Determination of factors of production in economics. Factors of production in the economy

IN modern economy The main factors of production are labor, land, capital and entrepreneurship, which appear on the factor market as specific goods purchased to produce products and services.

Land is considered as a natural factor, as natural wealth and the fundamental basis of economic activity. Here, from the material factor, natural conditions are allocated to a special fund. In this case, the term “land” is used in the broad sense of the word. It covers all the utilities that are given by nature in a certain volume and over the supply of which man has no control, be it the land itself, water resources or minerals. Unlike other factors of production, LAND has one important property - limitation. A person is not able to change its size at will. In relation to this factor, we can talk about the law of diminishing returns. This refers to returns in quantitative terms or diminishing returns. A person can influence the fertility of the earth, but this influence is not unlimited. All other things being equal, the continuous application of labor and capital to land and mining will not be accompanied by a proportional increase in returns.

Labor is represented by a person’s intellectual and physical activity, the totality of a person’s abilities, conditioned by general and professional education, skills, and accumulated experience. IN economic theory Labor as a factor of production refers to any mental and physical efforts made by people in the process of economic activity in order to produce a useful result.

“All work,” notes A. Marshall, “has as its goal to produce some result.” The time during which a person works is called working time. Its duration is a variable value and has physical and spiritual boundaries. A person cannot work twenty-four hours a day. He needs time to restore his ability to work and satisfy his spiritual needs. Scientific and technological progress leads to changes in the length of the working day, in the content and nature of work. Labor becomes more skilled, time increases vocational training personnel, productivity and labor intensity increases. The intensity of labor is understood as its intensity, the increase in the expenditure of physical and mental energy per unit of time. Labor productivity shows how much product is produced per unit of time. A variety of factors influence the increase in labor productivity.

Capital is another factor of production and is considered as a set of means of labor that are used in the production of goods and services. The term "capital" has many meanings. In some cases, capital is identified with the means of production (D. Ricardo), in others - with accumulated material wealth, with money, with accumulated social intelligence. A. Smith considered capital as accumulated labor, K. Marx - as a self-increasing value, as a social relation. Capital can also be defined as investment resources used in the production of goods and services and their delivery to the consumer. Views on capital are varied, but they all agree on one thing: capital is associated with the ability of certain values ​​to generate income. Outside of movement, both the means of production and money are dead bodies. In economic theory and business practice, perhaps, there is no concept that is used so often and at the same time so ambiguously as capital. This term is used in relation to equipment, buildings, money and securities, as well as in relation to a talented engineer and an enterprising manager (“Human Capital”). What all these examples have in common is that capital is consistently associated with the ability to generate income.

In the factor market, capital refers to physical capital, or production assets, is a capital good, using which you can increase your income stream in the future. Thus, not only labor, but also capital is productive. If the labor factor is a phenomenon created outside economic system, then capital is a factor produced by the economic system itself. Capital is in demand because it is productive. The subjects of demand for capital are entrepreneurs and businesses, the subjects of capital supply are households. The demand for capital is a process for investment funds, not just money. Businesses demand certain amounts of money to purchase capital in physical form. The demand for money has a different nature; it is not related to entrepreneurial activity. The graphical demand for capital can be represented as a curve that has a negative slope, since in relation to capital, as well as to other factors of production, the law of diminishing returns applies: the level of income on capital tends to decrease as investment funds grow. The level of income on capital is also called the net productivity of capital, and expressed as a percentage - the natural rate of interest. The supply of capital should not be understood in the sense that households (population) offer machines, equipment, etc. to businesses. They offer investment funds i.e. sums of money that a business uses to acquire productive assets. This happens with the help of intermediaries - investment funds, commercial banks, etc.

Entrepreneurial activity is considered as a specific factor of production, bringing together all other factors and ensuring their interaction through the knowledge, initiative, ingenuity and risk of the entrepreneur in organizing production. This is a special type of human capital. Entrepreneurial activity in its scale and results is equal to the costs of highly qualified labor. The concept of “entrepreneurship” was first used as a scientific term by an English economist of the late 17th - early 18th centuries. Richard Contillon. In his opinion, an entrepreneur is a person operating under risk conditions. R. Contillon considered the source of wealth to be land and labor, which determine actual value economic benefits. Entrepreneurial ability is a special type of human capital represented by the activity of coordinating and combining all other factors of production in order to create goods and services. The specificity of this type of human resource is the ability and desire to introduce new types of manufactured products, technologies, and forms of business organization during the production process on a commercial basis, with a certain degree of risk and the possibility of incurring losses. Entrepreneurial activity in its scale and results is equal to the costs of highly qualified labor. An entrepreneur is an integral attribute of a market economy. The concept of "entrepreneur" is often associated with the concept of "owner". According to Cantilhomme (18th century), an entrepreneur is a person with an uncertain, non-fixed income (peasant, artisan, merchant, etc.). He receives other people's goods at a known price, but will sell them at a price still unknown to him. A. Smith characterized an entrepreneur as an owner who takes economic risks in order to implement a commercial idea and make a profit. The entrepreneur acts as an intermediary, combining factors of production at his discretion. The union of the owner and the entrepreneur in one person began to collapse with the advent of credit and became most pronounced with the development of joint stock companies. In a corporate economy, property as a legal factor loses its administrative functions. The role of property is becoming increasingly passive. The owner only owns a piece of paper. The manager is responsible for performance results. He is driven by the will to win, the desire to fight, and the special creative nature of his work.

Labor, land and capital are thus the most universal types of resources used to produce material goods and are called factors of production. Various theoretical concepts are based on a more detailed division of these factors (instead of the labor factor, for example, the labor of skilled workers, managerial work, the work of scientists, etc.). Global stocks of production factor resources are constantly changing in volume and proportions by country. Historically, the first was the separation of land and its associated natural resource parameters. As a result of the long evolution of populations and numerous movements of peoples, the modern territorial and natural-climatic area of ​​nations-states has emerged. Trade exchange between them and the specialization of countries and peoples determined by it in the production of certain material goods predetermined various types of international division of labor, i.e. separation of various types of human activity, accompanied by their cooperation. Finally, the formation of capital as a factor of production in all its forms also occurred unevenly, with the result that its distribution (the division between nation-states) is also characterized by uneven sizes and proportions. The best for that confirmation - the state and dynamics of development of international financial resources. Thus, different nation-states have developed different endowments of factors of production, which determine their production and trading opportunities, the size of trading winnings and, ultimately, the possibility of increasing wealth. Along with the concept of “endowment with factors of production” great value also has the concept of “intensity of use of production factors”. Researchers often associate it with technology. The intensity of use of individual factors can compensate for the relatively small endowment of any country with any factor and in this case itself become an acquired factor of production. For example, Japan successfully compensates for the lack of land and mineral reserves with a highly developed level of technology, which can also be interpreted as the intensive use of the qualified factor labor force, and as an independent factor. In any case, an advantage can only be called an advantage resulting from the intensive use of a surplus factor.

Production is the process of influencing nature in order to create material goods and services necessary for the development of society.

There are two levels of production. Individual production is an activity on the scale of the main production unit (company).

Social production is the entire system of production connections between enterprises, including production infrastructure, that is, industries and enterprises that do not independently produce products, but ensure their technological movement (transport, communications, warehouses, etc.).

The production process creates two types of products: means of production and consumer goods. Means of production - production products intended for industrial use. They, in turn, are divided into means and objects of labor. The means of labor include all those products that provide human influence on objects of labor and are used in production many times, constantly (land, productive livestock, buildings and structures, machines, equipment, etc.). Consumer goods are production products intended to satisfy the personal final needs of people (food, clothing, shoes, housing, cultural and household goods and household goods).

Production is the starting point for the creation of material and intangible goods and the main source of meeting people's needs. It is between people's desires and their fulfillment, creating a field for consumption.

Factors of production are the resources of the economy used in production. Their total value constitutes the country's production potential.

There are various classifications factors of production. The main factors are labor, land and capital.

Labor is all the physical and mental abilities of people used in the production of goods and services. The main difference between labor and other factors is that labor is a function of human life. Work is always expedient and aimed at benefiting society.

In conditions market economy, where all factors of production are bought and sold, labor takes the form of labor power. Labor force is a person’s ability to work.

Land is everything that man himself has not created, but uses in production, that is natural resources, free benefits of nature. This factor of production includes soil cover, water resources, and minerals. This factor is used for the mining industry, construction, and fishing.

Capital is the human-created means of production and monetary savings used in the production of goods and services. This factor of production includes residential buildings, production facilities, machinery, equipment, infrastructure, and inventories. Capital is often called an “investment resource,” since investment is the investment of funds in the economy and in various projects for its development.

In addition to the three main factors, a number of additional production factors are taken into account: entrepreneurial activity, technology, information, ecology, culture, social factors(legal culture), science

A special factor that is often referred to as the main factors of production is entrepreneurial activity or entrepreneurship. This is the ability to organize production most effectively, choose goals and methods for achieving them, make decisions, that is, make the most of all factors of production.

Each combination of factors of production corresponds to its own specific result. The relationship between the number of factors used (resource costs) and the volume of output is called the production function.

Economic efficiency (production efficiency) is the ratio of the useful result and the costs of factors production process.

An economically efficient production method is considered to be one in which a firm cannot increase output without increasing the cost of resources and at the same time cannot provide the same volume of output using fewer resources of one type and without increasing the costs of other resources.

Production efficiency consists of the efficiency of all operating enterprises. Enterprise efficiency is characterized by the production of a product or service at the lowest cost. It is expressed in its ability to produce the maximum volume of products of acceptable quality with minimal costs and sell these products at the lowest cost. The economic efficiency of an enterprise, in contrast to its technical efficiency, depends on the extent to which its products meet market requirements and consumer demands.

More on topic 5 The concept of production, factors of production. Economic efficiency:

1. Analysis and assessment of the economic efficiency of introducing technical and organizational measures and identifying the influence of factors on their change
2. Key aspects of the doctrine of the cyclical development of a market society and their reflection in the system of socio-economic knowledge
3. 3. The concept of property, the evolution of its forms and economic systems
4. 2.3. Production efficiency, its indicators and increasing factors
5. 5 The concept of production, factors of production. Economic efficiency.
6. RESOURCES AND FACTORS OF PRODUCTION. PRODUCTION CAPABILITIES AND THEIR LIMITS
7. 2. The concept of social reproduction and its concepts

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Factors of production are a set of conditions for production activity and production resources involved in these conditions.

In the classical economic school, there are only two factors of production - labor and capital (personal factor of production and material factor). The first factor combines all human activity carried out in the production process, including the work of managers and entrepreneurs. And in the second - all other production elements that require preliminary capital investments: i.e. raw materials and means of production.

In neoclassical microeconomics, a different system of production factors is adopted:

• - Earth;
• - Labor;
• - Information (NTP)
• - Capital;
• - Activities of an entrepreneur.

Labor is a purposeful human activity to create economic benefits, a manifestation of the totality of mental and physical abilities of a person as a whole.

Capital refers to production (capital) resources. It includes the totality of goods created by a person’s past labor: buildings, structures, machines, machines, tools, etc. Stocks, bonds, money, bank deposits do not belong to this factor of production.

Land is a natural resource. As a factor of production, it covers all agricultural land and urban land that is allocated for residential or industrial development, as well as the totality of natural conditions necessary for the production of goods and services.

Entrepreneurial talent presupposes a person’s special abilities, which consist in his ability to:

organize the production and release of goods and services by combining all the necessary factors of production;

make major decisions on production management and business management;

risk in cash, time, labor, business reputation, since activity in the market is associated with great uncertainty, and the result is not guaranteed;

to be an innovator, that is, to introduce new technologies, new products, methods of organizing production.

However, the activity of an entrepreneur, with all its features, can be considered as a type of labor.

One of the key economic resources in modern stage development of society is information.

Having reliable information is a necessary condition to solve the problems facing economic entity problems. However, even complete information is not a guarantee of success. The ability to use the information received to make the best decision under the current circumstances characterizes such a resource as knowledge. The carriers of this resource are qualified personnel in the field of management, sales and customer service, maintenance goods. It is this resource that gives the greatest return in business. “What distinguishes a strong company from a weak one is, first of all, the level of qualifications of its specialists and management staff, his knowledge, motivations and aspirations"

In a market economy, all of the above economic resources are freely bought, sold and bring special (factor) income to their owners:

• - rent (land);
• - interest (capital);
• - wages (labor);
• - profit (entrepreneurial ability).

German economist and philosopher of the 19th century. Karl Marx identified personal and material factors of production, while the person himself, as the bearer of labor power, acts as a personal factor, and the material factor of production refers to the means of production, which in turn consist of means of labor and objects of labor.

A means of labor is “... a thing or a complex of things that a person places between himself and the object of labor and which serves for him as a conductor of his influence on this object.” Means of labor, and, above all, tools of labor, include machines, machine tools, tools with which a person influences nature, as well as industrial buildings, land, canals, roads, etc. The use and creation of means of labor -- characteristic feature labor activity person. The means of labor in a broader sense include all the material conditions of labor, without which it cannot be carried out. The general condition of labor is land; working conditions are also industrial buildings, roads, etc. The results of social knowledge of nature are embodied in the means of labor and their processes industrial applications, in engineering and technology. The level of development of technology (and technology) serves as the main indicator of the degree to which society has mastered the forces of nature. “Technology reveals man’s active relationship to nature, the direct process of production of his life”

Objects of labor are a substance of nature that a person influences during the labor process in order to adapt it for personal or industrial consumption. An object of labor that has already undergone the influence of human labor, but intended for further processing, is called Raw Material. Some finished products can also enter the production process as an object of labor (for example, grapes in the wine industry, animal oil in the confectionery industry). “If we consider the entire process from the point of view of its result - the product, then both the means of labor and the object of labor both act as means of production, and the labor itself - as productive labor"

According to K. Marx, the totality of production factors act as productive forces that are inextricably linked with production relations. Some characterize the material content of the process social production, and others have its historically determined form. Evolving, each stage of development of productive forces, characterized by the type of production relations, constitutes a unique mode of production.

Non-Marxist economic theorists do not agree with K. Marx’s position that new value is created only by hired workers, and it is believed that all factors of production take an equal part in its creation. Thus, Alfred Marshall wrote: “capital in general and labor in general interact in the production of the national dividend and receive their income from it according to the measure of their (marginal) productivity. Their mutual dependence is the closest; capital is dead without labor; a worker without the help of his own or someone else's capital will not live long. When labor is energetic, capital reaps rich fruits and grows rapidly; Thanks to capital and knowledge, the ordinary worker of the Western world is fed, clothed and even housed in many respects better than the princes of former times. Cooperation between capital and labor is as necessary as that between spinner and weaver; slight priority on the spinner's side, but this does not give him any advantage. The prosperity of each of them is closely connected with the strength and energy of the other, although each of them can gain for itself temporarily, or even permanently, at the expense of the other, a somewhat larger share of the national dividend.”

The resources that people use to produce economic goods are called FACTORS OF PRODUCTION.

The diversity of resources that society has at its disposal suggests that the factors of production are also diverse. We, however, will further consider four of their types. These are land and other natural resources, capital, labor and entrepreneurial ability. These factors are a necessary condition for production in any sector of the economy. Combining together, they create all types of goods and services needed by society.

Types of production factors

Land and other natural resources. This group includes all the “free benefits of nature” that are used in the production process: plots of land as the site on which industrial buildings and structures are located, educational institutions, shops, etc.; arable land on which crops are grown; forests, water, mineral deposits, etc.

Capital includes human-made means of production. Capital is machines and equipment, industrial buildings, structures, vehicles, power lines and transport communications, computer technology And measuring instruments, extracted raw materials and semi-finished products - in a word, everything that is used by people to produce goods and services or serves as a necessary condition for such production.

Capital as a means of production (physical capital) should be distinguished from financial capital, which refers to money used to purchase factors of production in order to organize the production of goods and services.

Work as a factor of production, it is a set of physical and mental abilities that people use in the process of creating economic goods.

The magnitude of this factor depends on a number of parameters. First of all, it depends on the number of people of working age. But no less important is the quality of work, which is determined by the level of education of people, their qualifications, state of health, nature of work and motivation to work.

Entrepreneurial skills. Entrepreneurial abilities are possessed by a very small proportion of people performing functions without which an organization would not be successful. production activity would be impossible. These functions include: the ability to correctly combine factors of production - land, labor, capital and organize production; ability to make decisions and take responsibility; ability to take risks; be receptive to new science and technology.

Factors of production are owned by individuals, companies or the government. Each factor participates in the creation of various goods and services and brings corresponding income to the owner of this factor. Wages represents a reward for labor, the owners of capital receive interest, the owners of land - rent, the owners of entrepreneurial abilities - profit.

Scheme in Fig. 1-1 illustrates the formation of income created various factors.

Rice. 1-1. Factors of production and the income they generate.

Source: Economics. Fundamentals of economic theory: textbook for grades 10–11. for educational organizations. Advanced level: in 2 books. Book 2 // Edited by: Ivanov S. I., Linkov A. Ya. Publisher: Vita-Press, 2018 Evolution of factors of production and transformation of the role of labor Ideas about the importance of different factors of production have changed as complexity has increased economic development. Functions of forest resources Forest exchange in the Irkutsk region Types of transaction costs in project management The work proposes a division transaction costs into two categories: ex ante, i.e. arising before the implementation of the project (initiatives, programs, etc.), and ex post - accompanying its implementation. Increasing competition for human resources between municipalities, as a result of population decline Features of property rights to natural resources Natural resources, as a legal term Natural object, as an economic term Ecology, as an economic term

Production- the process of direct creation of material and spiritual values ​​and its goal is to satisfy the various needs of the individual and society as a whole.

Factors of production- These are the resources necessary for the production process.

Exists five main factors of production:

work. This economic activity people aimed at generating income and satisfying needs. In the process of work, a person expends physical and mental energy. IN various types labor may be dominated by intellectual or physical labor. Labor can be simple and complex, skilled and unskilled. The result of labor can be a material (a residential building, a parking lot, a bridge over a river) or an intangible product (for example, information, a service);

capital. These are means of production for long-term or short-term use (raw materials, machinery, equipment, structures). Separately allocate money capital– financial assets intended to be converted into real assets. Money itself is not a factor of production, but it plays a significant role in the activities of an enterprise;

Earth(natural resources). Earth is every place where a person is (resting, working, etc.). There are a variety of businesses located on the land. The earth is a source of minerals and natural resources. Earth like economic factor takes into account all these functions of natural factors in the economy;

technical progress. Industrial installations may have the same cost, but one may be new and the other obsolete. If other factors of production are the same, then the best economic results will be achieved by an enterprise using modern equipment;

information. Due to the widespread computer equipment Information begins to play a significant role in production. Possession of information helps an enterprise to carry out its activities more efficiently.

Interaction and combination of production factors. Production requires certain resources that are used in the right combinations. All resources cannot participate in production in isolation. They interact only in certain combinations. They all complement each other. At the same time, they interact. For example, machinery and equipment can be replaced by the labor of workers, natural materials– artificial.

When one type of resource becomes more expensive for some reason, they try to replace it with a cheaper one, and accordingly, the demand for it increases. An increase in demand can lead to an increase in the price of a particular resource. Therefore, a change in the price of one resource leads to a change in the prices of other resources.

The supply of production factors primarily depends on the specifics of each market. Depending on market development factors, the offer is formed. However, what all markets have in common is that the amount of resources offered for sale is limited compared to the needs for their production.

The result of production, which means that the interaction of its factors is a product - a useful thing, item or service that can satisfy a certain need.

The term "property" has two main meanings:

as a designation of any property (in the form of any objects - objects of property);

as a reflection of the fact that any property belongs to the subject of ownership.

Subject of property (owner) – active side property relations, having the opportunity and right to own an object of property. In the strict sense of the word, subjects of property are obviously animate persons, although they are often replaced by categories such as “state”, which leads to “subjectless” property, which is an abstraction. In principle, the “state” can be reduced to a group of individuals forming an apparatus public administration, however, its understanding as a social institution representing the entire society is more accurate (in this sense, the scope of the concepts “society” and “state” coincide).

Property – the passive side of property relations in the form of objects of nature, matter, energy, information, property, intelligence, wholly or to some extent belonging to the subject.

Property is not only a key economic category, but also one of the basic legal categories. Therefore, it is necessary to clearly distinguish between the legal and economic aspects of maintaining property.

From the legal side, property is the relationship of owners, subjects of property to its objects. They are defined in detail by private law (in Russian Federation this is the Civil Code), according to which the legal powers of the owner are the right, at his own discretion, to own (actually possess), use (extract useful properties for oneself) and dispose of (determine the legal fate of the good, for example, sell, exchange, give, inherit, pledge, lease) property.

Economic content ownership became important as social production developed and new forms of entrepreneurial activity emerged.

subject composition, i.e. owners, parties (participants) in property relations;

object composition, i.e. a complex of material and intangible benefits regarding which relationships between people develop;

the actual system of relations between subjects;

economic implementation of relations between subjects.

Transformation of property relations in the process of transition to a market economy.

The basis of the economic system in the USSR was public ownership of the means of production, which acted as state property. Already in the 30s it was declared predominant, and by the beginning of the 90s social structure property had the following form: state - 89.2, collective farm - 8.3, cooperatives for the production of goods and services (including housing cooperatives) - 1.4, citizen property - 1.1%. If we take into account that collective farm property was essentially state property, then we can come to the conclusion about the absolute state monopolization of the means of production during this period.

In the economic field, this manifested itself primarily in direct denial:

Competition as a regulatory and control mechanism and replacing it with socialist competition, with the awarding of challenge banners, pennants, certificates of honor, medals, cash prizes, etc. to its winners;

Systems of markets and prices as the main organizing force and replacing them with a plan and planned pricing.

The governing bodies “at the top” have appropriated to themselves all the basic powers of the owner, transferring to the collectives of enterprises only the right to use the means of production, and to the management of enterprises - only a limited right of operational management.

“The party-bureaucratic machine, having retained its leading position, came into conflict with “perestroika.” To top it all off, the USSR collapsed and independent states were formed, incl. and RF.

The course taken in the Russian Federation for a radical restructuring of the economy was aimed at creating conditions for the transition to market relations and was carried out according to the “shock therapy” option. The strategy for this option included:

1) development and application of an anti-inflationary stabilization program;

2) carrying out deep institutional reforms and, above all, fundamental changes in property relations.

The result of the struggle between representatives of the “old” and “new” party-bureaucratic nomenclature became government program privatization, the preparation of which continued throughout 1992. The privatization program was based on a model of combining a commercial approach with preferential sales and gratuitous transfer of part of state property labor collectives or exchanging vouchers for shares.

5 Economic laws – necessary, sustainable, repetition, causality. connections and interdependence of economic phenomena. in percent production, distribution and the exchange of material goods and services at various stages of development of human society.

Basic economic laws: Law of demand, Law of supply, Law of general macroeconomic equilibrium, Law of competition, Law of value, Laws of monetary circulation, Laws economic growth, Law of accumulation.

The objectivity of economic laws means that they arise and exist independently of the will and consciousness of people

Economic science classifies laws: specific and general economic ones.

Specific- this is zak. development of specific historical forms of management.

General- these are laws characteristic of all historical eras; they connect them into a single historical process of progressive development.

Cognition economic laws includes:

disclosure of the internal content of each of the laws and its significance in economic development;

study of material prerequisites and economic conditions the action of laws and their interaction in the system of economic laws;

allocation specific forms manifestations of the law in certain socio-economic conditions;

identifying the data requirements of economic law as in their general view, and in relation to certain specific historical conditions;

identifying those objective trends in economic development that lead to the withering away or modification of a given economic law.

Effective usage:

analysis of the state of the economy and objective trends in its development at this stage;

developing a scientifically based idea of ​​the desired results of economic development, commensurate with both the resources and capabilities of society and its developing needs;

determination of the nature of the action of certain social forces, ways and forms of unification, combination of their activities aimed at achieving the intended results in accordance with the requirements of the system of economic laws.