经济学原理 曼昆第五版英文答案Chapter25

经济学原理 曼昆 第五版 英文 答案

Chapter 25/Production and Growth 461

a. Thomas Malthus (an English minister and early economic thinker) argued that an ever-increasing population meant that the world was doomed to live in poverty forever.

b. However, he failed to understand that new ideas would be developed to increase the production of food and other goods, including pesticides, fertilizers, mechanized equipment, and new crop varieties. c. In the News: Escape from Malthus –This is an article from the New York Times describing the impact the Industrial Revolution had on England’s economy.

2. Diluting the Capital Stock a. High population growth reduces GDP per worker because rapid growth in the number of workers forces the capital stock to be spread more thinly. b. Countries with a high population growth have large numbers of school-age children,

placing a burden on the education system.

3. Some countries have already instituted measures to reduce population growth rates. 4. Policies that foster equal treatment for women should raise economic opportunities for women leading to lower rates of population.

5. Promoting Technological Progress a. Some economists have suggested that population growth has driven technological progress and economic prosperity.

b. In a 1993 journal article, economist Michael Kremer provided evidence that increases in population lead to technological progress.

Quick Quizzes

1. The approximate growth rate of real GDP per person in the United States is 1.83 percent (based on Table 1) from 1870 to 2006. Countries that have had faster growth include Japan, Brazil, Mexico, China, Germany, Canada, and Argentina; countries that have had slower growth include India, United Kingdom, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.

2. The four determinants of a country’s productivity are: (1) physical capital, which is the stock of equipment and structures that are used to produce goods and services; (2) human capital, which is the knowledge and skills that workers acquire through education, training, and experience; (3) natural resources, which are inputs into production that are provided by

经济学原理 曼昆 第五版 英文 答案

462 Chapter 25/Production and Growth

nature, such as land, rivers, and mineral deposits; and (4) technological knowledge, which is society’s understanding of the best ways to produce goods and services.

3. Ways in which a government policymaker can try to raise the growth in living standards in a society include: (1) investing more current resources in the production of capital, which has the drawback of reducing the resources used for producing current consumption; (2) encouraging investment from abroad, which has the drawback that some of the benefits of investment flow to foreigners; (3) increasing education, which has an opportunity cost in that students are not engaged in current production; (4) protecting property rights and promoting

political stability, for which no drawbacks are obvious; (5) pursuing outward-oriented policies to encourage free trade, which may have the drawback of making a country more dependent on its trading partners; (6) reducing the rate of population growth, which may have the drawbacks of reducing individual freedom and lowering the rate of technological progress; and (7) encouraging research and development, which (like investment) may have the drawback of reducing current consumption.

Questions for Review 1. The level of a nation’s GDP measures both the total income earned in the economy and the total expenditure on the economy’s output of goods and services. The level of real GDP is a

good gauge of economic prosperity, and the growth of real GDP is a good gauge of economic progress. You would rather live in a nation with a high level of GDP, even though it had a low growth rate, than in a nation with a low level of GDP and a high growth rate, because the level of GDP is a measure of prosperity. 2. The four determinants of productivity are: (1) physical capital, which is the stock of

equipment and structures that are used to produce goods and services; (2) human capital, which consists of the knowledge and skills that workers acquire through education, training, and experience; (3) natural resources, which are inputs into production that are provided by nature; and (4) technological knowledge, which is society’s understanding of the best ways to produce goods and services.

3. A college degree is a form of human capital. The skills learned in earning a college degree increase a worker's productivity. 4. Higher saving means fewer resources are devoted to consumption and more to producing capital goods. The rise in the capital stock leads to rising productivity and more rapid growth

in GDP for a while. In the long run, the higher saving rate leads to a higher standard of living. A policymaker might be deterred from trying to raise the rate of saving because doing so requires that people reduce their consumption today and it can take a long time to get to a higher standard of living. 5. A higher rate of saving leads to a higher growth rate temporarily, not permanently. In the

short run, increased saving leads to a larger capital stock and faster growth. But as growth continues, diminishing returns to capital mean growth slows down and eventually settles down to its initial rate, though this may take several decades. 6. Removing a trade restriction, such as a tariff, would lead to more rapid economic growth because the removal of the trade restriction acts like an improvement in technology. Free

trade allows all countries to consume more goods and services.

经济学原理 曼昆 第五版 英文 答案

Chapter 25/Production and Growth 463

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