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What is Economics?

The study of economics focuses on the study of the production, consumption, and transfer of wealth. Because wealth is defined in a wide variety of ways, the study of economics can be construed narrowly or broadly, and is interrelated with the study of sociology, philosophy, history, psychology, and culture. Economics is viewed, by some, as the study of scarcity, but economic principles apply even when resources are not scarce. It is also considered the study of resources. Many people believe that economics is primarily about money or financial resources because economic study focuses on topics like banking, wealth, and finances. However, economics is not synonymous with finance. Finance refers to the management, creation or study of money, banking, credit, investments, assets and liabilities. It consists of financial systems and financial instruments and is divided into three sub-categories: public finance, corporate finance, and personal finance. Economics includes those areas, but is not limited to them. Furthermore, an education in economics is not only useful in economics-specific careers such as accountant, economist, financial risk analyst, investment analysis, and statistician, but also teaches skills that are transferable to other areas and industries. Macroeconomics examines the economy from the broader perspective. It looks at economic trends including: inflation, deflation, recession, depression, price levels, wage levels, employment, unemployment, gross domestic product, national income, and rate of growth. Macroeconomics is concerned with monetary policy, which, in the United States, is set by the Federal Reserve, often referred to as the Fed; international trade policies; tax policies; aggregate demand; and aggregate supply. Microeconomics examines the economy from a narrower perspective. It looks at how individuals, whether people or firms, interact in the market, and at specific buyer-seller transactions. However, in an increasingly global economy, with large firms dominating some areas of industry, it can become difficult to separate microeconomic and macroeconomic studies. Elasticity refers to the change in consumer demand. Demand for some products remains fairly stable, regardless of fluctuations in price. For example, the demand for water is fairly non-elastic. However, when there are substitute goods available, demand for a product may be very elastic. Microeconomics also examines income distribution, particularly income inequality. It also looks at how different types of ownership can alter the basic rules of supply and demand. For example, monopolies and oligopolies, where either a single or a small number of companies control all of a product, can artificially inflate prices. Another critical component of economic studies is an understanding of supply and demand. Demand refers to how willing people are to purchase a particular product. In other words, what is the desire or need for that product. Supply refers to how much of the product is available. Supply does not refer only to the total amount of the good or resource that is available, but to the amount of the resource or good that is accessible. Generally, as demand rises, prices also rise, and sellers are likely to make a greater supply available at that cost. However, as supply rises, then the price that can be charged for the item tends to drop, even if there is no decrease in overall demand, because consumers can search for a less expensive option. Market equilibrium refers to the market price at which buyers will buy the same number of goods that sellers are willing to sell at a particular market price. [ Show Less ]

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Research Paper Doctorate
Globalization's effects on developing countries
As defined by the World Bank in its handbook on the subject, globalization is defined as "the growing integration of economies and societies around the world." It has been one of the most hotly-debated topics in…
Paper Undergraduate
Tenure in Academic Institutions: Aper,
Aper, J.P. & Fry, J.E. (2003, May/June). Post-Tenure Review at Graduate Institutions in the United States. Journal of Higher Education. 74.3, pp. 241-254.
Essay Doctorate
Security Monitoring Strategies Creating a Unified, Enterprise-Wide
For an enterprise-wide security management strategy to be successful, the monitoring systems and processes must seek to accomplish three key strategic tasks. These tasks include improving situational awareness, proactive risk management and robust crisis and security incident management (Gellis, 2004). With these three objectives as the basis of the security monitoring strategies and recommended courses of action, an organization will be able to withstand security threats and interruptions while attaining its objectives. Beginning with the internal systems including Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, Inventory, General Ledger, and Human Resources, monitoring needs to be designed to capture strategic threats at the operating system and application level to be effective (Nagaratnam, Nadalin, Hondo, McIntosh, Austel, 2005). Each of the applications in these areas of enterprise software is designed to be used in the context of user's roles and information needs. Restricting access to sensitive information by role as defined in these applications is critical to the monitoring of resources and their effectiveness in delivering value to the organization (Gordon, Loeb, Tseng, 2009). Creating a governance framework hat can provide for enough role-based flexibility while monitoring overall performance is critical for an organization to keep accomplishing its goals while also staying secure (Khoo, Harris, Hartman, 2010). Often the many internal systems of a business are integrated into a common enterprise-wide information platform. Many organizations use Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system to unify these many systems into a single system of record to make security management and monitoring more cost-effective (Gellis, 2004). For the many internal IT systems that require IT monitoring, integrating them into a common system of record is also critical as it allows for auditing of cross-system and intra-system transactions. Too often organizations fail in their security monitoring strategies by allowing silos of systems to dominate their overall IT architecture (Nagaratnam, Nadalin, Hondo, McIntosh, Austel, 2005). By applying security monitoring at both the strategic IT level including the system of record and at the role-based access level of each application, organizations can attain a 360-degree level of system monitoring compliance and threat assessment. Having an integrated system security structure also allows for more effective risk management strategies including the ability to isolate and act on security incidents more effectively than siloed systems allow for. Each of the mission-critical systems within a business, encompassing Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, Inventory, General Ledger, and Human Resources rely on integration with systems and processes external to the company as well. Integrating to systems outside the organization also present risks to the entire organization as well. These external integration links, whether automated through the use of advanced system technologies or defined through the use of logins and passwords, must be monitoring and audited as well (Gellis, 2004). The risks and need for security are amplified by the use of Internet-based marketing, sales and e-commerce systems (Kesh, Ramanujan, Nerur, 2002). Monitoring of these applications is more challenging as they are open to the public. The first area of monitoring is on security authentication and attempts to break into sales, marketing and e-commerce systems through the use of password generation or cross-scripting attacks (Thompson, 2004). E-Commerce systems are increasingly relying on mobile platforms and support for smartphones running the Apple iOS and Google Android operating systems, both of which can be successfully broken into by hackers (Ghosh, Swaminatha, 2001). The monitoring of Internet-based customer facing systems including e-commerce need to be tracked at the transaction, application, and customer profile privacy levels to be effective (Desai, Richards, Desai, 2003). All of these factors need to be taken into account within a broader network monitoring strategy of inbound Internet traffic in an attempt to find patterns of intrusions that are most likely to occur (Hong, Park, Young-Min, Park, 2001)
Essay Doctorate
Emc Corporation Analysis How Would You Describe
The core competency of EMC Corporation is the research and development, selling, implementing and supporting of their virtualization technologies incouding IT infrastructure systems and platforms. EMC's depth of expertise in virtualization and infrastructure technologies has made the company one of the leading providers of cloud computing platforms, one of the fastest-growing segments of the enterprise computing industry today (Horsburgh, 2003). EMC has structured their business into two major categories incouding EMC information infrastructure and VMWare virtual infrastructure, which provides the company the ability to better serve its global base of customers (McCarthy, Capuanuo, Picotte, 2002). The information infrastructure business is comprised of three different segments including information storage, information intelligence group and the RSA information security group. The VMWare virtual infrastructure group is a stand-alone business unit as it is focused on the rapidly changing cloud computing market \(EMC Investor Relations, 2012). EMC reports that their information infrastructure business generates on average 81% of total revenues and the VMWare virtual infrastructure business, 19% (EMC Investor Relations, 2012). The significance of understanding core competencies is that when they are taken together, the complete competitive advantage of a business can better to seen from the vantage point of the industry they compete in. Analyzing core competencies of EMC for example shows how successful the company is in quickly translating research and development (R&D) into virtualization systems and platforms that enable greater performance of cloud computing and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) applications (EMC Investor Relations, 2012). These two areas are revolutionizing the economics of enterprise software, and EMC is ideally positioned to benefit from this shift in IT spending. Analyzing a company's core competencies can also provide insights into their core competencies relative to competitors as well. Analysis of core competencies can provide a very accurate analysis of the core culture of a company, providing insights into hwo they react to threats and attempt top transform weakness into strengths (Tucker, 2001). The central areas of the EMC business model that contribute most to their core competency include their exceptionally rapid processes in place to translate R&D spending and investment into completed products, a business model oriented towards enriching resellers while also quantifying the proven performance gains as a result of using their products, and strong financial management of their revenue streams and costs (EMC Investor Relations, 2012). These components that comprise the core competency of EMC also directly impact the products and services delivered, as EMC has been able to deliver two to three product generations ahead of its competitors on key virtualization technologies (EMC Investor Relations, 2012). This has made the internal culture of the company very fast-paced even for a high technology company, and also greatly increased the efficiency of the knowledge acquisition processes in the company. EMC deliberately chose an organizational structure for its support of highly collaborative processes that span hardware and software development teams. EMC is also relies on a series of internal reviews that bring together hardware, software and systems teams to the common objective of creating a unified, highly reliable system component or entire platform that will best meet the requirements of their enterprise customers (EMC Investor Relations, 2012). The knowledge acquisition process within EMC is based on creating cross-functional teams that can bring in specific hardware, software and systems engineering expertise on an as-needed basis to further assist with the development of new products (EMC Investor Relations, 2012). The greatest innovations EMC has designed and launched all come from their discussions with customers about future IT infrastructure needs, which are increasingly reflecting a cloud-based focus (Horsburgh, 2003). The ability of companies to create competitive advantage as part of their core competency is critical to long-term profitable growth and financially strong performance over the long-term (Atuahene-Gima, Wei, 2011).
Essay Doctorate
Function of Money. Money Has Four Purposes.
The report is on the Fedral Reserve and on money. In September 2012, the FR announced a third round of easing the difficult economic situation, which they called QE3. They pledged to act on this program until the economy is significantly improved. One of the problems is the housing problem, and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke plans to deal with the housing problem by buying $40 billion a month of mortgage-backed securities. This will also, simultaneously spur growth on the housing market and reduce a 7.9 percent unemployment rate. (Zumbrun, J (November 15, 2012).
Paper Doctorate
Annotated bibliography: problem identification and organizational context in research
This article is an expanded annotated bibliography notation of a study designed to track student's choices in the cafeteria. It hypothesized that the presence of unhealthy cafeteria foods reduces the chances that students will purchase healthy foods. The study was four weeks in duration and compared the offerings of three high schools in the same county. Foods in the study were divided into green, yellow, and red groups. Even though healthy foods predominated the percentage of food offerings, students still selected 'red' (high calorie, low-nutrition) foods at a greater percentage relative to the presence of red foods in the cafeteria.
Research Paper Doctorate
Legitimization and Effectiveness of Denationalization
The work of Zangl and Zurn entitled: "The Effects of Denationalization on Security in the OECD World" published by the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies" states: "Denationalization can partly…
Research Paper Doctorate
Media corporations and consumer relationships
Media conglomerates have resulted in monotony in news and in entertainment. When one corporation owns a series of seemingly independent news sources, editorial decisions start to reflect the political agenda of the CEOs.
Research Paper Doctorate
Policy Formulation in a World
Some view involvement in information policy, particularly in the government or public sector, as a means of asserting control over information. Describe the subtle, but important differences between "control of…
Research Paper Doctorate
Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar a Religious Reformer in India
As Minister of Law in India's first post-independence government, Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar drafted the constitution of India that provided the legal framework for the abolition of many oppressive aspects in Indian society…