3.3 Long-run costs and economies of scale What makes it possible to offer more output for sale at a lower price? That was one of the questions with which Section 3.2 opened. Part of the answer is that the firm's cost curves, which reflect the technology it is using, may display falling average cost as output increases over a range of output levels. The other part
3.1 Introduction In this section the focus turns towards the supply side of the market, towards firms and industries, exploring the importance of costs and technological change in the organisation of production. The objective is to understand some of the different kinds of change in industrial structure, namely changes in the number and size of firms in an industry. One such change saw the emergence of Ford, initially one among many similar firms jostling for position in the US automobile industry, as the ind
References 5 Conclusion This chapter has enabled you to think about the essential role of technological change in determining economy-wide growth and the growth of firms and industries. We have seen that many issues surrounding the new economy are really issues around the dynamics of technological change: rapid increases in productivity, the emergence of many small firms, new products and new processes, and so on. The main lesson of the unit has been to provide a historical perspective to the introduction of new tec 3.2 Is productivity sustainable? Are the recent increases in productivity sustainable? The answer to this question, and the crux of the debate concerning the effect of IT, centres on distinguishing whether recent increases in productivity are just cyclical, and hence temporary, or whether they are the beginning of a new and long-lasting trend. If the increase in productivity in the USA in the late 1990s was cyclical, this means that it occurred simply because the US economy as a whole was undergoing a bo Introduction This unit takes one aspect of the debate concerning the new economy – innovation in the form of the introduction of information and communication technologies – and places it in the historical context of industrial revolutions. Is the new economy really new or ‘just another’ industrial revolution? This unit is an adapted extract from the course Economics and economic change ( Learning outcomes On completion of this unit, you should be able to: identify criteria to evaluate the politics of racial violence. Introduction The material presented here focuses on the politics of racial violence in Britain. The material is an audio file, originally 30 minutes in length, and examines the issues around this subject. It was recorded in 1995. This material is from our archive and is an adapted extract from Crime, order and social control (D315) which is no longer taught by The Open University. If you want to study formally with us, you may wish to explore other courses we offer in this Author(s): Learning outcomes After studying this unit you should be able: define social construction and social constructionism. Acknowledgements The content acknowledged below is Proprietary (see terms and conditions). This content is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Licence This extract is taken from D218: Social policy: welfare, power and diversity, produced by the BBC on behalf of the Open University. 1.1 Note taking in this context Although the audio file included in this unit was designed to compliment the D218 Social Policy: Welfare, Power and Diversity Open University course its contents are still relevant to anyone wishing to improve their understanding of note taking. The audio file, however, uses specific examples associated with the Social Sciences. The audio file was recorded in 1998. John Clarke discusses the value and best ways of note taking with OU colleagues Esther Saraga and Gerry Mooney. Learning outcomes After studying this unit you should be able: identify the value and best way of note taking. 1.5.8 Bibliographic software If you are considering taking your studies further you might like to consider using bibliographic software. Bibliographic software can be used to sort references, annotate them, manage quotations or create reading lists. There are several software packages on the market. Some are listed below. 1.3.4 Databases At a basic level, a database is a collection of information which can be searched. It is a way of storing, indexing, organising and retrieving information. You may have created one yourself to keep track of your references – or your friends' names and addresses. They are useful for finding articles on a topic, and can be used to search for many different types of information. You may find some of the following databases useful for your topic. They contain different types of informatio 1.3.3 Books and electronic books Books are a good source of information. The publishing process (where a book is checked by an editor before publishing, and often reviewed by another author) means that books are reliable sources of information, although they may need to be evaluated for bias. A growing number of books can be found online.
