Resources
Also called: Productive resources · Topic: Scarcity, Choice and Economic Systems · NCERT: Class 9, Ch 8 "Building Blocks in Economics: The Problem of Choice"; Class 12, Ch 1 "Introduction (Microeconomics)"
Meaning
Resources are the goods and services used to produce other goods and services, such as land, labour, tools and machinery. Class 9 splits them into:
- natural resources, such as water and coal;
- human-made resources, such as capital (machines, buildings) and technology.
Resources are limited compared with human wants, and most can be used in more than one way. That is why every society must choose how to use them.
Example
A carpenter uses wood, a saw, a workshop and their own labour and skill to make a chair. All of these are resources. The chair is the output.
Don't confuse with
- Goods (as final output): the same item can be a resource or a final good depending on its use. Rice cooked at home is a final good. Rice sold to a restaurant to make biryani is a resource.