Figure 8.1 Replaced by Robots Robots are replacing the jobs historically done by workers in a bread factory. (Credit: modification of “Factory Automation Robotics Palettizing Bread” by KUKA Roboter GmbH/Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain) Chapter Objectives In this chapter, you will learn about: Bring…
7.1 The Relatively Recent Arrival of Economic Growth Since the early nineteenth century, there has been a spectacular process of long-run economic growth during which the world’s leading economies—mostly those in Western Europe and North America—expanded GDP per capita at an…
Learning Objectives By the end of this section, you will be able to: Some low-income and middle-income economies around the world have shown a pattern of convergence, in which their economies grow faster than those of high-income countries. GDP increased by…
Learning Objectives By the end of this section, you will be able to: Over decades and generations, seemingly small differences of a few percentage points in the annual rate of economic growth make an enormous difference in GDP per capita.…
Learning Objectives By the end of this section, you will be able to: Sustained long-term economic growth comes from increases in worker productivity, which essentially means how well we do things. In other words, how efficient is your nation with…
Learning Objectives By the end of this section, you will be able to: Let’s begin with a brief overview of spectacular economic growth patterns around the world in the last two centuries. We commonly refer to this as the period…
Figure 7.1 Average Daily Calorie Consumption Not only has the number of calories that people consume per day increased, so has the amount of food calories that people are able to afford based on their working wages. (Credit: modification of “Daily Calorie Intake”…
6.1 Measuring the Size of the Economy: Gross Domestic Product Economists generally express the size of a nation’s economy as its gross domestic product (GDP), which measures the value of the output of all final goods and services produced within the…
Learning Objectives By the end of this section, you will be able to: The level of GDP per capita clearly captures some of what we mean by the phrase “standard of living.” Most of the migration in the world, for…
Learning Objectives By the end of this section, you will be able to: It is common to use GDP as a measure of economic welfare or standard of living in a nation. When comparing the GDP of different nations for…