• National Accounts (Gross Domestic Product & its components), Flow of Funds, and International Accounts

• Production & Business Activity (including Business Cycles)

• Prices & Inflation (including the Consumer Price Index, the Producer Price Index, and the Employment

Cost Index)

•

International Data from other nations

• U.S. Regional Data

• Academic Data (including Penn World Tables & NBER Macrohistory database)

For more information about how to use FRED, see the variety of videos (https://openstax.org/l/FRED_intro) on

Access for free at openstax.org
YouTube starting with this introduction.

1.1 • What Is Economics, and Why Is It Important? 11

FIGURE 1.2 Scarcity of Resources People experiencing homelessness are a stark reminder that scarcity of

resources is real. (Credit: "Pittsburgh Homeless" by "daveyinn"/Flickr Creative Commons, CC BY 2.0)

If you still do not believe that scarcity is a problem, consider the following: Does everyone require food to eat?
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