HOW TO STUDY SUPPLY AND DEMAND
To understand supply and demand better, you should remember:
1. Supply and demand is about trade. Buyers purchase goods with money, and sellers get money for selling goods. However, behind this exchange of money is the exchange of goods: Buyers are in effect trading what they make (and sell) for the goods they buy.
2. Suppliers and demanders are different. It is important to separate the buyers (demanders) from the sellers (suppliers) of a good. This is because they react in different ways to changes in the price as well as to changes in other variables. For example, a higher price reduces the quantity of the good that demanders want to buy but increases the quantity sellers want to sell. It is important, therefore, to understand which variables each group reacts to and how it reacts.
3. Events caused by price changes differ from those that cause price changes. Every thing caused by price changes is shown by a demand or supply curve; everything that causes the price to change is shown by a shift from an old to a new demand or supply curve.
4. The quantity of a good actually bought and sold need not equal the quantity demanded and supplied. Demand refers to how much buyers would like to buy at various prices. Supply refers to how much sellers would like to sell at various prices.
HISTORY OF BANKS
When did the first banks appear? Linguistics (the science of language) and etymology (the study of the origins of words) suggest an interesting story about banking's origins. Both the Old French word banque and the Italian word banca were used centuries ago to mean "money-changer's table." This describes quite well what historians looking at the civilizations of Greece and Rome more than 2,000 year ago, have observed concerning the first bankers. They were money changing institutions, situated usually at a table or in a small shop in the commercial district, aiding travelers who came to town by exchanging foreign coins for local money or discounting commercial notes for a fee
The first bankers were goldsmiths. Several centuries ago, money consisted primarily of gold coins. Wealthy people found the amounts оf gold they accumulated quite heavy. An even bigger drawback was that thieves love gold. Looking around for safe places to store their wealth, people in medieval Europe thought of goldsmiths. Goldsmith made jewelry, gold statues, and other precious goods. Most also had some excess space in their heavily guarded vaults.
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HOW BANKS EVOLVED
Most goldsmiths were willing to store valuables for a small fee issued receipts for the gold deposited with them. Buyers found it convenient to exchange these receipts instead of physically getting the gold, and sellers were happy to take the receipts because they knew they could redeem them for gold whenever they wished. This was the beginning оf checking accounts – the receipts issued by the goldsmiths were primitive demand deposits.
The first bankers probably used also their own capital to fund their activities, but it wasn't long before the idea of attracting deposits and securing temporary loans from wealthy customers became an important source of bank funding. Loans were then made to merchants, shippers, and landowners at rates of interest as low as 6 percent per annum to as high as 48 percent a month for the riskiest ventures! Most of the early banks of any size were Greek in origin. The Romans generally tolerated banking practices, but were hesitant to set up own banks.
The banking industry gradually spread outward from the classical civilizations of Greece and Rome into northern and western Europe. Banking encountered religious opposition during the Middle Ages, primarily because loans made to the poor often carried very high interest rates.
BUSINESS ECONOMICS
People frequently do not trade directly on markets. Instead, on the supply side, they may work in and produce through firms. The most obvious kinds of firms are corporations, partnerships and trusts. According to Ronald Coase people begin to organise their production in firms when the costs of doing business becomes lower than doing it on the market Firms combine labour and capital, and can achieve far greater economies of scale (when the average cost per unit declines as more units are produced) than individual market trading.
In perfectly-competitive markets studied in the theory of supply and demand, there are many producers, none of which significantly influence price. Industrial organization generalizes from that special case to study the strategic behavior of firms that do have significant control of price. It considers the structure of such markets and their interactions. Common market structures studied besides perfect competition include monopolistic competition, various forms of oligopoly, and monopoly.
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Managerial economics applies microeconomic analysis to specific decisions in business firms or other management units. It draws heavily from quantitative methods such as operations research and programming and from statistical methods such as regression analysis in the absence of certainty and perfect knowledge. A unifying theme is the attempt to optimize business decisions, including unit-cost minimization and profit maximization, given the firm's objectives and constraints imposed by technology and market conditions.
MARKET REFORMS IN BELARUS
Market reforms in Belarus are not somebody's whim. Any attempt to delay, obstruct or reverse this process can have only limited short-term success. Reforms have deep roots. They imply a transition to a qualitatively new economic system that incorporates the global trends and individual features of the Belarusian society, its history, place in the world and cultural values. Global changes and scientific and technological advancement have demonstrated the inefficiency of command methods. A deep and extensive restructuring of the economy, which has always been required in Belarus, is impossible without a high degree of personal involvement, or without individual initiative and enthusiasm. Certainly the need for order and discipline and effective governance are not to be discarded. However, it is critical to prepare the masses for economic restructuring, which is impossible without the development of private enterprises and adequate changes in the taxation, credit, pricing and fiscal policies of the state. Simultaneously with the economic restructuring, the fledgling business community will be able to intensify market transformations and speed up privatisation, the formation of a market environment, price liberalisation and an efficient crediting and savings system. This, in turn, will boost foreign and domestic investment and ease or eliminate the social tensions that normally accompany the process of restructuring and market reforms. Efficient rent, leasing and incorporation will enable private businessmen to assist in the restructuring of the big government run industries that are in a state of crisis and are a heavy burden on the state.
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