Notes, summaries, assignments, exams, and problems for Economy

The Entrepreneur

An entrepreneur is a person who takes the initiative and assumes the risk in a company. This individual may be referred to as an autonomous social agent and is a leader in a cooperative or commercial enterprise.

Concept of Business

A business is an economic production unit whose purpose is to create or increase the utility of goods and meet human needs. The end goal of the company is to achieve the objectives it has set, seeking to maximize its benefits.

Company Features

• Common: Accounting, financial, administrative, and HR.
• Specific: Commercial, production, research.
• Other: Technical, security, R&D.

Elements of a Company

• Internal:
  • Materials: Land, buildings and installations, machinery and transport elements, stocks, money, clients,

Economic Rationality

Economic rationality assumes that households and businesses use their scarce resources to maximize their own utility or profit, respectively. It is used to model economics to explain and predict the behavior of economic agents.

Households

Function: Consumer target

Objective: Maximize their own welfare by choosing goods that satisfy them according to their preferences and their limited budget.

Businesses

Function: Production

Objective: Maximize profits through effective utilization of available resources to produce goods and services as profitably as possible.

Public Sector

Function: Regulation system

Objective: Maximize the general welfare by using available resources to produce required public goods and services and reducing inequalities.... Continue reading "Economic Rationality: Households, Businesses, and the Public Sector" »

Marketing and Business

The Concept of Marketing

Marketing is the process of creating, communicating, and distributing value to satisfy consumer needs and establish lasting exchange relationships. It focuses on acquiring new customers while retaining existing ones, as they generate the majority of sales revenue. Marketing stimulates demand but does not create the need.

Marketing Guidelines

Marketing strategies vary depending on the market situation. Key approaches include:

• Production Orientation

  Focuses on lowering production costs to offer lower-priced products (e.g., Henry Ford's approach).

• Product Orientation

  Emphasizes producing the highest quality products, applicable when demand exceeds supply (e.g., early mobile phones).

• Sales Orientation

  Prioritizes

Understanding Key Financial Components

Active Non-Current Assets

Intangible Assets

• Research and Development
• Administrative concessions, industrial property, and transfer rights
• Computer software

Fixed Assets

• Land and natural resources (not specified)
• Construction (not specified)
• Technical installations
• Machinery
• Cranes
• Furniture
• Equipment for process information
• Other tangible assets

Investment Property

• Land and natural resources (specified)
• Construction (specified)

Long-Term Financial Investments

Current Assets

Stocks

• Commercial
• Raw materials
• Current Products
• Finished Products

Receivables

• Customers
• Debtors
• Public Finance debtors
• Organizations-Social Security debtors

Available

• Banks and credit institutions
• Safety

Financial Returns

Financial (ROI, ROA): BAII / Total Assets:... Continue reading "Understanding Assets, Liabilities, and Financial Ratios" »

Principles of Management

• Division of Work
• Authority and Responsibility
• Discipline
• Unity of Command
• Unity of Direction
• Subordination of Individual Interest to General Interest
• Remuneration of Personnel
• Centralization
• Scalar Chain
• Order
• Equity
• Stability of Tenure of Personnel
• Initiative
• Esprit de Corps

Planning

The role of management in defining goals, determining strategies to achieve them, and integrating and coordinating activities through plans.

Organizing

A management function that involves determining which tasks need to be done, who performs them, how they are grouped, who reports to whom, and where decisions are made.

Personnel Integration

This involves staffing positions within the organizational structure and maintaining those positions with qualified... Continue reading "Core Concepts of Business Management" »

Basic Economic Definitions

Economics: The study of how societies use scarce resources to produce valuable goods and services and distribute them.

Efficiency: Effective use of society's resources in satisfying people's wants and needs.

Microeconomics: Concerned with the behavior of individual entities such as markets, firms, and households.

Macroeconomics: Concerned with the overall performance of the economy.

Inputs: Commodities or services that are used to produce goods and services.

Outputs: The various goods and services that result from the production process.

Factors of Production and Markets

Factors of Production: Land, labor, and capital.

Production Possibility Frontier: Shows the quantity of goods that can be efficiently produced by an economy.... Continue reading "Key Economic Concepts and Principles" »

Production Area Management Fundamentals

The production area management is responsible for planning, organizing, and managing the company's production function.

Production Management Principles

Production management is structured around key objectives and determinants:

Management Objectives:

• Defining desired objectives.
• Planning/scheduling.
• Control.

Determinants of Production:

• Productive Capacity: The maximum amount of a product the company can manufacture.
• Product Demand: The quantity of product the market will demand and the company expects to sell.
• Production System Design: The structure and characteristics of the production process.
• Economic Environment: External situations affecting the company (e.g., economic crises).

Strategic Production Planning

Production... Continue reading "Optimizing Production: Management, Planning, Quality, and Sustainability" »

Wage Unit-VI

Wage means the compensation, whatever its denomination or method of calculation, that can be assessed in cash. It is payable by an employer to an employee for services or work already performed or to be performed, in accordance with the contract of employment. It is stipulated freely but may not be less than the minimum set according to the requirements of the law. For work of equal value, of the same nature or not, duration, and effectiveness, equal compensation shall correspond.

• Overtime work will be paid with 50% at least on the agreed salary for the ordinary workday.
• Night work will be paid with 30% of the regular wage set for work by day.
• Overtime at night will be paid a premium of 100% of the regular hourly wage.
• Hours worked

The Public Sector

The public sector integrates the economic activities of a nation within the governmental sphere. Classical economists advocated for economic liberalism and, therefore, were not in favor of state intervention in the economy. Socialist economists, followers of Karl Marx, think that the state has to have a central role in economic life. Keynesian economists, followers of the theories of John Maynard Keynes, are in favor of the state becoming an economic agent.

Principal Functions of the Public Sector

1. Normative Function: Regulating the activity of economic agents through the broadcast of legal norms, laws, decrees, etc.
2. Allocative Function: The state performs this function when it produces or provides goods and services, such as roads,

Factors of Production

673 Why is the demand for factors considered a joint application? Because several factors must be used jointly and in coordination to develop products.

Labor Market

677 Why is labor demand conditioned by labor productivity? A company can only hire an additional worker if the value of the marginal product of labor exceeds its wage; that is, if the value of increased production exceeds its cost.

679 What is the activity rate? The proportion of persons of working age who are either employed or seeking employment.

680 What are the main labor market imperfections?

• a) The bargaining power of unions and employers' associations
• b) The heterogeneity of labor
• c) Lack of market transparency
• d) Labor is not a perfectly mobile factor

Natural