機会費用概念をめぐる最近の議論

抄録

Opportunity cost is one of the fundamental concepts in economics. This research note picks out two articles dealing with the current controversial topics on the concept. One is “Opportunity Cost: A reexamination” by Michael Parkin from the Journal of Economic Education (2016), the other is “Is the Concept of Opportunity Cost Crucial?” by Yasukazu Ichino from the Konan Economic Papers (2017) which is written in Japanese. The former focuses the theme on which is better to define opportunity cost as the quantity or as the value of the second-best alternative, and the latter asserts the concept of opportunity cost to be unavailable and unimportant for learning microeconomics. The author refers to and interprets the arguments of the two articles by excerpting the main sections or conclusions from them. Based on scrutiny of the articles, the objective and significance of teaching the basic economic concept at the secondary education level in Japan is considered finally.