Questions tagged [economics]

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3 votes
1 answer
206 views

Is it true that before Milton Friedman, "no one believed that inflation was mainly a monetary phenomenon"?

Russ Roberts (host of EconTalk podcast) claimed on his (2021-08-16) podcast: Before he [Milton Friedman] came along, ... no one believed that inflation was mainly a monetary phenomenon. His guest ...
6 votes
3 answers
237 views

Where does the term elasticity (of a function) come from?

Elasticity of a function is a mathematical concept that is widely used in economics. In particular, price elasticity of demand or supply. But generally elasticity in economics is the measurement of ...
3 votes
2 answers
222 views

Marx economics theory

Before Marx, economic theory had two big names: Adam Smith and Ricardo. It is well known that Marx used their work. When at school I was told without much specific that Marx had substantial ...
44 votes
3 answers
63k views

Why is price on the vertical axis and quantity on the horizontal axis?

In most of science, it is typical to have the independent variable on the horizontal axis and the dependent variable on the vertical axis. But in economics, this is often (traditionally?) flipped ...
6 votes
2 answers
2k views

Where does the formula $(1+\frac r n)^n$ for compound interest come from?

If we have an annual interest rate of $r$, meaning that each year we multiply our capital by $1+r$, but we want to compound it $n$ times throughout the year, then the usual formula for the amount of ...
0 votes
1 answer
98 views

Why do undergraduate texts insist on graphing price as a function of demand?

It seems more intuitive to put price on the x-axis, since that is a variable that a producer can set, or is otherwise set for the consumer (a consumer walks into the store and sees the price, ...