Needs and goods, resources, and opportunity cost. Needs are those elements necessary for the existence and development of the individual and society.
Characteristics of needs:
They are limited (in time some needs are restricted, others are diversifying, but pertotally their volume increases. They are limited in capacity (to satisfy a need it is necessary to consume a certain amount of a good.
Renewable (in time needs reappear after certain periods).
Classification of needs – after the subject needs: individual needs – thirst – collective needs.
After the importance of their satisfaction: vital needs (biological, subsistence), need for food, rest, complex needs (the need for a car, private property), and social (spiritual) needs for education and culture. Needs can be met by consuming goods or resources.
Classification of goods:
After their origin, free goods – are those goods, goods to which everyone has access and can use them when needed in time and place.
Ex: solar heat, air, sunlight.
According to their form, economic goods can be: material goods (food, clothing), immaterial goods (services, information), according to their destination, goods for production (production, factors) – flour, timber, consumer goods (cozonac, furniture).
Resources are those elements that directly participate in meeting needs or indirectly through assets.
Classification is based on their origin: primary resources (natural resources, population), derived resources (machines, machinery). After their use, regrowable resources, non-renewable resources, recoveries, recoverable resources (raw materials).
Resources must be considered to be limited because they grow more slowly than needs, are insufficient in relation to needs, they are limited to the potential of our planet.
The cost of opportunity (cost of choice) refers to the best option to give up on the existence of scarce resources. If the resources were unlimited, the opportunity cost would be equal to O.
Economic utility refers to the satisfaction that the consumer hopes to achieve by consuming doses (quantities) of an economic good in time and place.
