Markets Are Usually a Good Way to Organize Economic Activity

description

  • Market economy: Economy allocates resources through the decentralized decisions of firms and households (everyone holds the power to alter the economy) as they interact in the market for goods and services
    • Households decide what to buy, who to work for
    • Firms decide who to hire, what to produce
  • Economy in Vietnam
    • Socialist-oriented market economy (current): supply and demand determined by price (market economy with a socialist view)
    • Before 1986, no market = bao cap = what to produce is determined by central command econ, gov order
  • ”Invisible Hand”concepts
    • Households and firms look at prices β†’ decide what to buy and sell β†’ guide them to reach outcomes that maximize the welfare of them or of society as a whole