There is no free lunch in economics means that everything comes with a price. The price may not always be money. If you get something for free, there is a cost that has be paid somewhere in the wider economic system.

To achieve these goals, governments use policy tools which are under the control of the government. These generally include the interest rate and money supply, tax and government spending, tariffs, exchange rates, labor market regulations, and many other aspects of government.

Ceteris paribus is a Latin phrase that generally means “all other things being equal.” In economics, it acts as a shorthand indication of the effect one economic variable has on another, provided all other variables remain the same.

“There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch” (TANSTAAFL) is a phrase that describes the cost of decision-making and consumption. TANSTAAFL suggests that things that appear to be free will always have some hidden or implicit cost to someone, even if it is not the individual receiving the benefit.

Because ALL economic resources are scarce, every society must answer three questions:

• What goods and services should be produced?
• How should these goods and services be produced?
• Who consumes these goods and services?

There’s no free lunch is an American axiom that is well known in economic circles, though its origins seem to be in literature. The phrase there’s no free lunch means you don’t get something for nothing, or anything one receives for free will be paid for in another way.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt

John Ruskin

Micro economic problems

• The problem of externalities. The economic problem of pollution.
• Environmental issues.
• Monopoly.
• Inequality/poverty.
• Volatile prices.
• Irrational behaviour.
• Recession.
• Inflation.

A free market is one where voluntary exchange and the laws of supply and demand provide the sole basis for the economic system, without government intervention. A key feature of free markets is the absence of coerced (forced) transactions or conditions on transactions.