19 August, 2015

Economic statements

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 Secondary economics






NORMATIVE AND POSITIVE ECONOMICS (STATEMENTS) it should be noted that in using the scientific methods to study human behaviour, economists differentiate between normative statements and positive statements.

Normative statements are matters of opinion, belief which cannot be tested or proved with facts. Thus the statement "Education should be subsidized for the poor" is a normative statement. Normative statements usually contain verbs such as should or ought.

On the other hand, positive statements which are mostly used in economies are statements that can be tested or proved with objectives factual evidence to be

correct or incorrect. The statement “A reduction in wage rate will increase the demand for labour'" is a positive one. Thus positive economics is concerned with the analysis of facts or data (“what is") for the purpose of arriving at scientific generalizations. The distinction is important since economics contains a lot of controversial topic areas.




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