Economic Resources

ECONOMIC RESOURCES

Microeconomics is the study of the behaviour and decisions of individuals and businesses in markets across the economy. In economics we classify goods as “tangible” products, example might include food and drink, cars, digital televisions, flat-screen televisions, energy products and cricket bats! Services are sometimes known as intangibles, education and health-care are two important services and tourism, business consultancy, cleaning and home insurance are all examples of services.
Meaning of Production
The purpose of economic activity is the satisfaction of wants, and any activity which helps to satisfy wants is defined as production. This is a wider meaning of the term than it carries in everyday speech where it is usually taken to mean the making of some physical object or the growing of produce. It is still common practice to talk of ‘productive’ and ‘non-productive’ workers. Productive workers are generally understood to be those who work directly on the goods being made.
All those activities which assist towards the satisfaction of material wants must be considered to be productive. Production must be understood therefore as comprising all those activities which provide the goods and services which people want and for which they are prepared to pay a price.
The output
Economic activity results in the output of an enormous variety of goods and services. The composition of total output is usefully classified into consumer goods, producer goods, and services.
Finite resources
There are only a finite (or limited) number of workers, machines, acres of land and reserves of oil and other natural resources on the earth.  Because most of our resources are finite, we cannot produce an unlimited number of different goods and services and by producing more for an ever-increasing population we are in real danger of destroying the natural resources of the planet. This has important consequences for the long-term sustainability of economies...