.
4. Calculate the sampling interval, by dividing the population size by the proposed sample size.
5. Randomly (using a mechanical device) draw from the sampling frame the first member of your sample. This first member must be drawn from the section of the population not above (but could be equal to) the number that corresponds to the sampling interval.
6. Beginning with the selected case number indicated above, go down the list, systematically adding the sampling interval to selected cases until the required number of cases to fill the sample size has been attained.

c) STRATIFIED RANDOM SAMPLING
Stratified sampling is so called because it requires that the population be divided into strata before sampling takes place within each stratum. Sampling fraction for each stratum could either be equal (if, in the study under consideration, the major interest lies in comparing strata-such as male/female, high IQ/low IQ), or unequal (if the major interest of the study is to make findings that are generalizable or applicable to the population, e.g lower/middle/high management.)
The procedure is as listed below:
1. Compile a list of the population in which every subject is listed only once
2. Divide all subjects into groups or strata; these strata must be defined in such a manner that no subject appears in more than one stratum
3. Take either a simple random or a systematic sample from within each stratum proportional to the strata’s strength/value in the population.
4. Decision on proportional reflection of strata of the population in the sample depends on the goal of the study under consideration

d) CLUSTER SAMPLING
Cluster sampling is the successive random sampling of units and subunits of the population.
Remember, in Stratified sampling we divided the population into groups called strata and then sampling subjects from within the strata.
Cluster sampling on its own part involves dividing the population into large numbers of groups called clusters and then successively sampling such clusters from very large to the smallest of clusters before finally sampling subjects. The procedure is as follows:
1. Define the population.
2. Identify all possible clusters in the population from largest to smallest.
3. Successively sample clusters from the very large groups to the large groups to subgroups etc. until you get to the stage of individual subjects.
4. Randomly select the subjects.
5. This is a very useful method when dealing with a large population or when a list at the macro levels of sampling will be difficult, if not impossible, to compile

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Research as an Academic Discipline.

Research refers to search for knowledge. That is, it is th search for pertinent information on a specific topic.

Objectives of research
1. To gain familiarity with a phenomenon or to achieve a new insight into it.
2. To test a hypothesis of a causal relationship between variables
3. Ti determine the frequency with which something occur or with which it is associated with something else.
To portray accurately the characteristics of a particular individual, situation or a group.

Why do Academic Research.
1. Desire to get a research degree along with it's consequential benefits
2. Desire to be a service to society.
3. Desire to get respectability in the field of study.
4. To get intellectual joy.

Research Process.
1. Define a research topic
2. Review the literature on the topic of interest
3. Formulate Hypotheses
4. Design research this can include sample design, etc
5. Collect data
6. Analyse data, testing the hypothesis where applicable
7. Interpretation of the findings
8. Write a report.

Up next - report writing.
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1. MICROECONOMICS.

As we all know that economics is all around us. It is about how society deals with the problem if scarcity.
Microeconomics is a branch of economics that studies the behavior of individual economic agents such as consumers, firms, and households. In this branch, economists study how these economic agents make decisions, allocate resources, and interact with each other. It gives a framework for making decisions about the production and levels, and pricing of products or services.
For example, we can study why individual prefer food to cars and how producers decide whether to produce food or cars. That is, microeconomics offers a detailed treatment of individual decisions about particular commodities (Begg, 2012)
However, if you want to understand the consumer and producer theories, and all other theories at individual level you can study microeconomics and get to understand all these theories. All the micro economics theories can be at introduction, intermediate and advanced level at undergrad.
You can specialize in micro economics and become a microeconomist. And these are economists who provides policies to government and other organizations at micro level.
In conclusion, micro economics widens students understand of a nation's individual occurrences. Students turns to understand and put to use the policies that they learn at individual level. Studying micro economics helps students be critical in analysing unaggregated things that are in the economy.

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