Lectures on Technology and Economic Performance

Lectures on Technology and Economic Performance

Contents

1 What Is Economics? 2 Neoclassical Economics 2.1 The production function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1.1 Marginal product and diminishing returns . . . . 2.1.2 The choice of the level of production . . . . . . . 2.2 The competitive labour market . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2.1 The demand for labour . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Profit maximisation — the general case . . . . . Profit maximisation — Cobb-Douglas . . . . . . 2.2.2 The supply of labour . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2.3 Equilibrium in the labour market . . . . . . . . . 2.3 The capital market . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3.1 The supply of capital . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3.2 The demand for capital . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Profit maximisation — Cobb-Douglas . . . . . . 2.3.3 Capital market equilibrium . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4 Technical change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4.1 Input substitution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4.2 Properties of the isoquant . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4.3 Profit maximisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4.4 The elasticity of labour-capital substitution . . . 2.4.5 Factor productivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4.6 The employment-productivity trade-off . . . . . 2.5 Technological change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Technological progress . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.5.1 Induced factor bias . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.6 The product market . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.6.1 Product supply . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.6.2 Product demand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.6.3 Product market equilibrium . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.6.4 Saving-investment or loanable funds equilibrium 2.6.5 Stocks versus flows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.7 Macroeconomic causality in the Neoclassical model . . . 2.8 The role of demand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.8.1 Consumption . . . . . . . . . . ....