Question

For each part below, determine whether the following actions will increase or decrease productivity, and name the component of productivity that each affects.

Impact on Component of
productivity productivity
a. The local government builds a new school.
b. Teachers in the new school hold classes for young students.
c. A manufacturer installs robots on its assembly line.
d. A research team designs a more efficient system of irrigation.
e. A soft drink company discovers a new source of underground water that can be used to make its products.
f. A professor writes a new and improved economics textbook.
g. A large number of people have less access to health care.
h. A worker receives on-the-job training to be a mechanic.
The impact on productivity options are: increase or decrease
The component of productivity options are: Technology, Natural Resources, Human Capital, Physical Capital

Answer 1

a - Increase productivity by adding physical capital to the economy in the present and increasing the human capital in the future.

b - Increase the productivity of the economy by adding more jobs and stimulate the education by increasing the human capital of the future.

c - Increase the productivity of the economy by adding physical capital that is basically technology.

d - Increase the productivity of the economy by adding technology.

e - Increase the productivity by adding new natural resources to the production.

f - Increase the productivity by adding education and increasing the human capital of the future.

g - Decrease the productivity by affecting directly to the human capital and its ability to produce regarding the fact that is the most important factor of production.

h - Increase the productivity by adding more education to the workers and therefore increasing the human capital capacities.

Step-by-step explanation:

To begin with, all of the actions, except one, will increase the productivity of the economy due to the fact that all of them focus on a way to increase it by adding more value to the workforce or adding more physical capital to the production process of the companies. There is only one action that will decrease the productivity and it does it by affecting directly to the workforce.