Economics

Free Market and Ethical Issues

In this assignment, you will write a research paper about social problems where the free markets are not allowed to function, which includes the market for a particular illegal good or service, a regulated market, etc.

Before beginning this assignment, view the Library Tutorial.

Markets are mechanisms for coordinating the set of connections of production operations that are distributed throughout the whole economic system. Thus, the market is the predominant and determining link between producers of goods and services and consumers. Accordingly, markets, as an exchange of goods and services that takes place as a result of buyers and sellers interactions, are generally considered the most efficient allocator of resources in the market economy.

However, free markets are unable to solve many social problems, and they make others worse. One such social problem is illegal drugs. Another example is environmental issues such as pollution. For one example of a social problem where supply and demand is not allowed to function freely, conduct basic research on markets for human organs. There are black markets (underground economies) for human organs in some countries. But a trade in human organs, based on supply and demand, raises enormous and troubling ethical issues and shows that free markets are clearly limited in their ability to provide answers to social problems.

Course Outcome practiced and assessed in this assignment:

GB540-1: Evaluate ethical issues in economics.

Directions

Your research should be about social problems where the free markets are not allowed to function, which includes the market for a particular illegal good or service, a regulated market, etc.

• Select a social problem where free markets are not allowed to function, and conduct research on the social problem.
• Describe how free market features could be introduced to help alleviate the social problem through free market operations of supply and demand.
• Discuss the risks of introducing market mechanisms of supply and demand in situations where ethical issues are present.
• Explain roles of the government in maintaining ethical business practices.

Criteria

• Your assignment should have a cover sheet with the following information: Title of the paper, Your Name, Course Number and Section Number, and Date.
• It must be a minimum of five pages long (excluding title page, references, etc.).
• Be sure to include the criteria located in the rubric below within your paper.
• It must be APA formatted with citations to your sources and your last page should list all references used. For assistance on APA format, visit the various writing resources, accessed under the Academic Tools area in the left navigation pane.
• You must use a variety of three objective, high quality, and current sources. Peer reviewed articles, articles published in journals, textbooks, and library resources found in the Library are examples of high quality resources.
• Note that Wikipedia, Investopedia, etc. are not considered as reliable resources for this research.

Directions for Submitting

Submit your Assignment to the Unit 1 Assignment Dropbox by the end of Unit 1.