UCLA Economics
What is Business Economics and Economics?
When you choose to spend an hour studying instead of going out with friends, what economic idea explains the value of what you gave up?
Opportunity Cost
Why do economists care about inflation rather than just whether prices are high or low?
Changes in price level/inflation affect purchasing power.
Who is widely regarded as the "father of economics?"
Who is Adam Smith?
This selective UCLA Economics program allows undergraduates to take first-year PhD courses and graduate with a master’s degree.
What is the Departmental Scholars Program?
This concept reflects the increase in utility from consuming one good versus consuming another good.
What are three ways to measure GDP?
Income Approach, Production Approach, Value-Added Approach.
During the Great Depression, John Maynard Keynes argued that economies could remain stuck with high unemployment. What did he believe governments should do in response?
Increase government spending to boost demand.
Which UCLA-affiliated economist was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Economics and what did she win for?
Elinor Ostrom
If the marginal revenue (MR) < marginal cost (MC), what should a firm do with respect to production?
What is stop increasing production because the benefit of production of one more unit is less than the cost of production of that unit?
What tradeoff does the Phillips Curve describe in the short run?
Lower unemployment tends to come with higher inflation.
According to Milton Friedman, what happens if the money supply grows much faster than the economy’s output?
Inflation rises
Name a current UCLA Economics professor who works on development.
Who is Natalie Bau, Adriana Lleras-Muney, Juliana Londono-Velez, or Maurizio Mazzocco?
When each player in a game is choosing the best action for themselves given what everyone else is doing, and no one has an incentive to change their choice, this situation is called:
What is a Nash equilibrium?
According to the Solow growth model, why doesn’t continuously increasing capital alone lead to permanently higher economic growth?
Because of diminishing returns to capital.
Name the three most recent U.S. recessions and the briefly describe them.
Hint: They all happened during or after 2000.
The 2020 COVID-19 recession, the 2008 (2007-2009) housing recession, and the 2000 dot-com bubble crash.
This UCLA alum went on to co-found one of the most prominent investment firms (and subsidiary private equity firms) in the world.
Hint: The firm's name is the opposite of WhiteStone.
Who is Larry Fink?
When the price of a good increases, what two effects explain the change in quantity demanded?
What is Substitution Effect and Income Effect?
If U.S. interest rates rise relative to other countries, what tends to happen to the U.S. dollar, and why?
The dollar appreciates because higher returns attract foreign capital.
Who were the last two Federal Reserve Bank Chairs?
Who are Janet Yellen and Jerome Powell?