KSLU Solved Question Papers
Principles of Economics
Previous Year Question Paper with Solution
B.A. LL.B. (Five Years) · Sem 1
2021 Oct Examination
munotes.in
Mumbai
B.A. LL.B. (Five Years) Sem 1 Principles of Economics 2021 Oct Question Paper with Solutions
First published on munotes.in on 21 October 2026.
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Contents
The questions below are the paper as Karnataka State Law University set it at the 2021 Oct examination, in the order it was set.
MarksPage
MarksPage
The Paper as Set
The questions in this volume are the questions asked at the 2021 Oct examination, reproduced as Karnataka State Law University set them, in the order it set them. Long reading passages are shortened to their first and last lines and our summary; the original paper prints them in full. Only the answers are ours. See the original question paper.
Duration 3 hours · Total marks 80 · 20 questions answered
How to use this volume
Solve the paper first, under exam conditions and against the clock. Then read the answers here and mark your own. Reading a solution before attempting the question feels productive and teaches very little, because recognising an answer is not the same as being able to write one.
Q1
(a)Critically examine welfare definition of economics.[10]
Answer
For full marks, cover: why the welfare definition arose; Marshall's definition in his words, with Pigou and Cannan; the features of the definition; its merits; a critical examination centred on Robbins (1932), with his own example; and a conclusion on what the definition contributed.
Why the welfare definition arose
The classical economists, following Adam Smith, defined economics as the science of wealth. Critics such as Thomas Carlyle and John Ruskin attacked this as selfish and materialistic. Carlyle called economics "the dismal science" in 1849. Economics needed a definition that put human beings, not wealth, at its centre. Alfred Marshall supplied it.
Marshall's definition
Marshall's Principles of Economics was first published in 1890. In its eighth edition (1920) the definition reads:
"Political Economy or Economics is a study of mankind in the ordinary business of life; it examines that part of individual and social action which is most closely connected with the attainment and with the use of the material requisites of wellbeing." He went on: "Thus it is on the one side a study of wealth; and on the other, and more important side, a part of the study of man."
Two other economists put the same idea in their own words. A.C. Pigou (1920) confined economics to the part of welfare "that can be brought directly or indirectly into relation with the measuring-rod of money", which he called economic welfare. Edwin Cannan described the aim of political economy as "the explanation of the general causes on which the material welfare of human beings depends".
Features of the welfare definition
- Primacy of man. Man is studied first; wealth is studied only as a means to his welfare.
- Ordinary business of life. Economics studies how people earn and spend their incomes in daily life.
- Material welfare. Only the material side of welfare is studied: food, clothing, shelter and similar goods.
- Social science. It studies people living in society, not isolated individuals.
- Money as the measuring rod. Only welfare that can be measured in money belongs to economics.
Merits
- It made economics humane. Wealth became a servant of man, answering Carlyle and Ruskin.
- It widened the subject. Both individual and social action were included.
- It gave economics a practical aim. Promoting welfare gave a reason to study policy.
- It gave the subject a working tool. Money measurement allowed analysis to proceed.
Critical examination
1. The material and non-material distinction is false. This was the main attack, made by Lionel Robbins in An Essay on the Nature and Significance of Economic Science (1932). He compared the wages of a sewage collector with those of the members of an orchestra. The sewage collector's work is conducive to material welfare. The orchestra's work, he wrote, has "not the remotest bearing on material welfare". Yet both are paid wages, and one theory of wages explains both. So economics cannot be confined to material welfare.
2. Services are left out. Teachers, doctors, lawyers and singers render non-material services that command a price. A definition that excludes them is too narrow.
3. Welfare cannot be measured. Welfare is a state of mind. It differs from person to person, and money is only a rough and indirect measure of it. A rupee gives far more satisfaction to a poor person than to a rich one.
4. Some economic activities do not promote welfare. Liquor, tobacco and weapons are produced, bought and sold. They are clearly economic activities, but it is hard to say they promote welfare.
5. It brings value judgments into economics. To decide what promotes welfare is to make a moral judgment. Robbins argued that economics should be neutral between ends, as a positive science.
6. It is too narrow in scope. By studying only "social man in society", it seems to leave out the choices of an isolated individual. But even a person living alone must divide his scarce time and resources among competing uses.
7. It ignores scarcity. It does not make the problem of choice among scarce means central, which Robbins saw as the real economic problem.
What the definition contributed
The welfare definition was replaced, but not wasted. It shifted the focus of economics from wealth to human beings. It also laid the base for welfare economics, developed by Pigou, which studies how policies affect the well-being of society. Modern ideas such as public welfare, social security and the welfare State owe much to this outlook.
Conclusion. Marshall's welfare definition made economics a study of mankind in the ordinary business of life, with wealth only a means to material welfare. It was a great advance on the wealth definition. Critically examined, it fails because the line between material and non-material welfare cannot be drawn, as Robbins showed with his sewage collector and orchestra. It also fails because welfare cannot be measured, some economic activities harm welfare, and it brings value judgments into a science. Robbins replaced it with the scarcity definition in 1932, but the welfare outlook survives in welfare economics.
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