A candidate who receives more than half of all the votes cast in an election has won a majority.
Missing Word
majority
A majority means more than half. With three or more candidates, the winner may receive the most votes without a majority, which is how a divided vote can let a less popular candidate win.
Category: Majority Rule
Question 2
A quota is a legal limit on the quantity of a good, such as sugar, that may be imported into a country.
Missing Word
quota
A quota restricts supply from abroad, which keeps domestic prices high and benefits domestic producers at the expense of consumers.
Category: Identifiable Winners
Question 3
In 2003, Congress expanded Medicare, the federal health insurance program for older Americans, to cover prescription drugs.
Missing Word
Medicare
Medicare is the federal health insurance program mainly for people aged 65 and older. Its expansion reflects the political strength of a group that votes at high rates and is well organized.
Category: Special Interests
Question 4
Lobbyists are people paid by organized groups to influence legislators, for example by studying bills and suggesting alternative wording.
Missing Word
Lobbyists
Lobbyists represent special interests before lawmakers. Their tactics include drafting language for bills, supporting campaigns and building relationships with key legislators.
Category: Special Interests
Question 5
Unlike a private firm, a government agency rarely faces the threat of bankruptcy, the legal process a business enters when it cannot pay its debts.
Missing Word
bankruptcy
Bankruptcy is the ultimate penalty a market imposes on an inefficient firm. Because agencies are funded by taxes, they lack this pressure to control costs.
Category: Markets and Government
Question 6
A tariff, also known as an import duty, is a tax that a government charges on goods brought into the country from abroad.
Missing Word
tariff
A tariff is a tax on imported goods. It raises their price, which helps domestic producers that compete with them and costs consumers who buy them. A tariff differs from a quota, which limits the quantity imported instead of taxing it.
Category: Identifiable Winners
Question 7
Economist Mancur Olson argued that small, well-organized groups often win policies that benefit them at the expense of large, scattered groups, an idea he called the logic of collective action.
Missing Word
Olson
Mancur Olson's 1965 book The Logic of Collective Action argued that a small group whose members each have a lot at stake organizes and lobbies more easily than a large group whose members each have little at stake. His work challenged the idea that majority views always win in a democracy and helped launch the study of public choice.
Category: Special Interests
Question 8
One market shortcoming is monopoly, a market in which a single firm is the only seller of a product with no close substitutes.
Missing Word
monopoly
Monopoly is a form of imperfect competition in which the lone seller can charge more and produce less than a competitive market would, one reason government may step in.
Category: Markets and Government
Question 9
Markets can leave a wide gap between high and low incomes, an outcome called inequality, or income disparity, that many people see as a reason for government action.
Missing Word
inequality
Inequality refers to large differences in income or wealth across households. Markets reward people according to what they produce and own, so they can leave wide gaps in income. It is a different concern from having too little income to meet basic needs.
Category: Markets and Government
Question 10
Pollution, harmful waste released into the air, water or land as a byproduct of production, is one market outcome that society may not want.
Missing Word
Pollution
Pollution imposes costs on people outside the transaction, so markets left alone tend to produce too much of it.
Category: Markets and Government
Question 11
An earmark is a provision that a single member of Congress inserts into a spending bill to direct money to a specific local project.
Missing Word
earmark
Earmarks are a common vehicle for pork-barrel spending. Each one is small compared with the federal budget, but together they add up to large sums.
Category: Pork and Logrolling
Question 12
An externality is a cost or benefit of a market exchange that falls on a third party who is not part of the deal.
Missing Word
externality
Externalities are a key reason markets can fail and a common justification for government action, though government policy has its own flaws.
Category: Markets and Government
Question 13
Voter turnout, the rate of participation among eligible citizens, is usually lower in congressional midterm elections than in presidential elections.
Missing Word
turnout
Turnout is the share of eligible voters who actually cast ballots. Midterm elections, held halfway through a president's term with no presidential race on the ballot, usually draw well below presidential-year turnout, often under half of eligible voters.
Category: Voters and Elections
Question 14
A voting cycle can occur only when voters are choosing among at least 3 options.
Missing Word
3
With only two options, a majority vote produces a clear winner. With 3 or more, pairwise votes can go in a circle, so majority rule may produce no consistent choice.
Category: Voting Cycles
Question 15
Poverty, the condition of having too little income to afford basic necessities such as food and housing, is one market result that many people see as a reason for government action.
Missing Word
Poverty
Markets pay people according to what they have to sell, including their labor, so some households end up with very low incomes. Poverty is one of the market shortcomings that government policy may try to address.
Category: Markets and Government