Economic Act

An Economic Act is an agent decision act by an economic agent that affects an economic value measure (which involves a resource allocation decision task of scarce resources).

• AKA: Scarce Resource Allocation Move.
• Context:
  • It can range from being an Economic Transaction to being a Business Activity.
  • It can (typically) require an Economic Input.
  • It can (typically) result in an Economic Output.
  • It can be preceded by an Economic Decision.
  • It can be assessed by Economic Reasoning.
  • It can be in response to an Economic Event.
  • It can range from being a Good Economic Act to being a Bad Economic Act.
  • …
• Example(s):
  • a Purchase Act.
  • an Investment Act.
  • a Rent-Seeking Act.
  • …
• Counter-Example(s):
  • a Political Act.
  • a Moral Act, such as a charitable act?
  • a Hedonistic Act.
• See: Economic Analysis, Economy, Socioeconomic Variable, Economic Opportunity.

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References

2013

• http://www.economist.com/economics-a-to-z/f#node-21529931
  • QUOTE: Factors of production: The ingredients of economic activity: land, labour, capital and enterprise.

• http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/economic-activity.html
  • QUOTE: Actions that involve the production, distribution and consumption of goods and services at all levels within a society.

2009

• (Persa et al., 2009) ⇒ Govind Persad, Alan Wertheimer, and Ezekiel J. Emanuel. (2009). "Principles for Allocation of Scarce Medical Interventions.” In: The Lancet Journal, 373(9661).
  • ABSTRACT: Allocation of very scarce medical interventions such as organs and vaccines is a persistent ethical challenge. We evaluate eight simple allocation principles that can be classified into four categories: treating people equally, favouring the worst-off, maximising total benefits, and promoting and rewarding social usefulness. No single principle is sufficient to incorporate all morally relevant considerations and therefore individual principles must be combined into multiprinciple allocation systems. We evaluate three systems: the United Network for Organ Sharing points systems, quality-adjusted life-years, and disability-adjusted life-years. We recommend an alternative system — the complete lives system — which prioritises younger people who have not yet lived a complete life, and also incorporates prognosis, save the most lives, lottery, and instrumental value principles.

1992

• (Skitka * Tetlock, 1992) ⇒ Linda J. Skitka, and Philip E. Tetlock. (1992). “Allocating Scarce Resources: A contingency model of distributive justice.” In: Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 28(6). doi:10.1016/0022-1031(92)90043-J
  • ABSTRACT: Two experiments tested predictions derived from a contingency model of distributive justice that identifies four interrelated categories of determinants of people's allocation decisions: (1) abstract distributive norms; (2) perceived attributes of claimants; (3) resource constraints; and (4) attributes of judges. The model posits that allocations of public resources (e.g., health care or welfare) engage in two types of appraisal: one focused on the adequacy of the resource pool, and the other on the causes of claimants' needs. When resources are inadequate, attributional analysis assumes central importance, and need and efficiency emerge as key distributive values. If claims arise from internal-controllable causes, allocators experience anger toward claimants, devalue their deservingness, and withhold resources. If claims arise from other causes, distributive norms become direct predictors of deservingness and allocation. The experiments manipulated the causes of need, the severity of need, and the likelihood of effective assistance under low and high scarcity (Study I) and no scarcity (Study II). Under scarcity, allocators were much more likely to deny aid to claimants who were responsible for their predicament. Need and efficiency emerged as joint predictors of allocating aid to claimants who were not responsible for their predicament. Politically conservative allocators withheld resources from those personally responsible for their needs regardless of both severity of need and likelihood of effective helping, even when there were sufficient resources to satisfy all claimants, whereas liberals tended to provide resources to all claimants.

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