|
Sponsored Links
Scarcity (also called paucity) is the problem of infinite human needs and wants, in a world of finite resources. In other words, society does not have sufficient productive resources to fulfill those wants and needs. Alternatively, scarcity implies that not all of society's goals can be pursued at the same time; trade-offs are made of one good against others. In an influential 1932 essay, Lionel Robbins defined economics as "the science which studies human behaviour as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses." In biology, scarcity can refer to the uncommonness or rarity of certain species. Such species are often protected by local, national or international law in order to prevent extinction. Goods and services are scarce because of the limited availability of resources (the factors of production) along with the limits on our technology and skillful people relative to the total amount desired. If somehow people desired nothing, there would be no scarcity. If resources were great enough to produce more than everyone desired, there would also be no scarcity. Scarce resources determine the location of society's production possibilities frontier or curve (PPF). Inefficiencies in the use of resources (less than full employment or inappropriate employment of inputs like land and capital) may limit the amount produced so that the economy operates below its PPF. It is difficult to abolish all inefficiencies, and some characterize institutional inefficiency as artificial scarcity. Where goods are scarce it is necessary for society to make choices as to how they are allocated and used. Economists study (among other things) how societies perform the optimal allocation of these resources — along with how societies often fail to attain this optimality and are instead inefficient.
|
Scarcity Subcategories
Scarcity Articles
|
| 
