Econ 434: History of
Economic Doctrines
|
Questions from Previous Final Examinations |
Section 1: Multiple
Choice.
1. Aristotle’s
diamond-water paradox (necessities
are often cheaper than “luxuries”), though partially explained by
Adam Smith, is more fully resolved logically through application of the (a)
income and substitution effects of price changes. (b) equimarginal principle. (c)
utilitarian principle of the greatest
good for the greatest number. (d) Cartesian syllogism cogito ergo sum. (e) wages fund theory.
2. A
rational explanation for why so many people vote is that they: (a) realize that
every vote is critical for every election. (b) know that voting is a legal
obligation of every adult citizen. (c) expect their votes to make this country
a better place to live. (d) enjoy voting or feel guilty if they don’t
vote.
3. A
scientific theory intended to explain how an economic system distributes
national income was not among the major works of: (a) Karl Marx. (b) John Bates
Clark. (c) Vilfredo Pareto. (d) Friedrich von Wieser.
|
4.
The preferences
in this table can be used to illustrate a problem known as: (a) intransitive
tastes and preferences. (b) the paradox of voting. (c) collective
decisionmaking conundrum. (d) Condorcet’s dilemma. (e) the
ordinal-cardinal puzzle. |
|
5. According to Karl Marx, the fundamental
reason capitalism is morally reprehensible is because: (a) free trade
does not allow citizens of the country to compete with foreign producers as
effectively. (b) individual workers are exploited because they do not derive
the full value of their labor. (c) the government should not be allowed to tax
less wealthy individuals as much as wealthier individuals. (d) people cannot
actively participate in the government. (e) free trade exploits human greed and
thus should be regulated.
6. Apparent
“apathy” among many citizens who fail to either register or vote
can be explained economically by the: (a) failure of schools to instill a
proper sense of duty in citizens. (b) instability of political cartels. (c)
unimportance of government in a market system. (d) expected higher personal
costs than benefits from casting their ballots.
7. Alternatives
to capitalistic economic systems do not include: (a) communism. (b) socialism.
(c) anarchism. (d) libertarianism. (e) feudalism. (f) syndicalism.
8. Adam
Smith and the “classical liberal” economists who followed in his
footsteps viewed persistent monopolization and market power as: (a) inefficient
and best regulated by government. (b) crucial in determining the rate of
technological progress. (c) radical plots to overthrow capitalism. (d) symptoms
of governmental interference in the market, and much less efficient than
competitive markets.
9.
Modern
analysis of consumer demands typically assumes: (a) cardinal utility. (b)
non-linear budget functions. (c) preference functions that are strictly concave
from the origin. (d) interdependent preference functions. (d) decreasing
returns to scale. (e) ordinal utility.
10. Among
other noteworthy accomplishments, Knut Wicksell [Sweden, 1851-1926]: (a) showed
that, in a unanimity voting system, no initiative will succeed unless the
change proposed is efficiency enhancing. (b) anticipated Irving Fisher and
Milton Friedman in addressing the possibility that a central bank’s
attempts to use expansionary monetary policies to drive the real interest rate
below its natural rate are self
defeating. (c) probably elaborated the operations of price adjustment
mechanisms better than had any of his predecessors. (d) described how most
production functions entail, first, economies of scale, then constant returns
to scale, and finally, diseconomies of scale. (e) He did all of the above.
11. According to John Kenneth Galbraith’s theories
of corporate fraud and regulation, during periods of prosperity: (a) government
regulation of business is relaxed and the “bezzle” grows. (b) the
stock market booms, and investors forecast financial trends with increasing
accuracy. (c) regulations limiting business practices are tightened and the
amount of corporate fraud shrinks. (d) stock market speculation cools down
dramatically as the business cycle peaks and then begins to decline.
|
12.
This idealized Keynesian model suggests that it would be
impossible for: (a) declining consumer confidence to move the economy from Qfe
to Q0 with no effect on the price level. (b) growing consumer and
business confidence (starting at Q0) to increase output but not
prices as Aggregate Demand increases. (c) the economy to get stuck at point Q0
with no self correcting forces strong enough to return the economy to Qfe.
(d) increased government spending to shift Aggregate Demand from AD0
to AD1. (e) automatic market forces to move the economy from Q0
to Qfe in any reasonable time period. |
|
13. David
Ricardo’s Iron Law of Wages states
that if money wages increase for a significant period, this leads to expansion
of: (a) the money supply so that inflation shrinks real wages back to a natural
rate. (b) profit-taking by capitalists so that the share of total surplus value
out of national income increases. (c) the domestic production of grain to
support an increasingly prosperous populace. (d) demands for labor in the
industrial sector, and a reduced supply of labor in the agricultural sector.
(e) population, thereby driving wages back down to their natural level.
14. During
the Cold War pitting the US against the USSR, each side tried to match or
exceed the armaments built by its adversary. In terms of game theory, the
reductions in standards of living on both sides caused by the nuclear arms race
reflect the outcome of a: (a) positive-sum game. (b) negative-sum game. (c)
zero-sum game. (d) partial-sum game.
15. Edwin
H. Chamberlin’s theory of monopolistic competition became increasingly
discounted as game theory began to dominate the theory of industrial
organization in the early 1970s, but it has gained increasing credibility as a
foundation for: (a) public choice theories of political behavior. (b) the
“new” theory of international trade that began to develop in the
early 1970s. (c) modern theories of price setting in auctions. (d) explanations
of how firms compete by attempting to create a “brand image”
through advertising.
16. From
roughly 1920 until 1975, the “Chicago School” of economic theory
centered on the idea that: (a) socialism will save society. (b) economic
organizations can best be interpreted through institutional analysis. (c) laws
and regulations are needed to offset market failures. (d) capitalism yields the
optimal organization of economic activity.
17. If
all resource markets and markets for goods are initially in a fully competitive
equilibrium, the formation of a union and an increase in the wage rate for
union members does not cause: (a)
unemployment in a one-sector partial equilibrium model. (b) lower wages in the
non-union sector of a two-sector partial equilibrium model. (c) a lower total
value for national income in a general equilibrium model. (d) entrepreneurs to,
on average, receive less economic profit in the long run.
18.
French revolutionaries proclaimed goals of
“Liberte! Egalite! Fraternite!”
during the 1790s. The characteristic that would least well apply to an
idealized economic system of socialism would be: (a) vigorous rivalry and
competition among business firms. (b) social ownership of productive resources.
(b) collective decision making. (d) equality of opportunity and equality in the
distribution of income and wealth. (e) compassion for the wellbeing of others.
19. In
the 1970s, deregulation of numerous industries in the United States became
increasingly advocated by both Democrats and Republicans; representing a shift
away from the ideas and ideals of: (a) traditional conservatism. (b)
avant-garde socialism. (c) neo-conservatism. (d) supply-side economics. (e)
institutionalists who powerfully shaped microeconomic aspects of “New
Deal” liberalism.
20. In
The Great Crash, John Kenneth
Galbraith theorized that regulation and deregulation are cyclical phenomena.
Prosperity is accompanied by deregulation and increases in corporate fraud, while
economic downturns lead to the exposure of corporate improprieties, resulting
in new regulation, which is then moderated during the next prosperous period,
and so on. Galbraith suggested that corporate fraud be called: (a) bunco. (b)
flim-flam. (c) bamboozle. (d) bilko. (e) bezzle.
21.
In Voltaire’s novel, Candide, his character Dr. Pangloss opines that “we live in
the best of all possible worlds.” This optimistic prediction is most
consistent with the views of capitalism expressed by: (a) anarcho-syndicalists.
(b) medieval scholastics. (d) Karl Marx. (e) most classical economists.

22. Consider
the figure above. According to the median voter model, a serious candidate from
the Left who wanted to win in both the primary election and the general
election would be likely to publicly favor policy positions such as those at:
(a) point a in the primary election, and point c in the general election. (b)
points b or c in the primary election, and point d in the general election. (c)
point d in the primary election, and point b or point c in the general
election. (d) point d in the primary election, and point e in the general
election.
23. In
Walrasian general equilibrium analysis, instantaneous adjustments of all
relative prices so that all that markets clear are ensured because: (a) firms
reduce quantities to cure excess supplies . (b) markets adjust in accord with
Lerner wage-price reaction functions. (c) auctioneers are assumed to adjust
prices correctly. (d) Cournot reaction functions determine quantities and
Bertrand reaction functions determine price. (e) firms increase quantities to
cure excess demands.
24. In
combination with the prevalence of price discrimination, the adage,
“variety is the spice of life,” may be a partial rebuttal for the
view that product differentiation is inefficient, which was central to the
theory of: (a) utility maximization developed by William Stanley Jevons. (b)
duopoly developed by Antoine Augustin Cournot and Jules Dupuit. (c) oligopoly
developed by Joan Robinson. (d) games developed by Jon von Neumann and Oskar
Morgenstern. (e) monopolistic competition developed by Edward Chamberlin.
25. Karl
Marx and Joseph Schumpeter had very different perceptions about the virtues of
capitalism, but their views are in accord in predicting that: (a) social forces
will cause capitalism to be replaced by socialism. (b) economic progress
depends on ambitious entrepreneurs. (c)
the working class will eventually resort to armed conflict to overthrow the
government. (d) the gold standard was
doomed by unavoidable inflationary pressure.
26. Milton
Friedman, after leading the monetarist
counter-revolution, eventually conceded that changes in monetary policy to
combat a recession could: (a) require long run adjustments that would be
complete only after we are all dead. (b) take from three to ten years to fully
work through the economy. (c) be far less efficient that properly designed
fiscal policy would be. (d) operate properly only in a socialist economy.
27. John Maynard Keynes was
well aware of the Cambridge equation [Md = kPQ] and Irving Fisher’s
equation of exchange [MV = PQ], and that the equation of exchange is
tautological [true by definition because V ≡ PQ / M]. Keynes favored
increasing Aggregate Demand through fiscal policies to pull the economy out of
a recession. But AD ≈ MV. Thus, one reasonable interpretation of
Keynes’ advocacy of government deficits is a crucial implicit assumption
that: (a) government deficits would increase the amounts of bonds issued by the
Treasury. (b) the “Keynesian multipliers” he described would
increase the velocity of money, and that the government would print extra
currency to cover its extra spending. (c) the productive capacity of the
economy would increase to absorb the additional government spending. (d) all of
the extra government contracts would be awarded to domestic firms instead of
international conglomerates. (e) the price level would increase proportionally
with the money supply, so fiscal policy is superior to monetary policy because
inflation effects are absent.
28. Not
among issues central to innovative theories developed by the Nobel-prize
winning economist Gary Becker would be the economics of: (a) crime and
punishment. (b) divorce. (c) macroeconomic rules versus discretionary policies.
(d) suicide. (e) racial discrimination. (f) time.
29.
Most libertarians would favor government
policies to: (a) raise minimum wage laws to reduce exploitation. (b) protect
private property rights and enforce contracts. (c) raise taxes to eliminate
budget deficits. (d) outlaw immoral behavior. (e) re-institute a military
draft.
30.
Nationalization of heavy industry and municipal
ownership of public utilities were centerpieces for policies advocated by: (a)
William Godwin. (b) neoconservatives. (c) the Fabian Society. (d) Karl Marx. (e)
anarchists and syndicalists.
31. Nobel
Prize winner Daniel Kahneman developed a peak/end
rule indicating that the absolute values of outcomes may be somewhat less
important for individuals’ assessments of their own welfare than are the:
(a) most recent changes in direction of the path of the outcome for the
individual. (b) subjective marginal values of the goods considered. (c)
objective real values of the relevant goods. (d) most recent changes in the
overall status of the economy.
32. Of
the following pairs, the two schools of thought about political economy with
the most ideas in common are: (a) libertarianism and classical liberalism. (b)
social Darwinism and utopian socialism. (c) Buddhist economics and rugged
individualism. (d) anarchism and Marxist socialism. (e) neo-conservatism and
scholasticism and supernaturalism. (f) physiocracy and phrenology.
33. Not
among the scholars working in Europe who were pivotal in “the marginalist
revolution” was the great economist: (a) Leon Walras. (b) Jules Dupuit. (c)
Carl Menger. (d) Antoine-Augustin Cournot. (e) John Rogers Commons.
34. Parts
of Harold Demsetz’ reputation derive from his theory that: (a) bottom-up
organizations tend to produce goods at the lowest cost. (b) technological
advances respond to profit incentives. (c) property rights tend to be assigned
to those who will use resources most efficiently. (d) “death taxes”
are disincentives for work and saving by industrious people with strong
endowment and legacy motives.
35. Political
scientists use the term “rat choice” to refer to their version of
the subdiscipline of economics known as: (a) bounded rationality. (b) public
choice analysis. (c) constrained optimization. (d) behavioral economics. (e)
cognitive economics.
36. Of
the following thinkers, the one whose theories about international trade were
least consistent with those of the other thinkers listed was: (a) David
Ricardo. (b) Alexander Hamilton. (c) Friedrich List. (d) Thomas Robert Malthus.
37. Of
the following, the theorist who would have been least likely to join a fan club
for successful entrepreneurs was: (a) Joseph Schumpeter. (b) Ayn Rand. (c) Hans
K.E. von Mangoldt. (d) Albertus Magnus. (e) George Gilder. (f) Richard
Cantillon.
38. Relative
to firms in other market structures, firms in oligopoly markets tend to: (a) be
consciously interdependent and to engage in strategic behavior. (b) adopt
price-taking and quantity-adjusting strategies. (c) engage far more frequently
in accounting fraud and significant exploitation of workers. . (d) be
technologically stagnant, with sticky rates of innovation. (e) focus on
rent-seeking behavior instead of profit maximization.
39. Roberto
Michels’ “Iron Law of Oligarchy” suggests that if the
political leaders of the world’s 50 most populous democracies, the
leaders of the world’s 50 largest unions, and the CEOs of the
world’s 50 largest multinational companies were all given personality
tests: (a) the political leaders, on average, would be the best educated and
most knowledgeable. (b) they would all have more in common with each other than
they would with the people they lead. (c) the business leaders would tend to be
most knowledgeable about economics. (d) the union leaders and business leaders
would be more like each other than the political leaders, who would tend to
span a large variety of different personality types.
40. People
stop searching for information about prospective activities when the expected
marginal benefit from further information is perceived as exceeding expected
marginal cost, which gives rise to a phenomenon that economists call: (a)
planned obsolescence. (b) irrational exuberance. (c) money illusion. (d)
rational ignorance. (e) incomplete optimization.
41. Relative
to the analyses of most other notable economic theorists, treatments of
economic concepts by Aristotle, Ibn Kaldur, Abu-Hamid al Ghazali, Albertus
Magnus, and Thomas Aquinas are distinguished by their emphasis on: (a) the
subjective nature of prices in a market system. (b) moral and ethical aspects
of economic activity. (c) formal models based in pure logic. (d) the will of
God operating through the concept Adam Smith later called “the invisible
hand.”
42. Richard
Musgrave’s normative theory of public finance proposed
compartmentalization that would yield perpetually balanced governmental budgets
for his: (a) allocation and distribution branches of government. (b)
consolidated federal, state, and local government budgets. (c) stabilization
branch of government. (d) business cycle branch of government. (e) exhaustive
spending branch of government, but not for his investment branch of government.
43. The
complete title of John Maynard Keynes’ 1936 treatise, The General Theory, did not contain the
word: (a) Economics. (b) Employment. (c) Money. (d) Interest.
44. Some
recent research suggests that file-sharing [illicitly downloading music and
movies from the internet] is typically engaged in by consumers who are most
like: (a) the marginal crossers of Jules Dupuit’s bridge. (b) social
Darwinists who believe in “survival of the fittest.” (c) the
utopian socialists sponsored by Robert Owen. (d) panhandlers who respond to
doles by increasing their time spent begging. (e) the entrepreneurs celebrated
by Richard Cantillon and George Gilder.
45. Rugged
individualism is most consistent with the views expressed by: (a) Simon Newcomb
when describing the economics of charity. (b) Plato, when describing his
idealized philosopher king in The
Republic. (c) Thomas More, in his treatise, Utopia. (d) Mohandas Gandhi, when advocating passive civil
disobedience. (e) Thomas Hobbes, in Leviathan.
46. The
assumption that people are self-interested is probably LEAST applicable for:
(a) heads of business firms. (b) heads of government agencies. (c) heads of
households. (d) heads of nonprofit corporations. (e) people covered by
headstones.
47.
Some
thinkers believe that collective ownership can foster a love of work and
education, and facilitate replacement of competitive greed with internal
desires to share the fruits of our individual labor. The idea that internal
satisfaction can replace self-interested materialism is least compatible with
(a) Abraham Maslow’s upper levels in his hierarchy of needs. (b) Adam Smith’s invisible hand. (c)
Mohandas Gandhi’s views, sometimes characterized as small is beautiful. (d) Karl Marx’s ultimate communist
society. (e) Mao Zedong’s attempts to mold a “new man in China.” (f) Utopian socialism.
48. Some
basic behavioral assumptions imbedded in standard economic theory are disputed
by modern behavioral economists, most of whom would characterize human behavior
as strongly influenced by: (a) ingrained habits shaped by institutions that
differ across cultures. (b) bounded rationality, bounded self interest, and
bounded willpower. (c) a narrow focus on self interest. (d) “the selfish
gene,” which yields needs to propagate our species.
49. Such
social Darwinists as Herbert Spencer, William Graham Sumner, and Simon Newcomb
would have agreed with Ayn Rand’s opposition to labor unions, welfare
payments, and minimum legal wages on the grounds that: (a) giving workers
higher wages stimulates them to buy more alcohol and drugs. (b) jobless people
are probably unemployed because of their personal failings. (c) low wages will
induce people to work harder. (d) people at the top of the income spectrum
usually deserve their positions. (e) all of the above.
50. The
argument that infant industries should be protected from competition by
established foreign industries was first advanced by: (a) Richard List. (b)
Gustav Schmoller. (c) David Ricardo. (d) Alexander Hamilton. (e) Thomas Robert
Malthus. (f) early mercantilists.
51. The
assumption that is least central to the conclusion of the neoclassical
macroeconomic model that a market economy naturally gravitates towards a full
employment level of output is: (a) Say’s law. (b) price flexibility. (c)
growth of the money supply is consistent with the growth of potential output.
(d) wage flexibility. (e) interest rate flexibility. (f) Q = F(K, L) (g)
competitive markets.
52. The
brilliant Hungarian-born mathematician who concluded that almost all human
interactions can be viewed as strategic games was: (a) Laurence Klein. (b) John
von Neumann. (c) John Maynard Keynes. (d) Frederick von Hayek. (e) Leon Walras.
53. The
distinction between normative and positive economics was emphasized by: (a)
John Neville Keynes. (b) Henry George. (c) John Rawls. (d) Adam Smith. (e)
Robert Nozick.
54. Consider
the four scenarios below. “Sticky” wages and prices (a centerpiece
of Keynesian analysis) will be least flexible if workers tend to: (a) prefer
Scenario I. (b) prefer Scenario II. (c) prefer Scenario III. (d) be indifferent
between these three scenarios.
55. Scenario
I: Wage increases by 6%, Price level increases by 4%
56. Scenario
II: Wage remain constant, Price level decreases by 2%
57. Scenario
III: Wage increases by 2%, Price level remains constant
58. The classical demand for money was summarized in the
late 19th century at England’s Cambridge University in an
equation written: (a) [G-T] = [S-I] + [M-X]. (b) V = MQ/P. (c) C=I=G=(X-M) = Y.
(d) Md = kPQ, or Md =kY. (e) MV=PQ.
59. The
concept of regression as described by Francis Galton implies that the children
of extremely gifted athletes are likely to be: (a) about as athletic as their
parents. (b) further from the mean in athleticism than are their parents. (c)
of only average athleticism. (d) closer to the mean in athleticism than are
their parents.
60. The
concepts of competitive equilibria, price elasticity of demand, internal and
external economies of scale, increasing and decreasing cost industries, quasi-rent,
and consumer surplus can be directly attributed to the works of: (a) Alfred
Marshall. (b) John Maynard Keynes. (c) Karl Marx. (d) Joan Robinson. (e) John
Stuart Mill.
61. The
eccentric legal reformer and philosopher who lived from 1748 to 1832 and whose
embalmed body still serves on the Board of Trustees of the University of London
was: (a) James Mill, the father of John Stuart Mill. (b) Edwin Chadwick. (c)
William Petty. (d) Jeremy Bentham. (e) Francis Y. Edgeworth.
62. The
equimarginal principle [also known as
the law of equal marginal advantage]
emphasizes the idea that efficiency requires: (a) the fairness of the
distribution of income to be judged by how close it comes to equality. (b) all
identical resources to be allocated in identical ways. (c) deployment at the
margin of equivalent resources in equivalently valuable ways. (d) marginal
social benefit to most greatly exceed marginal social cost [MSB>MSC]. (e)
wealth creation which entails maximizing “the greatest good for the
greatest number.”
63. The
first clear example of the use of game theory in economic modeling was (a)
Plato’s discussion of relationships between ordinary citizens and the
philosopher king. (b) Karl Marx’s discussion of the clash between the
proletariat and the bourgeoisie. (c) A. Jules E. Dupuit ’s exposition of
efficient pricing for a public good, such as a bridge. (d) Antoine-Augustin
Cournot’s quantity adjustment model of a duopoly. (e) Rene
Descartes’ exposition of cogito
ergo sum.
64. The Great Depression
finally ended when the government of the United States: (a) published John
Maynard Keynes's General Theory. (b)
launched massive public works programs in 1933. (c) created the Federal Deposit
Insurance Corporation and the Federal Reserve System. (d) entered World War II.
(e) boycotted the Berlin Olympics in 1936.
65. The
idea that the problem of scarcity is best resolved by reducing wants so that
they are consistent with the goods available is a part of the philosophy underpinning:
(a) the Judeo-Christian heritage that dominates western society. (b) Karl
Marx’s ultimate communist society. (c) aspects of Buddhism, Taoism, and
Hinduism. (d) the golden age of Greece, during the times of Socrates, Plato,
and Aristotle.
66. The
Keynesian theory of liquidity preference treats the cost of holding money as:
(a) current interest rates. (b) nothing. (c) the value of the goods that
someone could buy with a dollar. (d) downwardly limited because of sticky
pricing.
67. The
issue of land rent was least central to the economic theories of (a) Johann H.
von Thünen. (b) Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk. (c) David Ricardo. (d) Henry George.
68. The
idea that capitalism is dynamically unstable because the quest for profit
stimulates economic concentration and the immiseration of workers is central
to: (a) classical macroeconomics. (b) Keynesian theory. (c) monetary velocity cycles. (d) Marxist theory. (e) Austrian theory of the
business cycle.
69. The
idea that governmental redistributions of income or wealth will ultimately have
no effect on how disparate income and wealth are distributed is sometimes
called: (a) Say’s Law of Markets. (b) the Law of Comparative Advantage.
(c) Keynes’ Law. (d) Schumpeter’s Law. (e) Pareto’s Law.
70. The
implicit assumptions of classical and neoclassical economic theorists that
culture and historical time are irrelevant for useful economic analysis was
most emphatically rejected by: (a) utilitarians. (b) German historicists. (c)
mercantilists. (d) physiocrats. (e) logical positivists.
71.
The International Workers of the World (IWW)
“wobblies” were: (a) responsible for nationalizing British heavy
industry. (b) in favor of collective bargaining and profit sharing. (c) Russian
liberals overthrown by V. I. Lenin’s Bolsheviks. (d) instrumental in establishing
Yugoslavian worker committees. (e) pre-World War I syndicalist radicals who
sought to take over U.S. industry.
72. The
labor theory of value was rejected most vehemently by: (a) members of the
Austrian school of economics. (b) orthodox Marxists. (c) David Ricardo. (d) 19th
Century advocates of laissez faire policies. (e) John Stuart Mill.
73. The
macroeconomic theory born in the classical era and refined in the neoclassical
era that should more descriptively and accurately be called “a monetary
theory of price level” is: (a) rational expectations theory. (b) capital
and interest theory. (c) marginal productivity theory. (d) the quantity theory
of money. (e) inflationary theory.
74. The
thinkers most likely to have agreed that government can reassign property rights
and redistribute income and wealth would be: (a) Robert Nozick and John Rawls.
(c) Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman. (b) Adam Smith and Karl Marx. (d) Thomas
Hobbes and John Stuart Mill. (e) Jeremy Bentham and David Ricardo.
75. The
Normans led by William the Conqueror occupied the British Isles after defeating
England’s King Harald at the Battle of Hastings [1066 AD]. Suppose,
instead, that King Harald had soundly defeated and permanently squelched the
Norman invasion. The philosopher whose theories about social and scientific
processes affectively asserted that the world today would be, at most,
insignificantly different, was: (a) Adam Smith. (b) Zeno. (c) Thomas Aquinas.
(d) Albert Einstein. (e) Protagoras.
76. The
quote “But the rule holds with but slight exceptions that, whether
warriors or priests, the upper classes are exempt from industrial employments,
and this exemption is the economic expression of their superior rank,”
identifies ideas expressed in: (a) Karl Marx’s Das Kapital. (b) Adam Smith’s Wealth
of Nations. (c) Thorstein
Veblen’s Theory of the Leisure Class. (d) Leo Tolsoy’s War and Peace. (e) John Maynard
Keynes’ General Theory.
77. The
sacrifices of parents who pay for their children’s college educations
when they could otherwise be consuming more goods personally is most completely
explained by the basic assumptions of: (a) conventional economics. (b)
anthropologists. (c) physiocrats. (d) sociologists. (e) sociobiologists.
78. The
most renowned American economic theorist of the late 19th Century
was (a) Alfred Marshall. (b) Arthur Cecil Pigou. (c) John Bates Clark. (d) Paul
Samuelson.
79. The
theory of demand based on indifference analysis assumes that, with reasonable
precision, consumers can: (a) cardinally measure their utility. (b) determine
how healthy their diets are. (b) predict how future events will affect a
household’s income level. (c) ordinally specify the rank order of
alternative bundles of goods. (d) distinguish between the physical
characteristics of different brands of bleach or cola.
80. The
theory that the macroeconomic activity is at most trivially affected by whether
government spending is funded through taxation, borrowing, or printing money is
known as: (a) Ricardian equivalence. (b) rational expectations. (c)
Condorcet’s paradox. (d) the equimarginal principle.
81. The
theory that there is an orderly set of proper rules for governing society, and
that the appropriate task of the scholar is to discover those rules through
reason is known as: (a) self interest. (b) mercantilism. (c) natural law. (d)
economic sociology. (e) contrarian conjecture.
82. The
traditional structure-conduct-performance
[S-C-P] paradigm yields results that are least
consistent with: (a) monopoly. (b) traditional models of oligopoly. (c) models
of purely- or perfectly-competitive markets. (d) monopolistic competition. (e)
strategic behavior in game theory.
83. The
voting system proposed by Knut Wicksell that, unfortunately, erects the highest
barriers against correcting preexisting inequity is: (a) simple plurality. (b)
majority rule. (c) point voting. (d) unanimity voting.
84. Two
relatively sophisticated thinkers for their time whose ideas provided a bridge
from the dominance of a simplistic version of the mercantilist school of thought
and the publication of Adam Smith’s Wealth
of Nations were: (a) Abu-Hamid al Ghazali and François Quesnay. (b) William
Petty and Richard Cantillon. (c) Bernard Mandeville and Thomas Aquinas. (d)
William Pitt and Alexander Hamilton. (e) Simon Newcomb and Edwin Chadwick.
85. The
writer who described capitalism as a process of creative destruction and called the entrepreneur “the white
hot fire that drives capitalism forward” was (a) John Stuart Mill (b) Carl Menger. (c) St. Thomas
Aquinas. (d) Joseph A. Schumpeter. (e) William Stanley Jevons.
86. Were all of the following still alive, the least
likely of these groups to oppose the globalization of markets and international
“outsourcing” would be: (a) German historicists and Alexander
Hamilton. (b) mercantilists and Thomas Robert Malthus . (c) David Hume, Adam
Smith, and David Ricardo. (d) Samuel Gompers [AFL], John L. Lewis [CIO], and
current members of American trade unions.
87. When an action negatively affects someone not directly
involved in the decision about the action, a market failure may occur that is
characterized as a negative: (a) externality. (b) spinover. (c) synergy. (d)
irrationality. (e) overspin.
88. Scarcity
is chronic and incurable if scarcity exists because our limited resources and
technologies cannot produce sufficient goods to fully satisfy our unlimited
wants. Thinkers who viewed scarcity as potentially resolved by curbing our
appetites for material goods included: (a) Jeremy Bentham. (b) Mohandas Gandhi.
(c) Abu Hamid al-Ghazali. (d) Xenophon. (e) Ibn Khaldun.
89. The
classical macroeconomic theory developed prior to 1930 was most consistent
with: (a) asset demands for money. (b) transaction demands for money. (c) money
as a store of value. (d) precautionary demands for money. (e) speculative
demands for money.
90. One
modern theorist argues that society allocates property rights in response to
the effort individuals expend in efforts to assert rights over property, and
that people most willing to spend energy in these efforts tend to be those who
will use the property in the most valuable ways. This theory of the development
of property rights is attributable to: (a) John Rawls. (b) John Locke. (c) Hugo
Grotius. (d) Thomas Hobbes. (e) Robert Nozick. (f) Harold Demsetz.
91. A
list of American institutionalists would not include: (a) John Kenneth
Galbraith. (b) John Commons. (c) Thorstein Veblen. (d) Edwin Hastings
Chamberlin. (e) Clarence Ayres.
92. The
concept that economic inefficiency exists whenever anyone can be made better
off without reducing the welfare of some other person was first made explicit
by: (a) Vilfredo Pareto. (b) Leon Walras. (c) Antoine Augustin Cournot. (d)
Jules Dupuit. (e) Carl Menger.
93. John
Maynard Keynes mocked the conservative monetary policymakers at the Bank of
England as: (a) the little old ladies of Threadneedle Street. (b) boring drones
of the rentier class. (c) dispirited
farm animals on a train bound for the slaughter house. (d) myopic judges of
financial “beauty contests”. (e) addle-pated practitioners of the
conventional wisdom.
94. Changes
in quantities as mechanisms for adjusting to changes in circumstances that
disrupt equilibrium were emphasized by: (a) Jules Dupuit, Joseph Bertrand, and
Emile de Cheysson, (b) Antoine-Augustin Cournot, Alfred Marshall, and John
Maynard Keynes. (c) Carl Menger, Eugen von Bohm-Bawerk, and Friedrich Wieser.
(d) Leon Walras, Vilfredo Pareto, and William Stanley Jevons.
95. Mercantilists
would have been most likely to have opposed: (a) the idea that monarchs rule by
divine right. (b) running balance of trade deficits. (c) the top-down approach
to management and administration. (d) state authorized monopolies. (e)
imperialistic policies.
96. Classically-oriented
macroeconomists would view excessive unemployment as a symptom that wage rates
relative to output prices: (a) cause excessive Aggregate Demand. (b) are too
high to clear labor markets. (c) are too low to clear labor markets. (d)
require militant unionism to be curbed.
97. Critics would be least
likely to identify as “market failures” specific to capitalism such
problems as: (a) inadequate adjustments for negative externalities as
pollution. (b) enormous disparities in the distributions of income and wealth.
(c) inadequate market incentives for basic scientific research. (d) control
over government policies by a small autocratic elite. (e) the promotion of
competitive instead of cooperative modes of behavior.
98. The
succession of military dictators and autocratic leaders in Central America and
Africa and the deposition of Batista by Fidel Castro in Cuba could be considered
examples of Roberto Michels’: (a) inevitability of bureaucracy. (b) will to power theory. (c) iron law of
oligarchy. (d) cobweb model. (e) philosopher king.
99. Thomas
Malthus was pessimistic about the long run state of humankind. Although he
feared that his preferred solution to overpopulation was impossible, he favored
the preventative check of: (a) war. (b) disease. (c) starvation. (d) abstinence
and delayed marriage. (e) famine.
100. “Laplace’s
demon” [named after Pierre-Simon, Marquis de Laplace [1749-1827], and also sometimes
known as “Maxwell’s demon”] addresses the possibility that if
a demon fully understood the laws of physics and knew the position of every
particle in the universe at any given point in time, that “nothing could
be uncertain and the future just like the past would be present before its [the
demon’s] eyes." This theory
of the universe is known as: (a) hysterisis. (b) path dependence. (c)
determinism. (d) spiritualism. (e) reductionism.
101. Pairs
of property rights theorists whose views are relatively most compatible in
their underlying logic would include: (a) Robert Nozick and John Rawls. (b)
Hugo Grotius and Thomas Hobbes. (c) Karl Marx and Jean Jacques Rousseau. (d)
Plato and Mohandas Gandhi. (e) Harold Demsetz and John Locke.
102. Jeremy
Bentham’s musings provided major philosophical foundations for: (a) the
abolition of slavery. (b) syndicalism. (c) free international trade. (d)
feudalism. (e) utilitarianism.
103. A
view that all phenomena conform to inherently stable and universal principles is
least consistent with the concepts that underpin: (a) scientific laws about the
cosmos developed by Isaac Newton. (b) Adam Smith’s “invisible
hand” of the marketplace. (c) Zeno’s primitive theories of
equilibrium. (d) social homeostasis, as elaborated by Talcott Parsons. (e) path
dependence, chaos theory, and the notions of Heraclites. (f) Ludwig
Feurbach’s determinism and Karl Marx’s dialectical materialism.
104. A
person who explains the world through a set of formulaic questions and then
faith based, authoritarian answers is, perhaps unconsciously, following the
methodology of: (a) Druid monks. (b) medieval scholastics. (b) David
Ricardo. (c) Utopian socialists. (d)
modern libertarians. (e) transcendental meditators.
105. “Shocks”
to technologies, resources, and the structures of demands occur continuously.
Market adjustments take time. Consequently, David Colander’s
macroeconomic model concludes that a Walrasian “long run” general
equilibrium is unachievable. His model is known as: (a) chase equilibrium. (b)
dynamic disequilibrium. (c) stochastic macroequilibration. (d) asymmetric
wage-price reaction functions. (e) creative destruction.
|
106.
This figure
depicts a: (a) Phillips curve. (b) Lorenz curve. (c) Edgeworth-Bowley curve.
(d) Clark-Wicksteed curve. (e) Marshallian inequality index. 107.
The social
philosopher who hypothesized that the economic system or form of political
governance does not affect the shape of the area of inequality in the long
run, was: (a) Friedrich Nietzsche. (b) Karl Marx. (c) Knut Wicksell. (d)
Vilfredo Pareto. (e) Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk. |
|
108. Materialistic
accumulation and consumption were most central to the theories of: (a)
Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. (b) Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, Ibn Khaldun, and
other early Islamic thinkers. (c) Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, and other
medieval scholastics. (d) Gautama Buddha, Mohandas Gandhi, and E.F. Schumacher.
(e) Jay Gould, Jim Fisk, Cornelius Vanderbilt, and other “robber
barons” whose activities were described by, among others, Thorstein
Veblen.
109. According
to late 19th Century versions of the labor theory of value: (a) the
interactions of supply and demand determine relative prices. (b) the value of
anything is exactly proportional to the labor time socially necessary for its
production. (c) human capital and labor are equally "socially
necessary" for production. (d) demand is more important than supply in
determining the relative value of anything.
110. The
excess-demand function and comprehension that the sum of excess demands must
equal the sum of excess supplies were among innovations in theory by the
neoclassical economist: (a) John Maynard Keynes. (b) Léon Walras. (c) Paul
Sweezy. (d) Antoine-Augustin Cournot. (e) William Stanley Jevons.
111. John
Maynard Keynes asserted that social change is most heavily influenced by: (a)
the ideas of economic philosophers and theorists. (b) mindless conformity and
harmful social conventions. (c) the concentrated economic and political power
wielded by special interest groups. (d) use of the scientific method to
generate new knowledge and innovate new products and technologies. (e)
religious zealotry.
112. The
management structures and operations of a modern major government agency and a giant
business corporation tend to be: (a) so different that comparisons are
impossible. (b) consistently maximized in efficiency. (c) similarly
bureaucratic in many ways. (d) directed at maximizing total profit.
113. Fervently
held metaphysical/religious beliefs were least
central to the writings of: (a) John Stuart Mill. (b) Abu Hamid al-Ghazali. (c)
Ibn Khaldun. (d) Thomas Aquinas. (e) Karl Marx.
114. That
wages vary in inverse proportion to the agreeableness and constancy of the
employment was an idea first explicitly stated by. (a) Adam Smith. (b) Karl Marx. (c) Thomas
Malthus. (d) John Stuart Mill. (e) David Ricardo.
115. In
Wealth and Poverty [1981], George
Gilder opined that: (a) welfare payments and inherited wealth are equally
likely to decrease the work habits and grit of the recipients. (b)
entrepreneurs may be even more motivated to make the world a better place [as
they perceive it] than they are in high profits and luxurious lifestyles. (c)
income and most other taxes feasibly could be replaced by a single tax on land.
(d) a system of negative income taxes should be enacted to replace the current
welfare system.
116. A
social theory that does not advocate the ultimate minimization or elimination
of an economic role for government is: (a) Marxism. (b) laissez faire capitalism.
(c) syndicalism. (d) Fabian socialism. (e) Utopian socialism.
117. David
Ricardo’s theory of wage determination: (a) is all of the below.
(b) based on his formulation of an “Iron Law of Wages.” (c)
concludes that the wage rate [w] is inversely proportional to the
amount of labor supplied. (d) relies heavily on Malthusian population theory in
the long run. (e) concludes that, in the long run, the wage rate [w]
is inversely proportional to population. (f) can be graphed as a rectangular
hyperbola, with labor on the horizontal axis, and wage rates on the vertical
axis, so that the amount of labor supplied rigidly determines that wage rate.
118. Private
property rights are LEAST compatible with pure: (a) libertarianism. (b)
anarchism. (c) laissez-faire policies. (d) syndicalism and pure socialism.. (e)
capitalism
119. Early
in the eighteenth century, a leading industrialist responded to an advisor of
France’s King Louis IV, who asked how the crown could best facilitate the
world of commerce, with “Laissez
nous faire,” which means: (a) “let justice be done, though the
heavens fall.” (b) “leave us alone.” (c) “cut taxes to
the bone.” (d) “eliminate the welfare system.” (e) “let
us eat cake.”
120. Nationalism,
self-sufficiency, and imperial power were central concerns of early: (a)
mercantilists. (b) Greek hedonists. (c) Marxists. (d) French physiocrats. (e)
neoclassical economists.
121. The
public choice perspective on special interest groups’ attempts to mold
political decisions is most consistent with: (a) Plato’s advocacy of governance
by a philosopher king. (b) self interested opportunism. (c) Karl Marx’s
view that class interest causes most people to advocate social or legal
“reforms” favoring groups they belong to, and that they try to
support such policies with superficially ethical arguments. (d) medieval
scholar’s support for theocratic policies. (e) myopic solipsism.
122. The
highest level in Abraham Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Wants” is:
(a) nirvana. (b) self interest. (c)
security. (d) humanitarianism. (e) self actualization. (f) love and respect.
(g) socialism.
123. Neither
the “dialectic method” developed as an explanation for advances in
understanding by Georg Hegel nor the version altered by Karl Marx as an
explanation of all history (dialectical materialism) would be particularly consistent with the notion that: (a)
thesis +antithesis è synthesis. (b) Marxism + Christian socialism è
liberation theology. (c) mature capitalism + exploited proletariats è
revolution. (d) individual aptitude + individual effort è economic success. (e)
long + short è
distance.
124. Interest,
rent and profit are collectively known by Marxists as: (a) materialistic bloat.
(b) dialectics. (c) finance capital. (d) exploitation indicators. (e) surplus
values.
125. Mercantilists
would most likely agree that international trade: (a) should be promoted
through the reduction of tariffs. (b) should contribute to the wealth and power
of a nation. (c) is probably most efficient if largely unencumbered by tariffs
or quotas. (d) is expected to be mutually beneficial to all parties involved.
(e) widens inequitable disparities in the distribution of national income.
126. Aristotle
did not argue that: (a) charging usury – interest on loans –
is both inefficient and unfair. (b) buyers and sellers both gain when exchanges
are made voluntarily. (c) unnecessary exchange is facilitated by coined money.
(d) international trade invariably enhances the wealth of both trading nations.
127. A
voting system that allows only policy changes that are expected to improve
economic efficiency requires: (a) a democratic majority. (b) a plurality of the
votes. (c) unanimity. (d) elimination of income inequity.
128. The
policies of England attacked by David Ricardo and defended by Thomas Malthus
were (a) the gold standard as a foundation for the money supply. (b) the Protestant
reformation. (c) mercantilist conquest of less developed territories to
establish colonies. (d) the enclosure movement. (e) protectionist “Corn
Laws.”
129. In
Alfred Marshall’s “immediate period” (in contrast to
the short run or long run), prices for non-storable goods are
determined solely by: (a) minimization of production costs. (b) a subjective
labor theory of value. (c) market demand. (d) utility maximization.
130. In
purely competitive markets, the efficiency characteristics of an equilibrium
price arguably correspond most closely to the: (a) medieval concept of a
“just price.” (b) labor theory of value. (c) physiocrats’
assumption that agriculture is the ultimate source of all value. (d) surplus
value concept developed by Karl Marx.
131. The idea that the price of produced
good reflects, not the labor embodied in it, but rather the subjective
usefulness of the last unit purchased is based on the concept of: (a) excess
demand. (b) marginal productivity. (c) marginal utility. (d) the wages-fund.
(e) decreasing costs.
132. Issues
notably addressed by Vilfredo Pareto did not include: (a) elitism as a major
determinant of social and economic policies. (b) the relative distributions of
income or wealth. (c) sociobiological foundations for individual utility
maximization. (d) economic efficiency in the context of Walrasian general
equilibrium.
133. Given
these scenarios, a believer in neoclassical theory would expect working people
to: (a) prefer Scenario I. (b) prefer Scenario II. (c) prefer Scenario III. (d)
be indifferent between these scenarios.
Scenario I: Wage increases by 6%,
Price level increases by 4%
Scenario II: Wage remain constant,
Price level decreases by 2%
Scenario III: Wage increases by 2%, Price level remains
constant
134. Alfred Marshall formalized use of the
analytical technique known as: (a) general equilibrium analysis (b) felicific
calculus. (c) partial equilibrium analysis. (d) differential equations. (e)
linear programming.
135. According to Karl Marx, economic
history: (a) is determined by the interaction of Aggregate Demand and Aggregate
Supply. (b) is the result of class struggles. (c) will reach its pinnacle when
socialism replaces feudalism. (d) arises when new social and philosophical
ideas are introduced into the economic structure.
136. A
theory of oligopoly developed by Paul Sweezy and elaborated by Joan Robinson in
which a firm cannot gain market share significantly by lowering prices because
other firms will also cut prices, but the firm loses significant market share
if it raises prices because other firms will not match price hikes is known as:
(a) limit pricing. (b) monopolistic competition. (c) pure monopoly. (d)
monopsonistic competition. (e) the kinked demand curve model.
137. Economic
theories about crime and punishment were least central to major analyses
by: (a) Jeremy Bentham. (b) Gary Becker. (c) Sir Edwin Chadwick. (d) Reverent
Thomas Malthus.
138. According to David Ricardo,
differences in land rents depend on differences in fertility. Johann H. von
Thünen argued that land rents depend far more on: (a) the aesthetics of the
scenery. (b) location. (c) population density. (d) subjective evaluations.
139. The
models of imperfect competition that are intermediate cases in the
Structure-Conduct-Performance paradigm are least attributable to theories of industrial
organization developed by: (a) Leon Walras. (b) Joan Robinson. (c)
Antoine-Augustin Cournot. (d) Edwin H. Chamberlin. (e) Joseph L. F. Bertrand.
140. The notion that communism should be
imposed on a nation’s rulers so that they would neither be tempted by
possessions nor diverted from the task of wise governance was initially
proposed by: (a) Plato. (b) Xenophon. (c) Aristotle. (d) Protagoras. (e) Karl
Marx.
141. Adam Smith’s “system of
natural liberty” is a clear exposition of the central tenets of: (a) anarchism.
(b) libertarianism. (c)
democracy. (d) communism. (e) socialism.
142. John Stuart Mill’s sentiment in
his On Liberty, that
“…there are many acts which, being directly injurious only to the
agents themselves, ought not to be legally interdicted” would attract
most wholehearted agreement from modern: (a) libertarians. (b) syndicalists.
(c) scholastics. (d) fundamentalists. (e) royalists. (f) real business cycle
theorists
143. One reason that rent-seeking yields
economic inefficiency is because: (a) politicians try to project
middle-of-the-road images. (b) lobbying by special interests absorbs resources.
(c) bureaucrats understate social and economic problems. (d) consumers are less
rationally ignorant than voters.
144. John Stuart Mill developed a theory
that long run price level stability does not require governmental action beyond
the coining of money, and would automatically be achievable through market
forces. His laissez faire theory of
the supply of money is based on an assumption that: (a) government deficits and
surpluses cancel each other out over the long run. (b) the long run supply
curve for gold is roughly a horizontal line. (c) international trade is based
on reciprocal demands and supplies. (d) “good money drives out
bad.” (e) deflation is a result of “too much money chasing too many
goods.”
145. “Render unto Caesar that which
is Caesar’s, and unto God that which is God’s”. (Matthew
22:21). This passage: (a) is cited by conservative theologians who believe in
preserving existing distributions of income, wealth, status, and power. (b) was
used by mercantilists to justify the accumulation of gold. (c) is cited by
Christian Socialists who believe in existing distributions of wealth, status,
and power. (d) was quoted by Reverend Thomas Malthus in a famous sermon to the
House of Commons.
146. Neoclassical monetary theory suggests that if your
monetary income doubles, but all other prices double as well, you will
ultimately: (a) adjust your spending to secure a fair share of the larger
amount of goods now available. (b) conform to the spending patterns of families
in similar income brackets. (c) reduce your work effort because additional
monetary income is subject to the law of diminishing returns. (c) be far more
deeply in debt than you were before inflation occurred. (e) change your
“real” behavior not one iota—or even a smidgen.
147. The notion that wages and prices
adjust asymmetrically to excess demands or supplies is most closely associated
with (a) natural rate theory. (b) modern monetarism. (c) classical macroeconomics.
(d) Keynesian theory. (e) Steven Hawking’s reformation of the theory of
economic entropy.
148.
The
allocative role of profit in stimulating economic growth in a capitalist system
is least a primary focus of theories expounded by: (a) H.K.E. von Mangoldt. (b)
Frank Knight. (c) Karl Marx. (d) John Maynard Keynes. (e) Richard Cantillon.
149. Liberation theology has been
advocated at times by many revolutionary South American priests, and blends the
ideas of: (a)Utopianism and creationism. (b) syndicalism and Titoism. (c)
Marxism and Christian socialism. (d) anarchism and revisionism.
150.
The
adage, “variety is the spice of life,” may be a partial rebuttal
for the view that product differentiation is inefficient, which was central to
the theory of: (a) utility maximization developed by William Stanley Jevons.
(b) duopoly developed by A.A. Cournot and Jules Dupuit. (c) oligopoly developed
by Joan Robinson. (d) games developed by Jon von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern.
(e) monopolistic competition developed by Edward Chamberlin.
151.
The
median voter model helps explain why: (a) special interest groups will seek
rents. (b) middle‑of‑the‑road positions yield electoral
success. (c) voters will seek the best information available. (d) political
parties will differ dramatically.
152.
The
lineage of StructureàConductàPerformance [SCP]
analysis of industrial organization is most strongly imbedded in the works of:
(a) John Stuart Mill and Alfred Marshall. (b) Joan Robinson and Edwin H.
Chamberlin. (c) William Petty and Bernard Mandeville. (d) Carl Menger and
Joseph Schumpeter. (e) Leon Trotsky and Joseph Stalin.
153.
Karl
Marx believed that the unfolding of history is explained by: (a) competition
among workers that ensures high standards of living. (b) dialectical idealism.
(c) resolutions to conflicts between different political parties. (d) the clash
between thesis and antithesis in the ways societies produce, exchange, and
distribute economic goods.
154.
The
mechanism that is least useful in
giving a minority interest group power to influence political decisions is: (a)
logrolling. (b) lobbying. (c) a unanimity voting rule. (d) low rates of voter
participation. (e) simple majority rule.
155. Irrational exuberance, the term now
widely used to explain why prices for many tech stocks rose far above their
reasonable market values in the 1990s, was characterized by John Maynard Keynes
as: (a) “peak/end explosiveness.” (b) “NASDAQ mania.”
(c) “unwarranted exhilaration.” (d) “animal spirits.”
(e) “cognitive dissonance.” (f) “ego slippage.”
156.
Public
choice analysis begins with an assumption that individual behavior in the
political arena is essentially: (a) democratic. (b) anarchic. (c) humanitarian.
(d) self‑interested. (e) republican. (f) liberal. (g) conservative.
157. The concept that "demand creates
its own supply" is most consistent with: (a) marginalist theory. (b)
Keynesian theory. (c) natural rate theory. (d) new classical macroeconomics.
(e) Marxist analysis. (f) modern monetarism.
158.
Of
the following, the LEAST rational and informed reason for citizens to vote is
if, as individuals, they: (a) will feel guilty if they don't vote. (b) enjoy
expressing their political preferences by voting. (c) believe that every
citizen has a duty to vote. (d) are convinced that single votes commonly swing
election results.
159. Leon
Walras’ general equilibrium theory does not hinge on an assumption of:
(a) self interested behavior among individuals. (b) the labor theory of
value.(c) flexibility in shifting resources. (d) perfect competition.
160.
The
main implication of Adam Smith's notion of an "invisible hand" was
that: (a) pursuit of individual self interest must be controlled. (b) most
people lose sight of what's good for society. (c) most people are motivated
primarily by social welfare. (d) competition channels self‑interested behavior
to serve all of society.
161. Production
automatically generates income of comparable value, and no one produces
anything unless they intend to buy something else. This line of reasoning
implies that, in the aggregate, demand is automatically present if goods are
supplied, and is the primary underpinning for: (a) Jean Baptiste Say’s
“Law of Markets”, which is sometimes summarized as “supply
creates its own demand.” (b) Keynesian theory, which asserts that no one
will produce anything unless they expect someone else to buy it. (c) George
Stigler’s Law, which asserts that the sum of excess demands must equal
the sum of excess supplies. (d) Adam Smith’s concept of “the
invisible hand” of the market place. (e) David Ricardo’s theory of
specialization and trade according to comparative advantage.
162. The
economic theory most supportive of a Panglossian view that, in economies that
rely primarily on markets, “we live in the best of all possible
worlds” (from Voltaire’s Candide)
is: (a) early classical macroeconomics. (b) Gandhi’s “small is
beautiful” theory. (c) institutionalism. (d) neoclassical economics. (e)
Keynesian macroeconomics. (f) Kenneth Boulding’s characterization of our Spaceship
Earth.
163. Joseph
Schumpeter’s version of the Austrian school of economic thought
emphasizes that major disruptions to "purely" competitive markets
arise from: (a) profit maximization by imitative firms. (b) entrepreneurial
innovations. (c) job training by workers. (d) laissez-faire government
policies.
164. Trying
to raise your bureau’s budget by exaggerating the hurdles it faces and
the importance of its mission is known as: (a) boosterism. (b) frosting the
cake. (c) boondoggling. (d) empire building.
165.
Utilitarianism
proposes that the best society is one that provides the: (a) basic goods to
meet people's needs. (b) greatest happiness for the greatest number of people.
(c) accurate measurement of utility and disutility. (d) highest guaranteed
incomes for everyone.
166. Vilfredo
Pareto accepted Karl Marx’s view that history unfolds as a consequence of
class conflict, but he disagreed with Marx’s prediction that a classless
society would emerge, instead believing that: (a) leaders of socialist and
communist movements would ultimately become merely a new exploitative and
autocratic elite group. (b) Marx was incorrect to reject the labor theory of
value. (c) capitalism would be too adaptive to succumb to revolutionary
communism. (d) class differences would become blurred as economic development
progressed.
167. Undergraduate
economics students receive the greatest exposure to innovations in
microeconomic theory developed by: (a) Alfred Marshall. (b) Thorstein Veblen.
(c) John R. Commons. (c) Wesley Clair Mitchell. (d) John Bates Clark.
168.
The
theorist who, if alive today, would be least
likely to join a fan club for any entrepreneur, was: (a) Van Mangoldt. (b)
Richard Cantillon. (c) Joseph Schumpeter. (d) Thorstein Veblen.
169.
The
theorist who most notably disagreed with the idea that money is neutral – that “the absolute
quantity of money in a nation has no affect on the real output of that
nation” would have been: (a) John Maynard Keynes. (b) Adam Smith. (c)
David Hume. (d) David Ricardo. (e) John Stuart Mill. (f) Milton Friedman. (g)
Irving Fisher.
170.
Stronger
preferences for current consumption over future consumption would be indicated
by a: (a) higher interest rate. (b) more rapid rate of investment. (c) larger
government budget surplus. (d) surplus in the balance of trade.
171. The
robust market for illegal drugs in the United States may exist because of its
profitability, according to reasoning expressed by the early Chinese
philosopher: (a) Guan Zhong. (b) Lao Tzu. (c) Confucius. (d) Ming Tao. (e) Omar
Khayyam.
172.
Eugen
von Böhm-Bawerk’s concept of roundabout
production entails: (a) maximizing the production of capital goods during
each production period. (b) investing in capital goods by postponing
consumption, thereby enabling the production of greater amounts of consumer
goods in the future. (c) outsourcing of intermediate goods by a firm that is
not fully integrated. (d) maximizing r + i + π = surplus value.
173. The
idea that furthering the prospects of an individual organism’s
“breeding rights” motivates behavior to enhance class, status, and
power, is most central to the discipline of: (a) sociology. (b) cultural anthropology. (c) Darwinian
evolution. (d) sociobiology. (e) behavioral economics.
174.
Arrow’s
“Voting-Paradox” theorem suggests that intransitive preferences may
cause choices based on voting to be inconsistent with the preferences of
anyone, and that these democratic choices are likely to be the least preferred
of all options for many citizens. The logic underpinning Arrow’s theorem
can be traced to the writings of: (a) the Marquis de Condorcet. (b) John Stuart
Mill. (c) Ambrose Bierce. (d) Henry David Thoreau. (e) Roberto Michels. (f)
James Madison.
175.
The
process of social homeostasis hypothesized by the sociologist Talcott Parsons
is a mechanism that implicitly underpins a theory of the distribution of income
advanced earlier by: (a) John Stuart Mill. (b) Vilfredo Pareto. (c) David
Ricardo. (d) John Bates Clark. (e) Karl Marx.
176. Marxist
revolutions in Russia, China, and Cuba all represent refutations of Marxian
predictions because: (a) their revolutions were not especially bloody. (b)
Marxist governments did not follow imperialist policies. (c) “Marxist
revolutions” all occurred in relatively feudal agricultural economies.
(d) economic growth was slower after the revolution than before.
177. According
to the quantity theory of money central to neoclassical macroeconomic models:
(a) output grows when the price level rises. (b) real output is unaffected by
the money supply. (c) employment depends on the velocity of money. (d) growth
of per capita income is impossible in the long run.
178. The
behavioral scientist most likely to have written, “Classic economic
theory, based as it is on an inadequate theory of human motivation, could be
revolutionized by accepting the reality of higher human needs, including the
impulse to self-actualization and the love for the highest values,” was:
(a) Franz Boaz. (b) Francis Galton. (c) Margaret Meade. (e) Sigmund Freud. (e)
Abraham Maslow. (f) B.F. Skinner.
179. A
central assumption separating John Maynard Keynes from previous economists was
the debate over whether: (a) surplus value does not include wages (b) supply
creates its own demand. (c) income should be distributed equally. (d) all goods
should be provided freely.
180. A
cultural relativist with respect to his views on modern culture and its assumed
superiority was the notably eccentric: (a) Thorstein Veblen. (b) Thomas
Malthus. (c) Carl Menger. (d) Wesley Clair Mitchell. (e) John Kenneth
Galbraith.
181. A
Marxist prediction that may have proven at least partially accurate is: (a) the
decline in the average rate of profit. (b) cyclically increasing unemployment
rates and explosive business cycles. (c) communist revolutions in
industrialized societies. (d) increased concentration of wealth and power in
large corporations.
182. A
nineteenth century economist whose insights into savingàinvestment decisions
provided intellectual ancestry for John Maynard Keynes’ observation that
savers and investors are different people with different motives so that that aggregated
desires to save may exceed aggregated desires to invest was: (a) David Ricardo.
(b) Jeremy Bentham. (c) John Stuart Mill. (d) Nassau Senior. (e) Thomas Robert
Malthus.
183.
Adam Smith and
Carl Menger agreed on stringent limits to government’s involvement in the
economy. However, Menger and his Austrian colleagues probably believed this in
part because they viewed markets to be efficient, and in part because: (a)
expected the invisible hand to
overcome raw political power. (b) most were born into the politically-conservative
Austrian or German aristocracy. (c) they were early libertarians who emphasized
freedom above all else. (d) they viewed all government activity as inherently
socialistic. (d) they were quite liberal politically and favored worker participation
in managerial decisions, and thought individuals should be able to participate
in a free market system.
184. A
sequence of argument such as “If A exceeds B, and B exceeds C, then A
exceeds than C”, which was central to the methods of inquiry developed by
the ancient Greeks [Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, et al.], is an example of a logical: (a) syllogism. (b)
dialecticism. (c) scientism. (d) quantification. (e) scientology.
185. According
to John Neville Keynes [father of John Maynard Keynes], an economic theory is not a positive theory unless it is: (a) in accord with Occam’s
razor. (b) based on unanimously held value judgments. (c) proven to correspond
to real world experience. (d) empirically testable, at least conceptually, for
its truth or falsity. (e) pragmatically useful in maximizing the value of
output, employment, and purchasing power.
186. According
to George Stigler, physically identical units of a commodity may have more than
one price even when markets are in equilibrium due to: (a) consumer ignorance.
(b) price discrimination. (c) the costs of information. (d) monopoly power.
187. According
to neoclassical macroeconomic theory, buying anything is most clearly evidence
that, prior to the purchase, you: (a) had unmet subsistence needs. (b) were
strongly influenced by advertising and marketing, according to John Kenneth
Galbraith. (c) had a shortage of the good you bought, and relatively too much
money. (d) gained utility from a similar previous exchange. (e) were
experiencing a positive marginal propensity to save.
188. Allocative
failures of a pure market system would not include: (a) externalities through
which an imperial government exploits its colonies. (b) asymmetric information
– when one party to a transaction has relevant knowledge not possessed by
the other party. (e.g., adverse selection or moral hazard). (c) monopoly
– where the price set by the monopoly exceeds the marginal costs of
production. (d) the public goods problem – goods that are non-rival and
non-exclusive will be underprovided.
189. According
to neoclassical macroeconomics, the Aggregate Supply curve in a market economy
is roughly: (a) vertical at a full employment level of output. (b) horizontal
at the current level of prices. (c) a 45 degree line from the origin of
quantity/price space. (d) a rectangular hyperbola in price/quantity space. (e)
the vertical sum of the marginal cost curves of all firms in the economy.
190. Conscious
parallelism of action in which firms tend to move together is a hallmark of:
(a) pure competition. (b) monopolistic competition. (c) oligopoly. (d) imperfect
competition. (e) monopsony.
191. Alexander
Hamilton’s advocacy of tariffs to protect “infant industries”
was later [not earlier, as
asserted in some texts] echoed in the works of: (a) German historicists. (b)
mercantilists. (c) American institutionalists. (d) David Hume. (e) French
physiocrats.
192. An
assumption that would be least crucial for the conclusion of neoclassical
macroeconomics that business cycles will automatically be cured by market adjustments
would be a requirement that: (a) supply creates its own demand, per Say’s
Law. (b) prices are flexible. (c) the money supply is stable, per
Fisher’s Law. (c) wages are flexible. (d) interest rates are flexible.
193. Antoine
Augustin Cournot (1801-1877) was a school superintendent, but he was also
arguably among the top-ten all-time pioneers of economic theory. His
path-breaking contributions did not include developing: (a) a proof that
marginal revenue = marginal cost is a requirement for profit maximization. (b)
an early form of game theory. (c) demand and supply curves as the partial
derivatives of demand and supply functions. (d) a formal model of perfect
competition. (e) the concept of marginal revenue.
194. Adam
Smith would have agreed most with the idea that wages are: (a) positively
related to physical comfort while working. (b) negatively related to the cost
of learning the business. (c) positively related to the stability of
employment. (d) negatively related to the trust that must be placed in the
employee. (e) negatively related to the probability of success.
195. Areas
of inquiry in which Nobel Prize winner Gary Becker innovatively applied
economic reasoning do not include
significant insights into: (a) political decisionmaking. (b) such personal activities
as marriage, divorce, and child bearing. (c) racial discrimination. (d) the
value of time absorbed in alternative activities. (e) crime and punishment. (f)
investments in human capital.
196. Beginning
in the 1970s, deregulation of numerous industries was increasingly advocated by
both Democrats and Republicans; which represented a shift away from the ideas
and ideals of: (a) traditional conservatism. (b) 19th Century
liberalism. (c) avant-garde socialism. (d) supply-side economics. (e)
institutionalists who powerfully shaped microeconomic aspects of “New
Deal” liberalism. (f) neo-conservatism.
197. Christian
socialism could be described as Christianity plus: (a)Utopian socialism plus
central control of heavy industry and public works. (b) Fabian socialism plus crusades
to propogate the ideas of medieval scholastics. (c) evolutionary socialism plus
labor unions and charity and social reform. (d) capitalism plus the
proletariat. (e) Marxism plus Robert Owen’s vision of Utopia.
198. David
Ricardo believed land rent to depend chiefly on relative fertility. Johann H.
von Thünen countered that the most important determinant of rent is: (a)
population density. (b) aesthetic attractions. (c) location. (d) subjective
individual values.
199. Events
that prominent economic thinkers have suggested as causes of business cycles do
NOT include how humans adjust to variations across time in: (a) rates of
technological progress implemented by entrepreneurs. (b) sunspot activity. (c)
environmental and technological constraints on population growth. (d)
comparative advantages between trading nations. (e) international relations and
wars. (f) the distributions of income and wealth.
200. Early
contributions to marginalism were among the numerous significant
accomplishments of: (a) Ludwig von Mises. (b) Alfred Marshall. (c) Joseph
Schumpeter. (d) Léon Walras. (e) Thomas Robert Malthus.
201. Following
the economic analysis of A. Jules E. Dupuit , the marginal social cost of
either legal or illegal file sharing (e.g., downloading a song from the
internet) is equal to: (a) the marginal revenue that would have otherwise been
received by the artist. (b) zero. (c) the price of the corresponding CD. (d)
the opportunity cost of the artist.
202. Independent
variables in Milton Friedman’s money demand equation include all of the
following, except the:
(a) expected rate of change in interest rates. (b) actual price level. (c)
nominal interest rate. (d) expected rate of change in the price levels.
203. Francois
Quesnay (1694-1774) and the rest of the physiocrats believed that: (a) all
wealth ultimately derives from land and its cultivation. (b) humans will keep
breeding until they reached a desperately overcrowded condition. (c) John Locke
correctly identified labor as the foundation for property rights. (d) countries
gain economic power by pursuing policies to maximize exports minus imports,
thereby acquiring wealth. (e) All of the above.
204. From
the perspective of today’s academic standards, Adam Smith should have
more clearly acknowledged that many of the insights and analyses for which he
took credit in his Wealth of Nations
had actually been drawn from the writings of: (a) Aristotle. (b) Richard
Cantillon. (c) Albertus Magnus. (d) Sir Richard Petty. (e) Thomas Aquinas.
205. Gary
Becker categorized knowledge and skills that are productively valuable to many
potential employers, and which consequently generate higher wages, as being
derived from investments in: (a) specific human capital. (b) broad human
capital. (c) universal human capital. (d) general human capital. (e)
fundamental human capital.
206. In
addition to the demand for money to consummate predictable transactions, John
Maynard Keynes argued that during downturns in the business cycle, individuals
were likely to hold increasing proportions of money because of: (a)
precautionary and asset [speculative] motives. (b) miserliness. (c) insurance
motives. (d) risk and uncertainty motives.
207. John
Locke and David Hume outlined an early version of the: (a) circular flow of
income. (b) permanent income hypothesis. (c) quantity theory of money. (d)
marginal disutility of poverty. (e) backward-bending supply function for
capital.
208. Keynesian
theory accepts the classical and neoclassical theory that flexible wages,
interest rates, and prices, combined with Say’s law, ensure full
employment and a maximum value for output: (a) in the short run. (b) as long as
government follows laissez faire
policies. (c) but only if the government runs deficits to fight inflation and
deflation. (d) in the long run, but in the long run we are all dead. (e) on
average, but not at every instant in time.
209. In
William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice the passionate
conflict between Bassanio and Shylock centers over the charging of interest,
specifically usury. This subject matter would be of the most interest to a: (a)
Benthamite utilitarian. (b) member of the Austrian school. (c) medieval
scholastic. (d) modern monetarist. (e) member of the “banking
school.”
210. Jean
Baptiste Say’s “Law of Markets” is least consistent with the
views on general equilibrium, macroeconomic theory, and economic stability
expressed by: (a) Adam Smith. (b) Thomas Robert Malthus. (c) David Ricardo. (d)
Vilfredo Pareto. (e) Alfred Marshall.
211. Joan
Robinson did not focus on building more
complete analytical foundations for: (a) the labor theory of value. (b)
conscious interdependence of firms in oligopolistic markets. (c) price
discrimination. (d) monopoly. (e) monopsony.
212. The
Aggregate Supply curve is roughly horizontal or is gently positively sloped up
to the point of full employment and then becomes vertical according to: (a)
Austrian theory. (b) Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk. (c) the Cambridge equation and
classical liberals. (d) A. Jules E. Dupuit. (e) efficient markets theory. (f)
Fabian socialists. (g) John Kenneth Galbraith. (h) Friedrich Hayek. (i)
institutionalism. (j) William Stanley Jevons. (k) John Maynard Keynes’ The General Theory of Employment, Money, and
Interest. (l) libertarians. (m) modern monetarism. (n) neoclassical macroeconomics.
(o) Okun’s Law. (p) Arthur Cecil Pigou. (q) quantity theories of money.
(r) Ricardian equivalence. (s) supply-side economics. (t) Johann Heinrich von
Thünen. (u) utilitarianism. (v) voodoo economics. (w) Friedrich von Wieser. (x)
Xenophon. (y) yield to maturity analysis. (z) Zeno.
213. John
Stuart Mill’s theory of gold and the supply of money suggests that if the
United States used a gold standard to back all printed currency at a 100% rate,
then the price level would be controlled primarily by: (a) Alan Greenspan. (b)
the Federal Reserve System’s open market operations. (c) the operation of
the U.S. Mint. (d) the relative resource costs incurred by gold miners.
214. Joan
Robinson was not: (a) a prominent Marxist economist. (b) a friend of John
Maynard Keynes and an advocate of Keynesian economic policies. (c) a developer
of pricing theories for imperfectly competitive markets. (d) automatically in
favor of most laissez faire economic
policies. (e) the most renowned female economic theorist throughout most of the
20th century.
215. John
Bates Clark (1847-1938), the first prominent American economic theorist,
developed a rebuttal to Karl Marx’s position that surplus values are
expropriated [stolen] from labor. He argued that the contribution standard for
distributing income is equitable in a market system, because in his model the
distribution of income depends on: (a) complete allocations of property rights.
(b) surplus value. (c) marginal productivity. (d) circular flows of income. (e)
personal effort alone.
216. John
Maynard Keynes’ belief that bankruptcy and adverse business conditions
would usually follow falling prices led him to conclude that economic
depressions could not be corrected quickly by: (a) raising prices. (b)
price stability. (c) flexible wages and
prices level. (d) wage and price controls.
217. Karl Marx theorized that the ultimate transition from
capitalism to communism is an inevitable consequence of: (a) laws of motion.
(b) dialectical idealism. (c) path dependency. (d) social homeostasis.
218. Joseph
Schumpeter argued that major long run business cycles are triggered by
irregularly occurring waves of “creative destruction” that
originate in the activities of: (a) military leaders. (b) entrepreneurs. (c)
political leaders. (d) labor leaders who challenge the authority of corporate
managers. (e) worldly philosophers whose ideas become popular, and then fail to
perform, and then eventually reemerge.
219. Key
aspects of David Ricardo’s analytic system did NOT include: (a) classical
rent theory. (B) Malthusian population S-curves. (c) static levels of capital.
(d) the wages-fund doctrine. (e) the labor theory of value. (f) trade according
to comparative advantage. (g) divisions of labor in production process. (h) the
equivalence of taxes and borrowing as mechanisms to pay for government.
220. Keynes
believed that savings, investment, and interest were determined by many factors
and there was no guarantee that the two would be equal and produce full
employment. This led to his rebuttal of: (a) Say’s Law. (b) dialectical materialism. (c) the law of
resource supplies. (d) Marxist theory.
221. Keynesian
economics views the cost of holding money as: (a) current interest rates. (b)
nothing. (c) goods that could be purchased with the money. (d) hard to
determine because of sticky pricing.
222. Leon
Walras rejected Alfred Marshall’s notion of “ceteris paribus”
as an appropriate engine for economic inquiry, and argued that meaningful
economic analysis necessarily entails consideration of (a) comparative partial
equilibrium states. (b) general equilibrium. (c) interactions between the
political system and the economic system. (d) relationships among all social
classes.
223. Some
behavioral scientists view human behavior as determined largely by nature
– our genetic endowments –
but most modern anthropologists believe that behavior depends far more
on culture or conditioned reflex (nurture) than on nature. The behavioral
theorists whose views are matched with their viewpoints are: (a) Franz Boas and
Margaret Meade = nature. (b) Ivan Pavlov and B.F. Skinner = nurture. (c)
Abraham Maslow and Francis Crick and James Watson [the discoverers of DNA] =
nature. (d) Sigmund Freud and Francis Galton = nurture.
224. Robert
Thomas Malthus’s conclusions about long run equilibrium for the mass of
humankind echo the words of: (a) Thomas Hobbes that “life … [will
be] … ‘nasty, brutish, and
short’.” (b) John Locke that “labor is the ultimate
source of all value.” (c) an anonymous Frenchman who responded with
“laissez nous faire” when
asked a question by King Louis XIV. (d) Charles Darwin about “survival of the fittest.” (e)
medieval scholastics that our fate is ultimately
in the hands of God.
225. Markets
as mechanisms for exchange began to significantly outweigh individual trading
relatively late in the period that Karl Marx characterized as: (a) prehistory.
(b) primitive culture. (c) feudalism. (d) monarchism. (e) the industrial
revolution. (f) capitalism.
226. Of
the following, the thinker most optimistic that an effective government is not
inevitably fascistic or totalitarian would be: (a) Thomas Hobbes. (b) Friedrich
Nietzsche. (c) Vilfredo Pareto. (d) Roberto Michels. (e) Gaetano Mosca. (f)
John Stuart Mill.
227. Neoclassical
macroeconomic theory does not rely on an assumption that: (a) “supply
creates its own demand,” per Say’s law. (b) nominal prices, wages,
and interest rates are all perfectly flexible. (c) the quantity theory of money
is valid so that money is neutral in the long run. (d) production possibilities
frontiers are “bowed-out” from below. (e) powerful competitive forces
quickly eliminate excess demands and excess supplies in all markets.
228. Roberto
Michels’ controversial “Iron Law of Oligarchy” is most
compatible with the views on organizational rationality and efficiency
expressed by: (a) Plato and Aristotle. (b) libertarians. (c) syndicalists. (d)
utopian socialists. (e) anarchists.
229. Much
of the thrust of modern business regulation, municipal ownership of many public
utilities, and price discrimination in utilities’ rate structures, are
among the legacies of the economic thinker: (a) Joan Robinson. (b) Thorstein
Veblen. (c) John Commons. (d) Sidney Webb. (e) Jean Claude Belmondo.
230. The
“Chicago School” of economic theory centers around the idea that:
(a) socialism will save society. (b) capitalism is the optimal way to organize
economic activity. (c) laws and regulations are needed to offset market
failures. (d) economic organizations can best be interpreted through
institutional analysis.
231. That
the equimarginal principle requires MUx/Px = MUy/Py
for individuals to efficiently allocate their opportunities [total budgets,
including time], with the wage rate w
as the price of leisure as a good, was identified in the writings of: (a) Adam
Smith. (b) William Stanley Jevons. (c) Gary Becker. (d) Carl Menger. (e) Leon
Walras.
232. Sociological
behavior is almost insignificant when compared to the amount of economic
behavior addressed in the in the writings of the thinker: (a) Thorstein Veblen.
(b) William Stanley Jevons. (c) Vilfredo Pareto. (d) Gary Becker. (e) Thomas
Aquinas.
233. The
advantages from the division of labor enumerated by Adam Smith did not include
increases in: (a) every worker’s skills as each gained experience through
repetition. (b) rates of invention of better machinery. (c) production per time
period. (d) dexterity of each worker (e) each worker’s personal job
satisfaction.
234. The
Black Plague that killed millions of medieval Europeans probably most directly
and immediately resulted in: (a) refinements to mercantilist economic theory.
(b) improved standards of living for the survivors. (c) more favorable
attitudes of early Christian theologians toward capitalism. (d) faster rates of
technological advance. (e) the emergence of the enclosure movement and the
industrial revolution. (f) development of Thomas Robert Malthus’s theory
of population.
235. The
“positive liberals” who rejected laissez faire capitalism and sought to use government as an
instrument for relieving social problems in England did NOT include: (a) Fabian
socialists. (b) John Hobson and Richard Tawney. (c) Sidney and Beatrice Webb.
(d) Herbert Spencer and William Graham Sumner.
236. The
Austrian School of Economic Thought is widely acknowledged to have been born in
the writings of: (a) Joseph Schumpeter. (b) Leon Walras. (c) Carl Menger.
(d) Friedrich von Wieser. (e) Otto von Bismark.
237. The
analysis of Ronald Coase shows how the root causes of all categories of market
failures to operate efficiently are: (a) macroeconomic instability. (b) non-rivalness.
(c) transaction costs and incomplete specifications of property rights. (d)
inequities in the distribution of income. (e) free ridership.
238. The
change in total revenue when a monopolist that does not price discriminate
produces an additional unit of output is: (a) a downward-sloping curve below
the demand curve. (b) zero if demand is price elastic. (c) an upward-sloping
curve above the supply curve. (d) the same as for a perfectly competitive firm.
(e) a horizontal line.
239. The
economic approach to crime and punishment developed by Gary Becker suggests
that: (a) Jeremy Bentham’s argument that “the punishment should fit
the crime” would result in excessively cruel punishment. (b) increased
probabilities of apprehension, conviction, fines, or imprisonment should
optimally result in lower fines or shorter sentences. (c) socio-economic and
familial background is the primary determinant of criminal behavior. (d) drug
offenses should be viewed as psycho-social problems better treated with therapy
than imprisonment.
240. The
English poet Samuel Butler’s assertion that “The value of a thing
is just as much as it will bring” is most compatible with: (a) Austrian
economic theory. (b) German historicism. (c) John Locke’s theory of
property rights. (d) Adam Smith’s theory of the invisible hand. (e)
Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics.
241. The
behavioral scientists Franz Boaz, Margaret Mead, and Joseph Campbell believed
that: (a) procreation should be limited to only the best human specimens
– those endowed with superior genes. (b) culture creates most of the
major differences among humans. (c) parental influence is far less important
than peer pressure in shaping the attitudes and behavior of adolescents. (d)
human behavioral differences depend more on nature than nurture.
|
242. The theorist who suggested that the a gold standard
would yield automatic adjustments to the supply of gold such that when
national income grew faster, mining would ensure that the supply of gold
available as money would increase, and when national income receded, more
gold would be used in dentistry and for jewelry, was: (a) Irving Fisher. (b)
Arthur Pigou. (c) John Stuart Mill. (d) David Hume. (e) Milton Friedman. |
|
243. The
grouped schools of thought or individuals whose methodologies and/or ideas probably are most
mismatched are: (a) sociobiologists, Darwinists, and Malthusians. (b) John
Maynard Keynes, Abba Lerner, and Joan Robinson. (c) Gary Becker, Milton
Friedman, and George Stigler. (d) medieval scholastics, libertarians, and
classical liberals. (e) German historicists, American institutionalists, and
Marxists. (f) Ayn Rand, William Graham Sumner, and Herbert Spencer.
244. The
idea that in a market economy, many people’s desires to buy certain goods
are far more culturally determined than merely price determined is a view
shared by: (a) A. Jules E. Dupuit and Antoine Augustin Cournot. (b) John
Kenneth Galbraith and Thorstein Veblen. (c) Karl Marx and Cornelius Vanderbilt.
(d) Carl Menger and Ludwig von Mises. (e) Irving Fisher and Milton Friedman.
(f) Hugo Grotius and John Locke. (g) John Commons and Richard Cantillon.
245. The
idea that a virtue of capitalism is its decentralized decision making emerged
when: (a) social philosophers looked for alternatives to feudal kings as
economic regulators. (b) Russian imperialism fostered anti-communist sentiment
after World War I. (c) early Christian philosophers sought to reduce human
greed. (d) anarchists tried to overthrow late 19th Century European monarchs.
246. The
nineteenth-century economist who argued that certain seemingly humanitarian
gestures generate negative externalities (e.g., charity to beggars stimulates
more panhandling and sloth) that often significantly outweigh any possible
social benefits was: (a) John Bates Clark. (b) Nassau Senior. (c) Thomas
Malthus. (d) Simon Newcomb. (e) Knut Wicksell.
247. The
Irish thinker Richard Cantillon did not (a) treat population growth as an
integral part of the economic process. (b) develop an economic explanation for
the location of cities and sites of production. (c) distinguish market price
from intrinsic value. (d) describe price adjustment processes of international
trade. (e) discuss a “natural par” between land and labor.
248. Normans
led by William the Conqueror occupied the British Isles after defeating
England’s King Harald at the Battle of Hastings [1066 AD]. Suppose,
instead, that King Harald had soundly defeated the Normans and permanently
squelched their attempts at invasion. The Greek philosopher whose theories
about social and scientific processes effectively asserted that the world today
would be, at most, insignificantly different, was: (a) Socrates. (b) Zeno. (c)
Plato. (d) Aristotle. (e) Heraclites. (f) Protagoras.
249. Philosophers
or schools of thought not correctly matched with the political system they favored
would be: (a) libertarians = minimal [laissez-faire] democratic government. (b)
Marxism = communism, which would ultimately conform to utopian ideals. (c)
anarchy = decentralized democratic government. (d) Plato = a philosopher king
with political leadership living in accord with selfless (communistic) ideals.
(e) mercantilism = imperial monarchy in accord with “the divine rights of
kings.”
250. The
notion that property rights are not inherently "inalienable" because
they are most directly determined by law (Leviathan
or social consensus), is most consistent with the theories of (a) John Locke
and Immanuel Kant. (b) Hugo Grotius and Thomas Hobbes. (c) Karl Marx and
Friedrich Engels. (d) David Ricardo and Thomas Malthus. (e) St. Thomas Aquinas
and St. Augustine.
251. The
utilitarianism of Jeremy Bentham is most closely akin to the philosophies of:
(a) Epicureanism and hedonism. (b) pragmatism and instrumentalism. (c)
asceticism and stoicism. (d) dialecticism and materialism. (e) fundamentalism
and predestination.
252. The
root cause of all categories of market failure whereby markets operate
inefficiently is: (a) macroeconomic instability. (b) non-rivalness and non
exclusion. (c) transaction costs, which include information and mobility costs.
(d) inequity in the distribution of income. (e) free-riding.
253. The theory that the magnitude of “bezzle”
[corporate fraud] and pressure for deregulation are both positively related to
the level of prosperity in a country, and that the discovery and prosecution of
bezzle and pressure for more regulation emerge during downturns in economic
activity was authored by: (a) John Kenneth Galbraith. (b) John Maynard Keynes.
(c) Paul Samuelson. (d) Milton Friedman. (e) Myron Scholes.
254. Thomas
Malthus’ population theory influenced pre-marginalist classical
macrotheory in a manner paralleling the way: (a) Charles Darwin’s theory
of evolution influenced the institutionalist interpretation of change. (b)
Sigmund Freud’s Interpretation of
Dreams shaped core concepts in modern public choice theory. (c) Zeno’s
theory of a stable universe influenced German historicists’ views of free
trade. (d) Thorstein Veblen’s theory of conspicuous consumption
influenced Microsoft marketing strategies developed by Bill Gates. (e) Albert
Einstein’s theory of relativity influenced the mathematical economics of
Francis Ysidro Edgeworth.
255. The
theory that a country exports goods for which production requires intensive use
of the resources relatively abundant in the country, and imports goods that
intensively use resources that are relatively scarce in the country, is
developed in: (a) Adam Smith’s Wealth
of Nations. (b) Richard Cantillon’s writings. (c) mercantilism. (d)
the Heckscher-Ohlin-Samuelson model. (e) David Ricardo’s theory of
comparative advantage.
256. Using
an ordinal approach instead of a cardinal approach is most obviously the more
reasonable measure when assessing: (a) the respective talents of contestants on
American Idol. (b) whether a
conventional diet or the Atkins diet is more effective in helping people lose
weight. (c) the relative prices of ham, tofu, and turkey. (d) the respective
productivities of steelworkers in Japan and Brazil. (e) a student’s
percentage scores on this examination.
257. Firms
that exercise market power but which lack the ability to price discriminate
operate at inefficiently low levels of output because in a profit maximizing
equilibrium: (a) P>MC. (b) MR>MC. (c) P>ATC. (d) ATC<MC. (e)
maximum profit is not required for monopolies not disciplined by competition.
258.
John Stuart Mill’s later views on property
rights are a virtual echo of views expressed by: (a) Ayn Rand. (b) Francois
Quesnay. (c) Thomas Hobbes. (d) John Locke. (e) Hugo Grotius.
259. “Intellectual
imperialism” by economists occurs when: (a) firms in developed nations
launch aggressive marketing strategies in less developed countries. (b)
economic theory is applied to issues normally examined by practitioners of
other disciplines and not previously considered in the domain of economic
analysis. (c) capitalism is overthrown by a “revolutionary elite.”
(d) multinational firms exert political muscle to take over the government and
natural resources of poorer nations.
260. The
area under the Marshallian demand curve of an individual but above the current
price is known as. (a) producer surplus. (b) consumer surplus. (c) dead weight
loss. (d) the unemployment rate
261. Indifference
curves landed in modern economist’s toolboxes after first being used to
illustrate an ordinal approach (instead of a cardinal approach) to consumer
preferences by: (a) Kenneth Arrow and Paul A. Samuelson. (b) Francis Y.
Edgeworth and Vilfredo Pareto. (c) Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell.
(d) Alfred E. Newman.
262. A
John whose ideas are least consistent
with the American institutionalist paradigm was: (a) John Bates Clark. (b) John
Maurice Clark. (c) John Kenneth Galbraith. (d) John Commons.
263. Show-offs
who flaunt the extravagance of their spending patterns are practicing behavior
that Thorstein Veblen condemned as: (a) conspicuous consumption. (b) snob
appeal. (c) keeping up with the Joneses. (d) tomfoolery. (e) exploitation.
264. Marginalism
and the idea that pricing reflects marginal utility and demand was a movement
away from: (a) the quantity theory of money. (b) the labor theory of value. (c)
mercantilism. (d) Marx’s business cycle theory. (e) capitalism.
265. In
The Modern Corporation and Private Property. (1932), Adolph Berle and
Gardiner Means documented the dominant position of the large corporation in the
modern economy, the growing dispersion of ownership of common stock, and the
separation of ownership from control. These last two developments brought to
light a particular sort of moral hazard dilemma called: (a) Pareto efficiency.
(b) bureaucratic gambling. (c) adverse selection. (d) the principal-agent problem. (e) regulatory forbearance.
266. The
term that is least closely related to the others is: (a) free will. (b)
dialectical materialism. (c) path dependency. (d) hysterisis. (e) historicism.
267.
After Columbus “discovered” the new
world, Spain promptly began plundering it, importing a massive treasure of gold
and silver. This triggered inflation in Spain. The consequences of included:
(a) the failure of productive capacity of Spain to develop as rapidly as in England
and France because the Spanish could import manufactured goods at lower prices
than they could produce them. (b) Spain’s hegemony throughout Europe,
which likely would have continued to this day had England not defeated the
Spanish Armada in 1588. (c) Spanish thinkers to reject mercantilism long before
the writings of David Hume and Adam Smith. (d) the prices of goods produced in
Spain to fall relative to the prices of goods elsewhere.
268. The
thinker whose ideas are least consistent with broad libertarian principles is:
(a) Milton Friedman. (b) Ayn Rand. (c) Friedrich Hayek. (d) John Commons. (e)
David Ricardo.
269.
Majority
rule is often inefficient because: (a) issues tend to remain unsettled. (b)
voters adopt strategies that disguise their true preference. (c) gains to a
majority may fall short of losses to the minority. (d) majorities may treat
minorities inequitably.
270. The
view that small is both beautiful and necessary is central to the schools of
thought known as: (a) nationalism and institutionalism. (b) Buddhist economics
and limits to growth. (c) feudalism and monarchism. (d) central planning and
command economics.
271. Thomas
Malthus’s description of “gluts” is to Keynesian
Macroeconomics as: (a) Marshallian partial equilibrium is to Walrasian general
equilibrium. (b) Hume’s specie flow mechanism is to Fisher’s
Quantity Theory of Money. (c) John Bates Clark’s marginal productivity
theory is to Ricardian concepts of land rent. (d) Zeno’s view of the
universe is to that of Thorstein Veblen’s.
272. The
equation of exchange MV=PQ is most directly useful for describing the monetary
theories of: (a) Irving Fisher and Milton Friedman. (b) classical
macroeconomics according to Thomas Malthus and David Ricardo. (c) León Walras
and Vilfredo Pareto. (d) Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek. (e) John Maynard
Keynes.
273. In
Joseph Schumpeter’s The Theory of Economic Development, business
cycles and irregular economic growth are described as among the consequences of:
(a) technical and financial innovations of entrepreneurs. (b) erratic growth of
the money supply. (c) class conflict. (d) overinvestment in capital. (e)
underconsumption caused by inequality in the distribution of income.
274. Consider
designing a just society from behind a “veil of ignorance.”
Individuals would try to structure the best possible society, assuming that we
do not know what our personal social, racial, and economic positions will be
until after our structure is adopted. This author of The Theory of Justice argued that a rational person trying to
optimize from behind this “veil” would arrive at some basic rules
of justice that would be heavily egalitarian, and he was: (a) Thorstein Veblen.
(b) John Stuart Mill. (c) David Hume. (d) John Rawls. (e) Vilfredo Pareto.
275. David
Hume viewed the wealth of all nations as depending on international trade, and
asserted “I shall therefore venture to acknowledge that not only as a
man, but as a British subject I pray for the flourishing commerce of Germany,
Spain, Italy and even France itself.” (Of the Jealousy of Trade). A group that would most strongly disagree
with Hume on this issue would have been: (a) neoclassical economists.
(b) secular humanists. (c)
unorthodox Marxists. (d) mercantilists.
276.
When
economists say that money promotes efficiency, they mean that money (a) is
inexpensive to produce. (b) facilitates divisions of labor and specialization
according to comparative advantage. (c) increases transactions costs. (d)
generates seignorage profits for the Treasury at lower costs than is true of
taxation.
277. In
contrast to the “law of markets” attributed to Jean-Baptiste Say,
John Maynard Keynes believed that when unemployment rates are high, then: (a)
supply creates its own demand. (b) markets were made to be cleared. (c) demand
creates its own Supply. (d) wages and prices are excessively flexible.
278. The
concept of roundabout production
entails: (a) maximization of the production of capital goods during each
production period. (b) investing in capital goods by postponing consumption,
thereby enabling the production of greater amounts of consumer goods in the
future. (c) outsourcing of intermediate goods by a firm that is not fully
integrated. (d) maximizing r + i + π = surplus value.
279. Classical
economists would rebut the “underconsumptionist” theories of
economic downturns (expressed, e.g., by Malthus and Keynes) by stressing that
all saving will be invested because of the flexibility of: (a) interest rates.
(b) wage rates. (c) relative prices. (d) nominal prices for goods. (e) monetary
prices.
280. The
“Socialist Calculation Debate” refers to a disagreement between
Austrian theorists and advocates of socialism about whether capitalism: (a)
must eventually evolve into socialism. (b) or socialism allocates resources
more efficiently. (c) or socialism is more compatible with maximizing freedom.
(d) is a necessary stage in the long run transition to socialism. (e) yields
more rapid economic growth than would socialism.
281. The
word “scientism” coined by Friedrich A. Hayek refers to a common
practice, disparaged by Austrian theorists, of: (a) integrating biological
sciences to facilitate a useful historical framework. (b) applying concepts
from the natural sciences to the study of human beings. (c) using supply and
demand curves to illustrate equilibrium in markets. (d) applying hedonic or
felicific calculus to the theory of value.
282. David
Ricardo viewed the gains from trade as derived primarily from: (a) an export
surplus. (b) differing utilities of individuals in consumption. (c) comparative
advantage. (d) absolute advantage.
283. Rational
ignorance occurs when: (a) voting systems require less than 50% of the total
votes. (b) individuals have less influence than special interests do on
electoral outcomes. (c) planned consumption exceeds planned investment. (d) the
expected marginal costs of information exceed its expected marginal benefits
284.
The
early Quantity Theory of Money was
based on assumptions that: (a) prices and real GDP were fixed. (b) real GDP and
velocity were constant. (c) prices and real GDP grew as the money supply rose.
(d) doubling the money supply would double real GDP.
285. A
list of heterodox economists would be least likely to include: (a) John Neville
Keynes. (b) John Rogers Commons. (c) Wesley Clair Mitchell. (d) Thorstein Veblen.
286. According
to Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk, critical factor determining the market interest rate
include: (a) average preferences for goods now over goods in the future. (b)
the interest rate on treasury bonds. (c) the FED’s open-market operations.
(d) the condition of the stock market.
287. John
Maynard Keynes believed that a remedy for underproduction and unemployment
would be: (a) mandatory wage increases. (b) decreased government spending. (c)
increased government expenditures and
lower tax rates. (d) balancing the government budget. (e) adoption of the gold
standard for money.
288. The
idea that market adjustments automatically cure swings in business cycles is
central to: (a) Malthus and his population S-curves. (b) neoclassical
macroeconomic theory and its derivatives. (c) Schumpeter long waves. (d) modern
business psychology. (e) Marxist cycles of exploitation.
289. The
economist who taught at the University of Chicago but who developed theories
that were most antithetical to the views of the 20th Century
“Chicago School” of thought was: (a) Joan Robinson. (b) Thorstein
Veblen. (c) Irving Fisher. (d) George Stigler. (e) Friedrich Hayek.
290. The
dispute between Antoine-Augustin Cournot and Joseph L. F. Bertrand about
whether duopolists competing in a market would adjust quantities or prices was
later echoed in disagreements between: (a) David Ricardo and Thomas Malthus
about the desirability of the British Corn Laws. (b) Alfred Marshall and Leon
Walras about whether disequilibria are resolved by quantity adjustments
(Marshall) or price adjustments (Walras). (c) Joan Robinson and Edwin
Chamberlin, who differed about whether oligopolists adjust prices or compete
primarily through product differentiation. (d) John Maynard Keynes and Milton
Friedman on whether fiscal policies or monetary policies would more quickly
cure a depression. (e) Paul Sweezy and George Stigler on the realism of kinked
demand curve models.
291. During
most of the 20th century, the “Chicago School” of
economic theory centered around the idea that: (a) socialism will save society.
(b) capitalism is the optimal way to organize economic activity. (c) laws and
regulations are needed to offset market failures. (d) economic organizations
can best be interpreted through institutional analysis.
292. The
theorist most likely to agree with the statements: “Wars stimulate
technological advance,” and “History favors the bold,” would
be: (a) Hermann Gössen. (b) Jules Dupuit. (c) Hans K.E. von Mangoldt. (d)
Augustin A. Cournot.
293. Karl Marx’s dialectical materialism
theoretically follows a sequence: (a) synthesis à thesis à
antithesis. (b) antithesis à synthesis à thesis. (c) thesis à
antithesis à
synthesis. (d) synthesis à antithesis à thesis. (e) thesis à
synthesis à
antithesis.
294. John
R. Commons’ agenda of reforms for American labor markets did not include
laws mandating: (a) overtime pay. (b) worker’s compensation. (c) job
safety. (d) unemployment compensation. (e) the permissibility of collective
bargaining.
295. Karl
Marx’s notion that most people advocate social or legal
“reforms” favoring the interests of groups to which they personally
belong, and that they then erect ethical arguments to support such positions is
known as: (a) self interested opportunism. (b) naïve egoism. (c) class interest
or class conflict. (d) dialectical materialism. (e) myopic solipsism.
296. Austrian
economics is fundamentally opposed to the measurement concept pioneered by the
mercantilist thinker William Petty because, in the Austrian view: (a)
aggregated economic statistics are flawed because of biases in reporting, among
other difficulties. (b) economic
statistics must be used to support good abstract theories. (c) good abstract theories must be consistent
with historical events. (d) effective
macroeconomic planning depends on solid statistical analysis.
297. Milton
Friedman’s controversial description of aspects of the “Chicago
Tradition” has the greatest overlap with innovative theory expressed
about: (a) the demand for money by John Maynard Keynes. (b) interest rates and
capital accumulation by Irving Fisher. (c) “conspicuous
consumption” by Thorstein Veblen. (d) the “bezzle” by John
Kenneth Galbraith.
298. Limited
nationalization of industries or firms within an industry: (a) is increasingly
common in the United States. (b) has never been common in any part of Western
Europe. (c) never existed outside the Soviet bloc. (d) was among the goals of
Fabian socialism.
299. Nobel
Prize winner Gary Becker compared the operation of a household to: (a)
decentralized communism. (b) a small factory. (c) Utopian socialism. (d) supply
and demand curves. (e) a set of laissez
faire policies.
300. Antoine
Augustin Cournot did not: (a) develop general equilibrium analysis in his model
of duopoly long before Leon Walras described his general equilibrium system. (b)
mathematically derive the marginal revenue equals marginal cost rule for profit
maximization. (c) develop some basics of modern game theory. (d) differentiate
changes in demand or supply from changes in the quantities demanded or
supplied. (e) derive demand and supply curves by applying partial derivatives
to economic functions.
301. The
concept of ceteris paribus was a foundation for the partial equilibrium
approach to analysis developed by. (a) John Maynard Keynes. (b) John Neville
Keynes. (c) Alfred Marshall. (d) Leon Walras.
302. Schools
of thought that emphatically reject claims by classical and neoclassical
theorists that culture and historical time are irrelevant for useful economic
analysis include: (a) American institutionalism and German historicism. (b)
utilitarianism and physiocracy. (c) mercantilism and logical positivism. (d)
Keynesian theory and democratic socialism. (a) Marxists and members of the
Lausanne school.
303. Ludwig
von Mises, echoing sentiments expressed by Aristotle, did not cite as a source of
the value of money: (a) subjective perceptions of money as having value. (b)
the goods it can buy. (c) the interest it can generate. (d) the question is
misleading because von Mises did not address the value of money.
304.
The
economists' label for attempts to divert income streams from others to a
special interest group is: (a) profiteering. (b) interest arbitrage. (c)
logrolling. (d) rent-seeking. (e) featherbedding.
305. Significant
theories of foundations for property rights were not among important contributions to intellectual thought authored
by: (a) Hugo Grotius. (b) John Rawls. (c) Robert Nozick. (d) Herbert Spencer.
(e) Thomas Hobbes.
306. “Positive liberals” who rejected
laissez faire capitalism and sought to use government as an instrument for
relieving social problems in England did NOT include: (a) Fabian socialists.
(b) John Hobson and Richard Tawney. (c) Sidney and Beatrice Webb. (d) Herbert
Spencer and William Graham Sumner.
307. An
alternative to the Fisher’s equation of exchange MV=PQ, the equation Md=kPQ
is known as: (a) the law of money demand. (b) the Cambridge equation. (c)
Friedman’s equation of monetarism. (d) Fisher’s equation of
exchange.
308. The
French physiocrats’ view that a specific type of resource is the ultimate
source of all value seems most consistent with: (a) Thomas Jefferson’s
mild preference for rural agriculture over urban industrialization. (b) Thomas
Hobbes’ view that government is the proper arbiter of property rights.
(c) free trade policies advocated by Alexander Hamilton and the mercantilists.
(d) David Hume’s early version of the quantity theory of money. (e) John
Locke’s labor theory of value.
309.
Exaggerating
a bureaucracy's task to justify a bigger agency budget, more subordinates, and
larger salaries for agency heads is a common part of the process known as: (a)
empire building. (b) robbing the cradle. (c) featherbedding. (d) budget
raiding. (e) logrolling.
310. The
early thinker who argued that criminals should be punished proportionally to
the harm done to society, without consideration of motive, intent or remorse
was: (a) John Stuart Mill. (b) Edwin Chadwick. (c) Jeremy Bentham. (d) Adam
Smith. (e) Aristotle.
311. The
essayist who condemned economics as “the dismal science” in
response to John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty,
and who was relatively inclined to espouse racism and view the institution of
slavery in a favorable light was: (a) Voltaire. (b) the Marquis de Condorcet.
(c) Thomas Carlyle. (d) President John Adams. (e) Adam Smith.
312. The
idea that a single tax that absorbed all land rents would provide sufficient
funds to alleviate all poverty was advanced by: (a) John Stuart Mill. (b) Henry
George. (c) John Hobson. (d) David Ricardo. (e) Johann H. von Thünen.
313. After
party primary elections in the United States have been decided, both
parties’ candidates tend to: (a) shade their positions to conform to
their perceptions of the median voter’s beliefs. (b) develop unique
platforms. (c) try to gain total support of their party. (d) move toward the
extremes of the bell curve. (e) stress the differences in their basic political
philosophies.
314. The
idea that capitalism cannot survive in the long run is a central conclusion in
the theories of Karl Marx and: (a) Joseph Schumpeter. (b) Carl Menger. (c)
Thorstein Veblen. (d) Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk. (e) Friedrich Hayek.
315.
According
to classical and neoclassical macroeconomics, unemployment indicates that the:
(a) level of aggregate demand is inadequate. (b) wage rate of labor is too high
relative to other prices. (c) unions need to raise wages to clear labor
markets. (d) government needs to stimulate aggregate demand.
316. The
most synonymous of the following terms for school
of thought would be: (a) ideology. (b) weltanschauung. (c) paradigm. (d)
discipline. (e) kindergarten.
317. Thomas
Malthus’s population theory did not provide important underpinnings for:
(a) Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. (b) David Ricardo’s
“Iron Law of Wages” theory of income distribution. (c) the
“Social Darwinism” of William Graham Sumner and Herbert Spencer.
(d) John Bates Clark’s marginal productivity theory of income
distribution. (e) political policies advocated by “Green” parties
around the world.
318. Vilfredo
Pareto’s earliest predecessor in describing the concept of efficiency
appears to have been: (a) Hesiod. (b) Ibn Khaldun. (c) Guan Zhong. (d)
Heraclites. (e) Thomas Mun.
319. Whether
an extra dollar would provide more marginal utility to a poor man than to a
rich man would have most likely elicited agreement between: (a) Thomas
Jefferson and David Ricardo. (b) Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. (c)
Thorstein Veblen and William Stanley Jevons. (d) Ayn Rand and John Kenneth
Galbraith. (e) Ludwig von Mises and Alfred Marshall.
320.
The absorption equation summarizes the
notion that: (a) the income velocity of money depends on the rate that
additional monetary base is converted into active spending. (b) government
budget deficits [G-T] must be balanced by increased net private domestic
saving [S-I] or deficits in international trade [M-X]. (c) gluts
[excess supplies] in some markets must be balanced by shortages in other
markets, so that ΣXD = ΣXS. (d) government spending [G] must
be funded by taxes [T], borrowing that increases national debt [∆B],
or printing new monetary base [∆MB], so that G-T = ∆B+∆MB.
(d) international trade deficits necessitate offsetting surpluses in the
government budget. (e) corporate CEOs are paid only the values of their
marginal products [VMPs] in the long run.
321.
Violent revolution against capitalism would be most
likely to be advocated by: (a) Christian socialists. (b) Fabian socialists. (c)
syndicalists. (d) Utopian socialists. (e) democratic socialists.
322.
The economic philosophy BEST matched with a
normative standard for distributing income is: (a) Libertarianism à
Contribution system. (b) Marxismà Contribution system. (c) Anarchyà
Need based. (d) Christian Socialism à Egalitarianism.
323. The
economist who introduced the idea of transaction cost minimization as the root
problem of economic, firm, and market coordination is: (a) Kelvin Lancaster.
(b) Ronald Coase. (c) Armen Alchian. (d) Gary Becker.
324.
John Maynard Keynes differed with his
neoclassicist predecessors in the belief that: (a) demand creates its own
supply when an economy is depressed. (b) wages are sticky. (c) prices are
sticky. (d) neoclassical macroeconomics is correct only in the long run, and in
the long run we are all dead. (e) all of the above are true.
325. The
growth of government was called The Road
to Serfdom in a book by: (a) Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk. (b) Ludwig von Mises.
(c) Milton Friedman. (d) Friedrich Hayek. (e) Oskar Morgenstern.
326.
According to Edwin Chamberlin, monopolistically
competitive firms cannot realize economic profits in the long run because these
markets are characterized by: (a) unnecessarily costly advertising and
inefficient product differentiation. (b) freedom of entry and exit. (c)
conscious parallelism of action. (d) close scrutiny by the Antitrust Division
of the Department of Justice. (e) extreme vulnerability to swings in the business
cycle.
327.
Models of perfect competition do not include
an assumption of: (a) freedom of entry and exit in the long run. (b) large
number of buyers and sellers. (c) heterogeneous products. (d) symmetric
and reasonably complete information on the parts of all market participants.
328.
Game theorists would view a civil war where both
parties involved would have been better off if they had compromised instead of
fighting as an example of a: (a) positive sum game. (b) negative sum game. (c)
zero sum game. (d) conquest game.
329.
Mao Zedong attempted to mold a "New
Economic Man in China" by: (a) intensive training in modern technology.
(b) effective democratic rule. (c) decentralized communal decision making and
central economic planning. (d) emphasizing nonmaterial incentives.
330.
Which of the following works was least
influential in the development of modern economic theory as it is understood
today? (a) Adam Smith: “Wealth of Nations”. (b) Karl Marx:
“Capital”. (c) John Maynard Keynes: “The General
Theory of Employment, Interest and Money”. (d) Thorstein Veblen:
“The Theory of the Leisure Class”.
331.
The slogan "Small is Beautiful"
is most compatible with the concepts of: (a) Leninism, Stalinism, and Maoism.
(b) feudalism, capitalism, and class struggle. (c) a dictatorship of the
proletariat and pure communism. (d) Mohandas Gandhi, Buddhist economics, and
limits to growth. (e) Aristotle and the medieval scholastics.
332.
The intensity of Keynesian-style fiscal policies
would most reasonably be reflected in the state of the federal government’s:
(a) cyclical budget deficit or surplus, measured at the current level of GDP.
(b) rate of monetary growth. (c) interest rate policies. (d) structural budget
deficit or surplus, which would be estimated as if the economy were at
full-employment GDP. (e) laws limiting or encouraging free international trade.
333.
Consider a special type of auction for, say, a
$20 bill in which the highest bidder gets the $20, but the second highest
bidder also must pay the amount he or she bid. If at least two bidders pursue
dominant strategies, then such a “game” lacks a: (a) partial
disequilibrium solution. (b) Nash equilibrium. (c) von Neumann solution. (d)
Walrasian partial equilibrium. (e) neutral solution.
334.
Policies prescribed by John Maynard Keynes to
enable a country to remedy financial depression and excessive unemployment
include: (a) raising interest rates to induce saving that could be used for
investment. (b) increasing government spending to provide more jobs and inject
more money into the economy. (c) raising taxes to increase government revenue
for spending projects. (d) printing more money to increase velocity and the
overall wealth of the citizenry.
335.
A major difference between Thorstein Veblen and
the orthodox economists who were his contemporaries is his view that the modes
of production, consumption and distribution in a society depend relatively
little on individual tastes and production technologies and far more strongly
on a blend of: (a) countless factors that cannot be specified scientifically.
(b) biological and psychological factors. (c) cultural, institutional, and
ceremonial factors. (d) global interdependencies between class, status, and
power. (e) demographic trends and population dynamics.
336.
People tend to be most rationally ignorant and
are LEAST likely to gain personally from better information guiding their
choices when they: (a) vote for their favorite candidates in a national
election. (b) marry their high school sweetheart. (c) buy a restored 1939
Packard convertible limousine at an antique car auction. (d) eat a tasty,
fast-food hamburger loaded with cholesterol. (e) invest in mutual fund shares
in the stock market. (f) consider career paths and occupations.
337.
A 20th century debate between John Maynard
Keynes and Joseph Schumpeter about desirable roles for government echoed
positions from earlier schools of thought. Keynes’ perception of a need
for government stabilization reflected calls for market management voiced
earlier by __________. Similarly, Schumpeter’s reliance on freedom and
entrepreneurship (although he recognized its dangers) is reflected in
__________.: (a) classical economics / institutionalists. (b) historicists /
Ancient Greeks. (c) classical economics / scholastics. (d) scholastics /
socialists. (e) the Ancient Greeks / neoclassical economics.
338.
Virtues of the price system cited by
capitalism's defenders include: (a) freedom and efficiency. (b) inequitable
income distributions. (c) cooperation replacing competition. (d) encouragement
of selflessness.
339.
The standard economic assumption that people are
self-interested is probably LEAST applicable for: (a) heads of business firms.
(b) heads of government agencies. (c) heads of households. (d) heads of
nonprofit corporations. (e) people covered by headstones.
340.
Focusing on the inefficiencies and inequities
spawned by government, libertarians encourage reliance on the market system in
its place. They seek the elimination of welfare programs and most laws.
Legislation most libertarians would not abolish would include: (a) laws
regulating drugs, consensual sex between private individuals, and pornography.
(b) a military draft. (c) wage and price controls. (d) government protection of
private property rights.
341.
David Hume, Arthur Cecil Pigou, and Irving
Fisher were among prominent economic theorists who helped build the early
Quantity Theory of Money, which concluded that, in equilibrium, the price level
is: (a) negatively related to the money supply. (b) independent of movements in
the money supply. (c) exactly proportional to the money supply. (d) higher when
the economy experiences excess capacity.
342.
Thorstein Veblen viewed human behavior as
dominated by: (a) perfectionism. (b) the quest for wealth. (c) instinctive
behavior and learned habits. (d) charitable needs to help one another. (e)
desires to procreate.
343.
Governmental allocations are most likely to tend
to self-correct more easily than market allocations where: (a) goods are
nonrival and nonexclusive. (b) an organization's functions are obsolete. (c) new
technology is being introduced. (d) diseconomies of scale are present.
344.
According to Roberto Michel’s Iron Law
of Oligarchy, the management structures and operations of a modern major government
agency and a giant business corporation will tend to be: (a) so different that
comparisons are impossible. (b) consistently maximized in efficiency. (c)
similarly bureaucratic and autocratic. (d) directed at maximizing total profit.
345.
Policies from which most people gain, but far
less in total than a minority loses, are an indication that majority rule
voting may often be economically: (a) inefficient. (b) unstable. (c) a good
technique for correcting inequity. (d) preferable to a dictatorship. (e)
progressive.
346.
Explorations of the concepts of partial
equilibrium analysis, elasticity calculation, consumer surplus, and producer
surplus all originated in works that summarized neoclassical theories. These
elegant concepts were authored by: (a) Arthur Cecil Pigou. (b) John Maynard
Keynes. (c) Alfred Marshall. (d) William Stanley Jevons. (e) Thorstein Veblen.
347.
Economic theories that stress coping with
scarcity from the supply side and which support market solutions to problems
and laissez-faire government policies include: (a) neoclassical macroeconomic
theory. (b) Keynesian macroeconomic theory. (c) institutionalism. (d)
historicism. (e) rational voter apathy theory.
348.
Thorstein Veblen launched a detailed inquiry
into the practice of consumption and the formation of tastes in his: (a) The
Theory of Liquidity Preference. (b) The Theory of the Leisure Class. (c)
The Theory of Value. (d) Inconsistencies Between The Theory of Money
and Human Values. (e) The Real Wealth of Nations.
349.
The price discrimination that Jules Dupuit
elaborated as a cure for the natural monopoly problem was generalized to apply
to any situation in which a firm charges different prices for identical goods,
or pays different prices for identical resources, by: (a) Antoine-Augustin
Cournot. (b) Joan Robinson. (c) John Kenneth Galbraith. (d) George Stigler.
350.
Economic issues incapable of scientific
verification as to correctness or falsity, such as why, when and how to
prosecute and execute alleged murderers, or to whom income should be
redistributed, falls into the category of: (a) do unto others as you would want
done unto you economics. (b) negative economics. (c) neutral economics. (d)
positive economics. (e) normative economics.
351.
A laissez-faire government is limited to
determining: (a) property rights in a simple fashion and to enforcing private
contracts. (b) market prices that guarantee equitable resource allocations. (c)
how resources will be allocated efficiently. (d) the money supply and providing
a strong national defense. (e) how public goods should be provided.
352.
Markets will tend to operate more efficiently
if: (a) highly profitable opportunities are so widespread that all investors
can gain higher incomes. (b) large numbers of profit-seekers compete vigorously
for ideas or information that might prove profitable. (c) competition causes
any predictable abnormal gain from an investment to be exploited only after a
lengthy lag. (d) real interest rates are biased upwards. (e) all prices and
wages are rigid.
353.
Rational ignorance is the idea that: (a) people
are inherently ignorant. (b) those without rational thought are ignorant. (c)
people quit seeking information when they view the marginal costs of more
information as outweighing its marginal benefits. (d) thinking your vote
actually counts is ignorant.
354.
John von Neumann followed in the footsteps of
A.A. Cournot when he developed: (a) the prisoner’s postulate. (b) game
theory. (c) input-output analysis. (d) linear programming. (e) activity
analysis.
355.
A clearly mistaken reason for voting in a major election
would be a belief that: (a) it is your duty to vote. (b) you will feel guilty
if you don’t vote. (c) your vote is likely to affect the outcome of the
election. (d) voting is fun.
356.
Any large task-oriented organization is commonly
called a: (a) non-profit. (b) bureaucracy. (c) theocracy. (d) democracy. (e)
plurality.
357.
Differences in methodological foundations
between the ancient Greek philosophers Zeno and Heraclites revolved around
whether: (a) assorted atoms are the building blocks of the universe as opposed
to earth, wind, and fire. (b) humans are innately acquisitive and
self-interested, or are primarily social and cooperative. (c) material goods or
ideas are the primary determinants of historical change. (d) democratic
governments or enlightened “philosopher kings” would set more
optimal social policies. (e) the universe is essentially static, with
only relatively superficial change, or dynamic, with few constants and
significant and recurring disruptions.
358.
The concept of hedonism deals with the
pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain. The idea that humans
procrastinate to avoid pain while seeking more immediate pleasure is most
associated with the ideas of: (a) Zeno and Thomas Malthus. (b) Epicurus,
Xenophon and Jeremy Bentham. (c) Aristotle and David Ricardo. (d) Demosthenes
and Plato. (e) Groucho Marx and John Lennon.
359.
Abraham Maslow developed a hierarchy of needs,
but recognized that regardless of how far people progress up that hierarchy;
individuals constantly adjust how they accommodate their specific needs for: [1]
survival; [2] security; [3] love; [4]
recognition and esteem, and [5] self actualization. Most
mainstream economists would contend that how much specific needs are emphasized
at specific times depends most strongly on: (a) the person’s age along an
income-consumption-investment cycle. (b) how individuals weigh risks and
uncertainty. (c) the relative prices of available opportunities. (d) the extent
of interdependence in utility functions. (e) balances between public and private
decisionmaking.
360.
Government projects that are nationally funded
despite benefits that are primarily local are examples of: (a) pure public
goods. (b) empire building. (c) reciprocal trade. (d) pork-barrel legislation.
361.
An economist who followed a tradition started by
Richard Cantillon and H.K.E. von Mangoldt in glorifying entrepreneurs as the
driving force in economic development, and who also suggested that as democracy
increases, socialism will tend to displace capitalism, was: (a) Ludwig von
Mises. (c) Oskar Morgenstern. (b) Werner von Braun. (d) Jon von Neumann. (e)
Friedrich Hayek. (f) Claudius von Disputandum. (g) Joseph Schumpeter. (h)
Johann H. von Thünen.
362.
Leon Walras’ general equilibrium analysis
gained significantly increased acceptance when it was clarified somewhat by his
immediate successor at Lausanne: (a) John Stuart Mill. (b) Alfred Marshall. (c)
Thorstein Veblen. (d) Vilfredo Pareto. (e) William Stanley Jevons.
363.
The statement that in a depression or recession,
“demand creates its own supply,” is most frequently called: (a)
Keynes’ law. (b) the law of demand. (c) Say’s law. (d)
Stigler’s law. (e) the law of markets.The most synonymous of the
following terms for school of thought would be: (a) ideology. (b) weltschmerz.
(c) paradigm. (d) discipline. (e) kindergarten.
364.
A theory of oligopoly developed during the 1930s
by Paul Sweezy and expanded upon by Joan Robinson that focused on explaining
“sticky” wages and prices was the: (a) prisoners dilemma model. (b)
kinked demand curve model. (c) wage-price duopoly model. (d) transaction cost
model. (e) implicit collusion model. (f) Sherman-Clayton Antitrust model.
365.
The theory that increases in the money stock do
not affect the economy uniformly, but instead cause prices to inefficiently and
unstably rise at uneven rates across different sectors of the economy, has
become an article of faith among: (a) modern Austrian macroeconomic theorists.
(b) American institutionalists. (c) neoKeynesian economists. (d) modern
monetarists such as Milton Freidman. (e) “real business cycle”
theorists. (f) rational expectationists.
366.
The process wherein legislators trade votes to
obtain passage of proposals they favor is known as: (a) pork-barrel
legislation. (b) point voting. (c) logrolling. (d) rent-seeking. (e) empire
building.
367.
According to these Lerner wage-price reaction
functions: (a) labor markets adjust to shocks less rapidly than would commodity
markets subjected to similar shocks. (b) the Keynesian model of adjustment to
declining Aggregate Demand is incorrect. (c) markets are strongly efficient if
new information is rapidly converted into equilibrium prices. (d) excess supply
yields more rapid price adjustment than does comparable excess demand. (e)
commodity markets yield faster quantity adjustments in response to disruptions
than do labor markets.

368.
This pair of Lerner wage–price reaction
functions is consistent with the idea(s) that: (a) wages and prices do
not instantaneously adjust to clear markets when demands or supplies change.
(b) wages are “stickier” than prices. (c) reduced demands in labor
markets yield unemployment in the short run. (d) a short-run Phillips curve may
exist. (e) all of the above.
369.
Empirical estimates that income elasticity is
negative would be least likely when considering the market demand for: (a)
goods subject to weak but consistently positive “Veblen” effects.
(b) children. (c) goods based on pollution-generating technologies. (d) starchy
or fatty foods. (e) used car parts.
370.
Brand names, copyrights, trademarks, and
economic space [geographic advantages in a particular market] were quite
interesting to Edwin H. Chamberlin because they are all: (a) characteristics of
economically mature consumer goods markets. (b) mechanisms enabling
monopolistically competitive firms to gain some control over prices. (c)
advertising gimmicks that sustain and enrich big business at the expense of
society. . (d) major characteristics of an “affluent society.”
371.
Gordon Tullock and Anna Schwartz independently
described how special interests expend scarce resources to capture a pure
transfer by influencing government policies. This inefficient allocative
process is known as: (a) monopolization. (b) vertical integration. (c)
franchising. (d) dead weight losses.(e) rent-seeking.
372.
Keynesian Aggregate Expenditures are the sum of:
(a) Aggregate Demand + Aggregate Supply. (b) income + borrowing. (c) C + S + T
and depend primarily on expectations. (d) C + I + G + (X–M) as these
planned spendings relate to income. (e) consumer purchases + household saving +
imports.
373.
Milton Friedman has blamed the length and
severity of the Great Depression primarily on: (a) inept policies of the
Federal Reserve System. (b) lagging aggregate demand. (c) the Stock Market
Crash of 1929. (d) European hyperinflation. (e) the fiscal policies of
President Herbert Hoover. (f) the Treaty of Versailles.
374.
In The Nature of Scientific Revolutions,
Thomas Kuhn hypothesizes that, for long periods in history: (a) practitioners
of such “hard” sciences as math, chemistry or physics have had a
much more powerful analytical framework [paradigm] than have such
“soft” scientists as historians, economists, or psychologists. (b)
most scientists accept a fairly static paradigm that limits focus, and
that explosive growth in human knowledge follows adoption of a new paradigm
that departs radically from the older paradigm. (c) scientific understanding
has improved linearly. (d) scientific advances are proportional to the
sophistication of quantitative techniques. (e) the most creative scientists
have been atheists.
375.
The idea that the value of a product depends
primarily on the amount a consumer is willing to pay for it was first described
in detail by: (a) Adam Smith, a Scot. (b) Friedrich List, a pioneer of both
marginalism and “Austrian economics.” (c) Francois Quesnay, a
Frenchman. (d) Richard Cantillon, an Irishman who also held French citizenship.
(e) Aristotle and other early Greek philosophers.
376.
The Tableau Économique was developed by:
(a) Richard Cantillon and is a tax schedule. (b) Leon Walras as a first
approximation for general equilibrium analysis. (c) Francois Quesnay and is an
early and crude circular flow model. (d) Boisguillebert to trace the workings
of the market. (e) Sir Richard Petty to highlight the working of the monetary
system.
377.
Some analysts argue that anti-trust laws are
misguided and that monopolization itself is not especially harmful because: (a)
average annual “dead weight” losses attributable to monopolization
are estimated to be only a tiny fraction of total GDP. (b) predatory strategies
are not an adequate reason for a firm to be unfairly penalized. (c) most
monopolies maintain stable prices after a monopoly is achieved, preferring
instead to keep their customers happy. (d) perfect competition is a goal that
can never logically be achieved in the real world.
378.
Many public choice theorists view the government
bureaucrat as similar to the entrepreneurial suppliers of private goods in the
economic system. The key difference between the two is that: (a) private
entrepreneurs can legally maximize profits, but government bureaucrats cannot.
(b) private entrepreneurs cannot control their profits, but bureaucrats do
control their profits. (c) private entrepreneurs act selfishly and government
bureaucrats do not. (d) there is no difference between the two.
379.
The first economic thinkers to discuss gains in
production derived from a division of labor were: (a) Richard Cantillon and
Adam Smith. (b) Thomas Aquinas and other medieval scholastics. (c) Xenophon and
other ancient Greeks. (d) Francois Quesnay and other physiocrats. (e) Thomas
Munn and other mercantilists. (f) Confucius, Lao Tzu, and other fifth century
philosophers in China.
380.
The marginal productivity theory of income
distribution was developed by John Bates Clark in the1890s in part as: (a) a
refutation of Karl Max’s view that surplus value, which is the sum of
interest, rent and profit, represents exploitation of labor. (b) an attempt to
provide a ethical foundation for the establishment of socialism. (c) a proposal
to amend the US Constitution to permit the progressive taxation of income. (d)
an endorsement of John Locke’s theory that property rights are grounded
in the labor theory of value.
381.
Adjustments of prices and quantities to
rectify disequilibria were a part of a process that Leon Walras termed: (a) tátonnement.
(b) mutatis mutandi. (c) ceteris parebus. (d) maximum
maximorum. (e) cogito ergo sum. (f) fiat justitia, ruat coeum.
382.
Keynesian theory suggests that a recession in
the U.S. would be most likely to abate quickly in response to: (a) revelation
of even bigger corporate scandals. (b) hiring of tens of thousands of new
federal workers to hide plastic eggs filled with $10 bills in the desert. (c)
increasing trade and tariff barriers in hopes that foreign countries would
retaliate with a trade war. (d) raising the minimum wage. (e) increased desires
to save by households.
383.
Pre-World War I syndicalist radicals who sought
to take over U.S. industry were members of the: (a) Fabian Society. (b)
International Workers of the World, aka wobblies. (c) Abraham Lincoln
Brigade. (d) American Federation of Labor.
384.
Robert Frank conducted a prisoners’
dilemma experiment on three separate groups: [1] college students who had never
taken any economics. [2] students who had taken one economics course. [3]
graduate students in economics. His surprising results may be interpreted as
evidence that: (a) studying economics causes many people to become overly
suspicious of other people’s motives. (b) greedy behavior facilitates
technological innovations. (c) individuals are as rational as economists
assume. (d) markets never achieve equilibrium.
385.
The personal losses from rational ignorance tend
to be lowest when individuals make decisions about: (a) buying frequently
purchased items. (b) voting. (c) whom to marry. (d) major financial
investments. (e) career paths and occupations.
386.
Abba Lerner’s wage-price reaction
functions illustrate the Keynesian belief that, in the short run for a
market economy: (a) surpluses are resolved faster than shortages. (b) full
employment is achieved automatically. (c) shortages resolve more quickly than
surpluses. (d) wages and prices adjust more quickly downward than upward. (e)
the distribution of income becomes less equal during recessions.
387.
NOT one of the five major points that
distinguish Austrian economics from mainstream neoclassical analysis is: (a)
radical subjectivism. (b) methodological essentialism. (c) casual-eugenics. (d)
methodological individualism. (e) societal purpose.
388.
Individual bureaucrats' salaries tend to be MOST
positively related to the: (a) social losses incurred if their positions were
vacated. (b) number of employees supervised and the budget managed. (c) swings
in the business cycle. (d) total government spending relative to national
income. (e) rates of return on government investments.
389.
Massive government regulation is often termed:
(a) bureaucratic red tape. (b) legislative logrolling. (c) gerrymandering. (d)
nepotism.
390.
The “John” who predicted the
economic and political turmoil stemming from the harsh punishment of Germany in
the Treaty of Versailles (which facilitated Hitler’s rise to power) was
John: (a) Bates Clark. (b) Neville Keynes. (c) Maynard Keynes. (d) Rogers
Commons. (e) Kenneth Galbraith.
391.
Hysterisis as a process in which history unfolds
in a manner that is path-dependent is least consistent with the
methodologies and views of: (a) Heraclites, in his debate with Zeno about the
forces of nature. (b) historicists, in their debates with analytical
determinists. (c) the followers of Auguste Comte. (d) neoclassical economic
theorists. (e) Thomas Malthus. (f) American institutionalism. (g) dialectical
materialists. (h) Marxists.
392.
Most nonhuman resources should be owned jointly
by everyone, with government acting as a trustee, according to the ideals of: (a)
laissez-faire philosophy. (b) socialism. (c) anarchism. (d) environmentalism.
393.
A term used to describe the process wherein
current production is diverted into the accumulation of economic capital,
thereby delaying the possibility of consuming goods now, is: (a) roundabout
production. (b) capitalistic exploitation. (c) circular flow. (d) specie flow.
(e) articulation.
394.
According to the neo-classical macroeconomic
model developed at Cambridge University, the: (a) demand for nominal money can
be written as Md = kPQ. (b) rate of inflation depends primarily on the velocity
of money. (c) income velocity of money determines real output. (d) money supply
determines real output. (e) government should run deficits to reduce
unemployment.
395.
Profit-sharing plans in modern U.S. corporations
may partially trace their origins back to some ideas imbedded in: (a)
syndicalism. (b) Buddhist economics. (c) "limits to growth.". (d)
laissez faire capitalism.
396.
Of the following thinkers, the one whose ideas
are least inconsistent with broad libertarian principles is: (a)
John Stuart Mill. (b) Plato. (c) Mao Zedong. (d) Thomas Aquinas. (e) Thomas
Malthus. [Hint: beware the double negative. This could be tricky.].
397.
Pork barrel legislation is viewed by critics as
undesirable because: (a) it overuses pork barrels as incentives. (b) it relies
too heavily on line-item vetoes. (c) agricultural needs of today have changed
from what they were of years ago. (d) it unevenly redistributes public spending
relative to tax revenues across specific regions, so that projects that are not
efficient tend to be adopted anyway.
398.
John Stuart Mill expected that any inflation
resulting when the growth rate of the stock of gold in a country exceeded the
rate of expansions of potential real national income would result in: (a)
surpluses in that country’s balance of trade. (b) decreases in the real
wages of labor. (c) more gold ornamentation and dentists using more gold in
dental work. (d) immigration of labor into the country. (e) increases in
attempts to discover and produce gold.
399.
The Nobel Prize winning economist who introduced
the idea of transaction cost minimization as the root problem of economic,
firm, and market coordination is: (a) Kelvin Lancaster. (b) Ronald Coase. (c)
Armen Alchian. (d) Gary Becker.
400.
An American institutionalist coined numerous
terms, including: [1] acquisitive society [to explain
systematic “underfunding” of government projects and the expansion
of private “conspicuous consumption;” [2] conventional
wisdom [for incorrect but popular theories]; [3] bezzle [for
the monetary amount of bookkeeping mischief within big business]; [4]
countervailing power (for the idea that social welfare is enhanced
by competition between such power blocs as big labor and big business); and [5]
technostructure [for managerial and other professionals who dominate
decisions in huge bureaucracies]. This very tall (6’9”) economist
was: (a) Thorstein Veblen. (b) Wesley Clair Mitchell. (c) John Commons. (d)
John Kenneth Galbraith. (e) Clarence Ayres.
401.
The Marxist term for differences between wages
and labor's average marginal productivity is: (a) wage deficit. (b) surplus
value. (c) exploitation quotient. (d) monopoly profit. (e) contingency fee.
402.
The intensities of individuals' preferences are
especially hard to ascertain under a system that relies heavily on: (a)
lobbying and logrolling. (b) nonstrategic point voting. (c) simple majority
rule voting. (d) competitive markets.
403.
The consumer surplus derived from a specific
good is zero when a buyer: (a) faces a vertical supply curve. (b) views some
identically-priced goods as perfect substitutes for the good. (c) can only shop
in a market that is in disequilibrium. (d) has already purchased a strong
complement for the good being purchased. (e) has a perfectly inelastic (vertical)
demand curve for the good.
404.
The violent overthrow of capitalism by workers
would be opposed by: (a) Marxists. (b) syndicalists. (c) liberation
theologians. (d) libertarians. (e) anarchists.
405.
According to Karl Marx, the “bust”
in capitalist boom-bust business cycles are a consequence of: (a) automation
and the substitution of capital for labor. (b) shifts in production possibility
frontiers resulting from such events as war, famine, etc. (c) capital
accumulation by the rich bourgeoisie and inadequate purchasing power in
the hands of the working-class proletariat. (d) ever-increasing unemployment
rates among the proletariat.
406.
The idea that if transaction costs are zero,
negotiation will eliminate any inefficiency associated with
“externalities” is known as the: (a) Coase theorem. (b) law of
markets. (c) frictionless exchange model. (d) Walrasian solution. (e) model of
perfect competition.
407.
Adopting a proposal to allow individual
taxpayers to specify the programs for which their taxes will be spent would be UNLIKELY
to precisely reflect the taxpayers' preferences because: (a) legislators are
uniformly better judges of national priorities. (b) this form of "point
voting with dollars" would promote strategic behavior. (c) logrolling
would become even more prevalent. (d) the rights of special interest groups
would tend to be ignored.
408.
The analytical case for unfettered international
trade was made most strongly by: (a) Rev. Robert Thomas Malthus. (b)
Heraclites. (c) mercantilists. (d) David Ricardo. (e) Cornelius Vanderbilt. (f)
Alexander Hamilton.
409.
The most notable distinction between classical
economics and neoclassical economics was incorporation of calculus into
analyses, which revealed that optimality and efficiency require conformity with
the: (a) laws of supply and demand. (b) equimarginal principle. (c) scholastic
tradition. (d) thesis-antithesis-synthesis pathway.
410.
The welfare loss triangles that
economists sometimes identify as arising from market failures or inefficient
government policies are ways to graphically depict a: (a) contrapositive
burden. (b) negative-sum game. (c) dead-weight loss. (d) negative-sum loss. (e)
dead-weight gain. (f) consumer deficit. (g) producer deficit.
411.
That some people would prefer extremely costly
real fur coats to even higher quality, but much cheaper, visually
indistinguishable faux (polyester?) fur coats is most reasonably an
example of: (a) Adam Smith’s theory of self-interest. (b) the snob (or
Veblen) effect. (c) a Utopian socialist distribution mechanisms. (d) John
Stuart Mill’s social theory. (e) Austrian “roundabout”
theory.
412.
A technique for simultaneous consideration of
price and quantity adjustments in all markets for goods and resources is
termed: (a) Walrasian general equilibrium analysis. (b) matrix analysis. (c)
Keynesian macroeconomics. (d) Marshallian analyses of price adjustments. (e)
multi-sector analysis.
413.
The thinker least likely to defend the
fairness of the marginal productivity theory of income distribution would
have been: (a) Herbert Spencer. (b) John Bates Clark. (c) Ayn Rand. (d) John
Kenneth Galbraith. (e) H.K.E. von Mangoldt. (f) Richard Cantillon. (g) Adam
Smith.
414.
The distinction between market price and
intrinsic value was the key issue addressed in: (a) Karl Marx’s revision
of the John Locke’s labor theory of value. (b) Aristotle’s
“diamond-water” paradox. (c) the Austrian emphasis on the
subjective nature of value. (d) Augustine’s inquiry into differences
between value in use and value in exchange. (e) debates between Thomas Malthus
and David Ricardo over the merits of the British “corn laws.”
415.
John Maynard Keynes’s precautionary demand
for money reflects the notion that people hold money balances in part because:
(a) investing is uncertain; your investment can be lost or lose value. (b)
money is often needed to fund unexpected expenditures. (c) in periods of low
interest rates, it’s not worth the time to invest. (d) banks are
unscrupulous institutions. (e) the Midas effect is powerful.
416.
The idea that a tradeoff exists between
unemployment and inflation is known as the: (a) liquidity trap. (b)
unemployment curve. (c) inflation-employment curve. (d) Friedman curve. (e) the
Phillips curve.
417.
Joan Robinson defined exploitation of workers as
occurring when: (a) workers are hired based on something other than productivity.
(b) profit is kept by entrepreneur. (c) unemployment exists. (d) the economy is
at less that full employment. (e) workers are paid less than the values of
their marginal products.
418.
NOT standard nomenclature for a phase in a
typical business cycle would be: (a) recovery. (b) recession. (c) depression.
(d) surplus. (e) peak.
419.
If Wal-Mart cut prices below cost in an attempt
to drive competitors out of business with an expectation that after its competitors
were kaput, Wal-Mart could then extract very high prices, then Wal-Mart would
be practicing: (a) price fixing. (b) trust busting. (c) collusion. (d)
predatory pricing. (e) cartelization.
420.
New policies are said to be “strictly
Pareto moves” when a legal or regulatory change harms no one but helps at
least one individual. The voting system most certain to yield only such
efficient moves would be one requiring: (a) a strong plurality. (b) a simple
majority. (c) the largest total under point voting. (d) unanimity. (e) laissez
faire economic policies.
421.
Important works by Joseph Alois Schumpeter do
not include: (a) Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy. (b) The General Theory
of Employment, Interest and Money. (c) The Theory of Economic Development. (d)
A History of Economic Analysis. (e) Business Cycles.
422.
The realization that consumers actually demand
jointly produced attributes of goods and services and not the products or
services themselves is a contribution to consumer theory developed by: (a)
Alfred Marshall. (b) Edwin Hastings Chamberlin. (c) Karl Marx. (d) Carl Menger.
(e) Kelvin Lancaster.
423.
The theoretical attack launched by Austrian
economists in the 1920s against central planning and socialism in the USSR was
initially spearheaded by: (a) Friedrich Hayek. (b) H. L. Mencken. (c) Ludwig
von Mises. (d) Iosif Djugashvili. (e) Lev Davidovitch Bronstein. (f) Vladimir
Ilyich Ulyanov.
424.
The groups most likely to favor government
economic planning would be: (a) bureaucrats and, at least for the short run
(following the revolution), orthodox Marxists. (b) anarchists and syndicalists.
(c) libertarians. and capitalists. (d) Buddhists and utopian socialists.
425.
Among other noteworthy accomplishments, Knut
Wicksell [Sweden, 1851-1926]: (a) showed that, in a unanimity voting system, no
initiative will succeed unless the change proposed is expected to be efficiency
enhancing. (b) was a strong advocate of the modern Scandinavian welfare state.
(c) anticipated Irving Fisher and Milton Friedman in addressing the possibility
that a central bank’s expansionary monetary policies to drive the real
interest rate below its natural rate are self defeating. (d) arguably
elaborated the operations of price adjustment mechanisms better than had any of
his predecessors. (e) He did all of the above.
426.
John Maynard Keynes theorized that in addition
to expectations about the amounts of transactions individuals expect to
consummate, the demand for money depends on the prevailing interest rate and
expectations about economic conditions. This notion is known as: (a)
rent-seeking. (b) liquidity preference. (c) hysterisis. (d) rational
expectations. (e) precautionary balances.
427.
Politicians and parties can be expected to
cluster around moderate positions according to the: (a) modern voter apathy
poll. (b) median voter model. (c) unanimity/consensus approach. (d) majority
voting principle.
428.
The cornerstone of classical economic theory
derived from the work of Jeremy Bentham was the concept of: (a) the wages fund.
(b) natural checks on population. (c) increasing cost. (d) utility. (e) surplus
value.
429.
Reliance on faith and authority to find answers
to most philosophical questions is the engine of inquiry used in: (a)
econometric theory. (b) logical positivism. (c) pragmatic empiricism. (d)
inductive. reasoning. (e) the scholastic method.
430.
Of all the many topics Irving Fisher addressed,
he dealt at the greatest length with issues surrounding: (a) Pareto efficiency
and Rawlsian equity. (b) trade-offs between structural unemployment and
hyperinflation. (c) economic growth in less developed nations. (d) marginal
utility and business cycles. (e) nominal and real interest rates, and the
quantity theory of money.
431.
The student of Eugen Böhm-Bawerk who became
finance minister of the Austria while quite young, immigrated to the United
States to avoid Hitler, and who wrote prolifically on topics ranging from
business cycles to the key role of the entrepreneur in economic development to
the intellectual history of economics was: (a) Joseph Schumpeter. (b) Max Weber. (c) Ernst
Rohm. (d) Arthur C. Pigou.
432.
Marx predicted that, over time: (a) capital
would become increasingly concentrated. (b) over-consumption would cause
declining rates of profits. (c) revolutions would occur first in the
less-developed countries. (d) socialist and capitalist economies would
peacefully converge.
433.
Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution was
most heavily influenced by: (a) Adam Smith’s concept of “the
invisible hand.” (b) Thomas Malthus’s theory that population growth
creates pressure that causes people to live a razor’s edge existence. (c)
Jeremy Bentham’s advocacy of capital punishment to reduce serious crime.
(d) David Hume’s early version of the Quantity Theory of Money. (e) Isaac
Newton’s Second Law of Thermodynamics.
434.
Ayn Rand would readily have subscribed to the
notions of Herbert Spencer and William Graham Sumner in their view that Charles
Darwin’s findings in Origin of Species provide strong support for
the ‘inevitable’ forces of: (a) socialism. (b) the labor theory of
value. (c) the equimarginal principle. (d) laissez faire economic policies. (e)
syndicalism.
435.
Antoine Augustin Cournot applied the
equimarginal principle to illustrate why profit maximization requires: (a) MR =
MC. (b) MPPk = MPPL = w = r. (c) charging desperate buyers the highest price
possible. (d) MR = ATC. (e) P = MR.
436.
A Keynesian consumption function relates
the consumption of all private goods and services to: (a) free trade. (b)
surplus values. (c) the aggregate level of income. (d) the theory of money
supply. (e) the equality of supply and demand.
437.
According to Kenneth Boulding and other thinkers
skeptical of uncontrolled economic growth, a "cowboy mentality" may
be inappropriate on "spaceship earth" primarily because: (a) many productive processes generate
pollution, and finite resources may make ever higher consumption impossible
unless technology improves more rapidly than population. (b) assembly line
industrial processes are dehumanizing. (c) economic growth and crass
materialism produce moral decay. (d) cows are sacred according to Buddhists and
Hindus. (e) spiritual enlightenment is more important than worldly riches.
438.
A minority's political preferences are MOST
likely to be reflected in public policies as a consequence of: (a) the median
voter model. (b) the "lumpiness" inherent in majority rule voting.
(c) empire building by ambitious bureaucrats. (d) lobbying by powerful special
interest groups.
439.
"Liberation theology" blends the ideas
of: (a) Buddhism and Hinduism. (b) capitalism and socialism. (c) anarchism and
syndicalism. (d) Utopian and Fabian socialism. (e) Marxism and Christian
socialism.
440.
The branch of mathematical analysis developed to
study interdependent decision making between two or more parties in conflict
situations is: (a) bipolar derivations. (b) duopoly algorithms. (c) game
theory. (d) integral bi-calculus. (e) duopsony.
441.
A stagnant economy also plagued by high rates of
inflation is suffering from: (a) recession. (b) stagflation. (c) stagnant. (d)
a boom period.
442.
From the vantage points of society as a whole,
examples of positive sum games would include: (a) international trade and happy
marriages. (b) profit maximization by a monopolistic entrepreneur. (c)
industrial espionage and technological innovation. (d) use of the draft to
procure military personnel. (e) profits from buying stocks based on insider
information obtained through bribery.
443.
“In the long run, we are all dead.”
The economist whose Depression-era writings noted that interest rates and wages
are downwardly “sticky,” making neoclassical macroeconomics valid
only in the long run was: (a) an economic advisor to the British
government at the Treaty of Paris. (b) married to Joan Robinson. (c) the
Marquis of Bloomsbury. (d) John Maynard Keynes. (e) All of the above.
444.
A Constitutional amendment requiring all adults
to vote would reduce the: (a) ability of citizens to vote or not vote as a way
to register the intensity of their preferences. (b) amount of rational
political ignorance. (c) political apathy of voters. (d) growth of government.
Section 2:
True-False
1.
Joan Robinson and
Edwin H. Chamberlin were most famous for their independent developments of
theories of imperfect competition.
2.
Thorstein Veblen
used American pragmatism to supplement Adam Smith's philosophy when he launched
the Utilitarian Revolution.
3.
Modern
monetarists urge increased reliance on countercyclical fiscal policy.
4.
Keynes viewed
investment spending as based primarily on expectations of future net profit
from that investment.
5.
One of the basic
rules of economics seems to be "if prices don't adjust, quantities
will".
6.
To the
neoclassical macroeconomist, there can be no long run involuntary unemployment
in a laissez faire market economy.
Section 3: Matching
Use capital letters to match these economic thinkers
with the schools of thought with whom they would be closest and most
uniquely associated.
|
|
John Baptiste Say |
A. utilitarianism |
|
|
Thomas Aquinas |
B. “high” theory |
|
|
Milton Friedman |
C. general equilibrium analysis |
|
|
Veblen, Ayres,
Commons, and Galbraith |
D. public choice theory |
|
|
Akerlof, Spence,
and Stiglitz |
E. medieval scholasticism |
|
|
Leon Walras and
Vilfredo Pareto |
F. Austrian economics |
|
|
Paul Samuelson and
Kenneth Arrow |
G. classical macroeconomics |
|
|
James Mill and John
Stuart Mill |
H. quantity theory of money |
|
|
Eugen von
Böhm-Bawerk and Friedrich Hayek |
I. American Institutionalism |
|
|
James Buchanan and
Gordon Tulloch |
J. economics of information |
Section 4: Essay
1. Suppose there are two economic agents (X and Y), two goods (A and B), and two factors of production, (K and L). Use this graph as a foundation for explaining how Vilfredo Pareto’s concept of economic efficiency applies to a general equilibrium under conditions of pure competition, as elaborated by Oskar Lange (1904-1965) and Abba P. Lerner (1903-1982).

2. Draw market demands and supplies, and describe how these curves translate into a Lerner Asymmetric Wage-Price Reaction Function.
3. Explain the differences on views about interest rates between (a) John Maynard Keynes. (b) Irving Fisher and Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk. (c) Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas.
|
Economics instructors are hereby granted provisional permission
to use or alter items in this Test Bank
for educational purposes only. Commercial use of any of these materials is
forbidden. Withdrawal of this permission may be announced at this site
without notice, and these materials may not be used thereafter without
written permission. |