What does scarcity mean in economics?

Scarcity refers to a state in reality when the amount of resources that people have in a certain period of time cannot satisfy people's desires.

It reflects the contradiction between the infinite nature of human desires and the finite nature of resources. Just as a family cannot give every member everything they want, so a society cannot give everyone the highest standard of living to which they aspire.

Theoretically, it can be divided into economic scarcity and material scarcity. If the sheer quantity of resources is not small, it can meet the needs of human beings for a long time, but the cost of production is required to obtain resources.

Moreover, the amount of resources that can be obtained under the condition of investing a certain amount of production cost is limited and in short supply, and the scarcity in this case is called economic scarcity.

The relative finitude of resources The scarcity of resources refers to the infinite growth and expansion of human needs relative to the infinite needs of human beings, in order to meet this demand, more goods and services are needed, so that more resources are needed, and resources are always limited within a certain range of time and space, and the relative shortage of resources is compared with the absolute growth of human needs, resulting in the scarcity of resources. Resources are scarce. On the one hand, the goods themselves are finite in a certain period of time; On the other hand, the technical conditions for production from objects are limited, and at the same time, human life is also limited.

The scarcity of material means of subsistence is determined by the scarcity of factors of production. Individuals expect to get a lot of goods and pursue many goals.

It is one of the basic assumptions of economics, the scarcity of economic resources is relative to human desires, not absolute scarcity, because human desires are infinite, we must rationally and effectively allocate and use resources to maximize human utility.

Both include:

Human beings obtain resources from nature in order to achieve their own development, but theoretically speaking, human needs are unlimited, that is, any resource can be said to be scarce. It is a broad concept. Whether it is due to human needs and desires, resources are relatively limited.

Therefore, the scarcity of resources includes:

The infinite nature of desires and the relative finitude of resources.

Excerpt 1: Tsinghua professor Han Xiuyun said that "scarcity" is the eternal theme of economic research.

Scarcity in economics refers to the fact that the resources to meet human needs are limited relative to their diverse and infinite needs. Often, people give up something they like in order to get something they like. The finite nature of this commodity is also known in economics as scarcity.

Reasons for scarcity:

1.Limited quantities, such as arable land, oil, fresh water, etc.

2.Humans have limited access to useful objects, such as thunder, lightning, volcanoes, wind, and other natural phenomena that contain abundant energy, but humans have no way to fully exploit them.

3.The population is rapidly expanding, and the expansion of the population size has led to fewer and fewer resources per capita.

4.Human desires are infinitely expansive.

Excerpt 1: Tsinghua professor Han Xiuyun said that "scarcity" is the eternal theme of economic research.

In economics, scarcity refers to ().

a.The infinite nature of desire.

b.Absolute scarcity of resources.

c.Relative finite resources.

d.The relative change of desire is limited.

Correct answer: Relative finite resources.