In: Economics
1) The 5 principles along with their examples are given as below:
a) Incentives: Incentive means a form of reward which is given so as to prompt to the individuals to do something.
Eg: when bonus is linked with good work ,then it means the workers are incentivised. Higher the effort, more the bonus. This is Incentive.
b) Tradeoffs: the resources in world are limited but demand of goods and services are unlimited. This means that there would be choices between production of goods or between different economic activities. This is tradeoff.
Eg: an individual with his pocket money may decide to watch a movie or save it for vacations. These are Tradeoffs one comes across in everyday life.
c) opportunity costs: these are the costs foregone ie the next best alternative which is given up.
Eg: a country can produce with the given set of resources both food and guns. If it decides to produce good, the opportunity cost would be guns and vice versa.
Another example could be an individual wanting to pursue graduation. The opportunity cost would be the salary foregone had he applied for a job.
d) Voluntary exchange: it is a process which takes place in free market ie when the buyers are paying the price they want to pay and sellers are selling at their minimum accepted price.
Eg: in a perfectly competitive market of tomatoes, there is voluntary exchange taking place. It would be distorted in government's presence or intervention.
E) Marginal thinking: it refers to thinking in terms of margin ie the additional unit.
It could be through the seller or the buyer's perspective.
Eg: if an individual is buying pizza with a given cost, he would be buying it as long as the marginal benefit from the next slice of pizza is equal to the marginal cost he is paying for the additional slice.
Hence these are the five principles of economic thought.
(You can comment for doubts)