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115-606: The country of Burkina Faso was formerly called Upper Volta , after the river. Lake Volta is a reservoir impounded by the Akosombo Dam on the lower Volta River in southern Ghana. It is one of the largest reservoirs in the world. It extends from the Akosombo Dam in southeastern Ghana to the town of Yapei in the Central Gonja District , Northern Region of Ghana , some 400 kilometres (250 mi) to

230-432: A curfew . On 31 October 2014, Compaoré resigned. Lt. Col. Isaac Zida said that he would lead the country during its transitional period before the planned 2015 presidential election , but there were concerns over his close ties to the former president. In November 2014 opposition parties, civil-society groups and religious leaders adopted a plan for a transitional authority to guide Burkina Faso to elections. Under

345-464: A coup d'état organized by Blaise Compaoré, Sankara's former colleague, who took over as Burkina Faso's president. He held the position until October 2014. After the coup and although Sankara was known to be dead, some CDRs mounted an armed resistance to the army for several days. A majority of Burkinabè citizens hold that France's foreign ministry , the Quai d'Orsay , was behind Compaoré in organizing

460-702: A definition of economics as a study of human behaviour, subject to and constrained by scarcity, which forces people to choose, allocate scarce resources to competing ends, and economise (seeking the greatest welfare while avoiding the wasting of scarce resources). According to Robbins: "Economics is the science which studies human behavior as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses". Robbins' definition eventually became widely accepted by mainstream economists, and found its way into current textbooks. Although far from unanimous, most mainstream economists would accept some version of Robbins' definition, even though many have raised serious objections to

575-451: A distinct field. The book focused on determinants of national income in the short run when prices are relatively inflexible. Keynes attempted to explain in broad theoretical detail why high labour-market unemployment might not be self-correcting due to low " effective demand " and why even price flexibility and monetary policy might be unavailing. The term "revolutionary" has been applied to the book in its impact on economic analysis. During

690-420: A lower relative cost of production, rather relying only on its own production. It has been termed a "fundamental analytical explanation" for gains from trade . Coming at the end of the classical tradition, John Stuart Mill (1848) parted company with the earlier classical economists on the inevitability of the distribution of income produced by the market system. Mill pointed to a distinct difference between

805-455: A military coup d'état on 4 August 1983. The coup brought Sankara to power and his government began to implement a series of revolutionary programs which included mass-vaccinations, infrastructure improvements, the expansion of women's rights, encouragement of domestic agricultural consumption, and anti-desertification projects. On 2 August 1984, on Sankara's initiative, the country's name changed from "Upper Volta" to "Burkina Faso", or land of

920-749: A minimum of 116 mostly Fulani civilians were killed by military forces without trial. The attacks increased significantly in 2019 . According to the ACLED , armed violence in Burkina Faso jumped by 174% in 2019, with nearly 1,300 civilians dead and 860,000 displaced. Jihadist groups also began to specifically target Christians . On 8 July 2020, the United States raised concerns after a Human Rights Watch report revealed mass graves with at least 180 bodies, which were found in northern Burkina Faso where soldiers were fighting jihadists. On 4 June 2021,

1035-449: A more comprehensive theory of costs on the supply side. In the 20th century, neoclassical theorists departed from an earlier idea that suggested measuring total utility for a society, opting instead for ordinal utility , which posits behaviour-based relations across individuals. In microeconomics , neoclassical economics represents incentives and costs as playing a pervasive role in shaping decision making . An immediate example of this

1150-467: A more important role in mainstream economic theory. Also, heterogeneity among the economic agents, e.g. differences in income, plays an increasing role in recent economic research. Other schools or trends of thought referring to a particular style of economics practised at and disseminated from well-defined groups of academicians that have become known worldwide, include the Freiburg School ,

1265-597: A proportion of the value their work had created. Marxian economics was further developed by Karl Kautsky (1854–1938)'s The Economic Doctrines of Karl Marx and The Class Struggle (Erfurt Program) , Rudolf Hilferding 's (1877–1941) Finance Capital , Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924)'s The Development of Capitalism in Russia and Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism , and Rosa Luxemburg (1871–1919)'s The Accumulation of Capital . At its inception as

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1380-409: A rapidly growing population against a limited amount of land meant diminishing returns to labour. The result, he claimed, was chronically low wages, which prevented the standard of living for most of the population from rising above the subsistence level. Economist Julian Simon has criticised Malthus's conclusions. While Adam Smith emphasised production and income, David Ricardo (1817) focused on

1495-469: A set of stable preferences, a definite overall guiding objective, and the capability of making a choice. There exists an economic problem, subject to study by economic science, when a decision (choice) is made by one or more players to attain the best possible outcome. Keynesian economics derives from John Maynard Keynes , in particular his book The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1936), which ushered in contemporary macroeconomics as

1610-409: A single tax on income of land owners. In reaction against copious mercantilist trade regulations, the physiocrats advocated a policy of laissez-faire , which called for minimal government intervention in the economy. Adam Smith (1723–1790) was an early economic theorist. Smith was harshly critical of the mercantilists but described the physiocratic system "with all its imperfections" as "perhaps

1725-452: A social science, economics was defined and discussed at length as the study of production, distribution, and consumption of wealth by Jean-Baptiste Say in his Treatise on Political Economy or, The Production, Distribution, and Consumption of Wealth (1803). These three items were considered only in relation to the increase or diminution of wealth, and not in reference to their processes of execution. Say's definition has survived in part up to

1840-435: A sought after end). Some subsequent comments criticised the definition as overly broad in failing to limit its subject matter to analysis of markets. From the 1960s, however, such comments abated as the economic theory of maximizing behaviour and rational-choice modelling expanded the domain of the subject to areas previously treated in other fields. There are other criticisms as well, such as in scarcity not accounting for

1955-438: A successful coup in 1983. As president, Sankara embarked on a series of ambitious socioeconomic reforms which included a nationwide literacy campaign, land redistribution to peasants , vaccinations for over 2 million children, railway and road construction, equalized access to education, and the outlawing of female genital mutilation , forced marriages , and polygamy . He served as the country's president until 1987 when he

2070-442: A synthesis emerged by the 2000s, often given the name the new neoclassical synthesis . It integrated the rational expectations and optimizing framework of the new classical theory with a new Keynesian role for nominal rigidities and other market imperfections like imperfect information in goods, labour and credit markets. The monetarist importance of monetary policy in stabilizing the economy and in particular controlling inflation

2185-605: A total of 127. The Congress for Democracy and Progress (CDP), the party of former President Blaise Compaoré, was distant second with 20 seats. A Jihadist insurgency began in August 2015, part of the Islamist insurgency in the Sahel . Between August 2015 and October 2016, seven different posts were attacked across the country. On 15 January 2016, terrorists attacked the capital city of Ouagadougou , killing 30 people. Al-Qaeda in

2300-441: A total population 10 times that size. In February 2011, the death of a schoolboy provoked the 2011 Burkinabè protests , a series of popular protests, coupled with a military mutiny and a magistrates' strike, that called for Compaoré's resignation, democratic reforms, higher wages for troops and public servants and economic freedom. As a result, governors were replaced and wages for public servants were raised. In April 2011, there

2415-421: Is a term for the "way (nomos) to run a household (oikos)", or in other words the know-how of an οἰκονομικός ( oikonomikos ), or "household or homestead manager". Derived terms such as "economy" can therefore often mean "frugal" or "thrifty". By extension then, "political economy" was the way to manage a polis or state. There are a variety of modern definitions of economics ; some reflect evolving views of

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2530-438: Is also applied to such diverse subjects as crime , education , the family , feminism , law , philosophy , politics , religion , social institutions , war , science , and the environment . The earlier term for the discipline was "political economy", but since the late 19th century, it has commonly been called "economics". The term is ultimately derived from Ancient Greek οἰκονομία ( oikonomia ) which

2645-404: Is debate about the exact dates when Burkina Faso's many ethnic groups arrived to the area. The Proto-Mossi arrived in the far eastern part of what is today Burkina Faso sometime between the 8th and 11th centuries, and accepted Islam as their religion in the 11th century. The Samo arrived around the 15th century. The Dogon lived in Burkina Faso's north and northwest regions until sometime in

2760-736: Is governed as a semi-presidential republic , with executive, legislative and judicial powers. It is a member of the United Nations , La Francophonie and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation . On 18 January 2024, Burkina Faso announced its exit from ECOWAS and the African Union . Formerly the Republic of Upper Volta , the country was renamed "Burkina Faso" on 4 August 1984 by then-President Thomas Sankara . The words "Burkina" and "Faso" stem from different languages spoken in

2875-413: Is promoting it. By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for the society that it

2990-598: Is the consumer theory of individual demand, which isolates how prices (as costs) and income affect quantity demanded. In macroeconomics it is reflected in an early and lasting neoclassical synthesis with Keynesian macroeconomics. Neoclassical economics is occasionally referred as orthodox economics whether by its critics or sympathisers. Modern mainstream economics builds on neoclassical economics but with many refinements that either supplement or generalise earlier analysis, such as econometrics , game theory , analysis of market failure and imperfect competition , and

3105-402: Is today Burkina Faso. At times these colonialists and their armies fought the local peoples; at times they forged alliances with them and made treaties. The colonialist officers and their home governments also made treaties among themselves. The territory of Burkina Faso was invaded by France , becoming a French protectorate in 1896. The eastern and western regions, where a standoff against

3220-585: The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank . His domestic policies included a nationwide literacy campaign, land redistribution to peasants, railway and road construction and the outlawing of female genital mutilation , forced marriages and polygamy . Sankara pushed for agrarian self-sufficiency and promoted public health by vaccinating 2,500,000 children against meningitis , yellow fever , and measles . His national agenda also included planting over 10,000,000 trees to halt

3335-535: The Republic of Upper Volta (1958–1984), it was renamed Burkina Faso by former president Thomas Sankara . Its citizens are known as Burkinabè , and its capital and largest city is Ouagadougou . The largest ethnic group in Burkina Faso is the Mossi people , who settled the area in the 11th and 13th centuries. They established powerful kingdoms such as the Ouagadougou, Tenkodogo, and Yatenga. In 1896, it

3450-780: The School of Lausanne , the Stockholm school and the Chicago school of economics . During the 1970s and 1980s mainstream economics was sometimes separated into the Saltwater approach of those universities along the Eastern and Western coasts of the US, and the Freshwater, or Chicago school approach. Within macroeconomics there is, in general order of their historical appearance in

3565-428: The least developed countries in the world, with a GDP of $ 16.226 billion in 2022. Approximately 63.8% of its population practices Islam , while 26.3% practices Christianity. The country's official language of government and business was French , until January 2024, by ratification of a constitutional amendment, the status of French was demoted to that of a "working language" of the country, alongside English . While

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3680-433: The macroeconomics of high unemployment. Gary Becker , a contributor to the expansion of economics into new areas, described the approach he favoured as "combin[ing the] assumptions of maximizing behaviour, stable preferences , and market equilibrium , used relentlessly and unflinchingly." One commentary characterises the remark as making economics an approach rather than a subject matter but with great specificity as to

3795-467: The neoclassical model of economic growth for analysing long-run variables affecting national income . Neoclassical economics studies the behaviour of individuals , households , and organisations (called economic actors, players, or agents), when they manage or use scarce resources, which have alternative uses, to achieve desired ends. Agents are assumed to act rationally, have multiple desirable ends in sight, limited resources to obtain these ends,

3910-415: The societal to the microeconomic level: Economics is a study of man in the ordinary business of life. It enquires how he gets his income and how he uses it. Thus, it is on the one side, the study of wealth and on the other and more important side, a part of the study of man. Lionel Robbins (1932) developed implications of what has been termed "[p]erhaps the most commonly accepted current definition of

4025-400: The "choice process and the type of social interaction that [such] analysis involves." The same source reviews a range of definitions included in principles of economics textbooks and concludes that the lack of agreement need not affect the subject-matter that the texts treat. Among economists more generally, it argues that a particular definition presented may reflect the direction toward which

4140-519: The 15th or 16th centuries, and many of the other ethnic groups that make up the country's population arrived in the region during this time. During the Middle Ages , the Mossi established several separate kingdoms including those of Tenkodogo, Yatenga, Zandoma, and Ouagadougou. Sometime between 1328 and 1338, Mossi warriors raided Timbuktu but the Mossi were defeated by Sonni Ali of Songhai at

4255-486: The 1970s and 1980s, when several major central banks followed a monetarist-inspired policy, but was later abandoned because the results were unsatisfactory. A more fundamental challenge to the prevailing Keynesian paradigm came in the 1970s from new classical economists like Robert Lucas , Thomas Sargent and Edward Prescott . They introduced the notion of rational expectations in economics, which had profound implications for many economic discussions, among which were

4370-465: The 1970s as president of military or mixed civil-military governments. Lamizana's rule coincided with the beginning of the Sahel drought and famine which had a devastating impact on Upper Volta and neighboring countries. After conflict over the 1976 constitution, a new constitution was written and approved in 1977. Lamizana was re-elected by open elections in 1978. Lamizana's government faced problems with

4485-461: The 3rd to the 13th centuries CE, the Iron Age Bura culture existed in the territory of present-day southeastern Burkina Faso and southwestern Niger. Various ethnic groups of present-day Burkina Faso, such as the Mossi , Fula and Dioula , arrived in successive waves between the 8th and 15th centuries. From the 11th century, the Mossi people established several separate kingdoms . There

4600-675: The Associated Press reported that according to the government of Burkina Faso, gunmen killed at least 100 people in Solhan village in northern Burkina Faso near the Niger border. A local market and several homes were also burned down. A government spokesman blamed jihadists. Heni Nsaibia, senior researcher at the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project said it was the deadliest attack recorded in Burkina Faso since

4715-861: The Battle of Kobi in Mali in 1483. During the early 16th century, the Songhai conducted many slave raids into what is today Burkina Faso. During the 18th century, the Gwiriko Empire was established at Bobo Dioulasso and ethnic groups such as the Dyan, Lobi, and Birifor settled along the Black Volta . Starting in the early 1890s during the European Scramble for Africa , a series of European military officers made attempts to claim parts of what

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4830-518: The Burkinabè government officially recognizes 60 indigenous languages, the Mooré language is spoken by over half the population. The country's territory is geographically biodiverse, and includes plentiful reserves of gold , manganese , copper and limestone . Due to its multicultural make-up, Burkinabè art has a rich and long history, and is globally renowned for its orthodox style. The country

4945-638: The Council of Popular Salvation (CSP) in the 1982 Upper Voltan coup d'état . The CSP continued to ban political parties and organizations, yet promised a transition to civilian rule and a new constitution. Infighting developed between the right and left factions of the CSP. The leader of the leftists, Capt. Thomas Sankara , was appointed prime minister in January 1983, but was subsequently arrested. Efforts to free him, directed by Capt. Blaise Compaoré , resulted in

5060-717: The French Union. On 5 August 1960, it attained full independence from France . The first president, Maurice Yaméogo , was the leader of the Voltaic Democratic Union (UDV). The 1960 constitution provided for election by universal suffrage of a president and a national assembly for five-year terms. Soon after coming to power, Yaméogo banned all political parties other than the UDV. The government lasted until 1966. After much unrest, including mass demonstrations and strikes by students, labor unions, and civil servants,

5175-687: The French embassy in Ouagadougou as well as the general staff of the Burkinabè army. Eight soldiers and eight attackers were killed, and a further 61 soldiers and 24 civilians were injured. The insurgency expanded to the east of the country and, in early October, the Armed Forces of Burkina Faso launched a major military operation in the country's East, supported by French forces. According to Human Rights Watch , between mid-2018 to February 2019, at least 42 people were murdered by jihadists and

5290-492: The Islamic Maghreb and Al-Mourabitoune , which until then had mostly operated in neighbouring Mali , claimed responsibility for the attack. In 2016, attacks increased after a new group Ansarul Islam , led by imam Ibrahim Malam Dicko , was founded. Its attacks focused particularly on Soum province and it killed dozens of people in the attack on Nassoumbou on 16 December. Between 27 March – 10 April 2017,

5405-517: The Revolution youth programme was also established. Sankara launched an ambitious socioeconomic programme for change, one of the largest ever undertaken on the African continent. His foreign policies centred on anti-imperialism , with his government rejecting all foreign aid , pushing for odious debt reduction, nationalising all land and mineral wealth and averting the power and influence of

5520-407: The analysis of wealth: how wealth is created (production), distributed, and consumed; and how wealth can grow. But he said that economics can be used to study other things, such as war, that are outside its usual focus. This is because war has as the goal winning it (as a sought after end ), generates both cost and benefits; and, resources (human life and other costs) are used to attain the goal. If

5635-479: The area of inquiry or object of inquiry rather than the methodology. In the biology department, it is not said that all biology should be studied with DNA analysis. People study living organisms in many different ways, so some people will perform DNA analysis, others might analyse anatomy, and still others might build game theoretic models of animal behaviour. But they are all called biology because they all study living organisms. According to Ha Joon Chang, this view that

5750-443: The author believes economics is evolving, or should evolve. Many economists including nobel prize winners James M. Buchanan and Ronald Coase reject the method-based definition of Robbins and continue to prefer definitions like those of Say, in terms of its subject matter. Ha-Joon Chang has for example argued that the definition of Robbins would make economics very peculiar because all other sciences define themselves in terms of

5865-505: The beginning of the jihadist insurgency. Socioeconomic Economics ( / ˌ ɛ k ə ˈ n ɒ m ɪ k s , ˌ iː k ə -/ ) is a social science that studies the production , distribution , and consumption of goods and services . Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of economic agents and how economies work. Microeconomics analyses what is viewed as basic elements within economies , including individual agents and markets , their interactions, and

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5980-496: The bend”, in reference to its curved course. Burkina Faso Burkina Faso is a landlocked country in West Africa , bordered by Mali to the northwest, Niger to the northeast, Benin to the southeast, Togo and Ghana to the south, and Ivory Coast to the southwest. It covers an area of 274,223 km (105,878 sq mi). In 2021, the country had an estimated population of approximately 23,674,480. Previously called

6095-620: The colonial period in Dakar. The indigenous population was highly discriminated against. For example, African children were not allowed to ride bicycles or pick fruit from trees, "privileges" reserved for the children of colonists. Violating these regulations could land parents in jail. Draftees from the territory participated in the European fronts of World War I in the battalions of the Senegalese Rifles . Between 1915 and 1916,

6210-517: The colonies. Physiocrats , a group of 18th-century French thinkers and writers, developed the idea of the economy as a circular flow of income and output. Physiocrats believed that only agricultural production generated a clear surplus over cost, so that agriculture was the basis of all wealth. Thus, they opposed the mercantilist policy of promoting manufacturing and trade at the expense of agriculture, including import tariffs. Physiocrats advocated replacing administratively costly tax collections with

6325-539: The colony of Upper Volta, with its previous boundaries, as a part of the French Union . The French designated its colonies as departments of metropolitan France on the European continent. On 11 December 1958 the colony achieved self-government as the Republic of Upper Volta ; it joined the Franco-African Community. A revision in the organization of French Overseas Territories had begun with

6440-412: The constitution and extend his 27-year rule. On 30 October some protesters set fire to the parliament building and took over the national TV headquarters. Ouagadougou International Airport closed and MPs suspended the vote on changing the constitution (the change would have allowed Compaoré to stand for re-election in 2015). Later in the day, the military dissolved all government institutions and imposed

6555-436: The constitutional council ruled that, because Compaoré was the sitting president in 2000, the amendment would not apply to him until the end of his second term in office. This cleared the way for his candidacy in the 2005 election . On 13 November 2005, he was reelected in a landslide, because of a divided political opposition. In the 2010 presidential election , Compaoré was re-elected. Only 1.6 million Burkinabè voted, out of

6670-519: The country back into the IMF fold, and ultimately spurned most of Sankara's legacy. Following an alleged coup-attempt in 1989 , Compaoré introduced limited democratic reforms in 1990. Under the new (1991) constitution , Compaoré was re-elected without opposition in December 1991. In 1998 Compaoré won election in a landslide. In 2004, 13 people were tried for plotting a coup against President Compaoré and

6785-534: The country's 21 million inhabitants are internally displaced persons . Burkina Faso's military seized power in a coup d'état on 23 and 24 January 2022 , overthrowing President Roch Marc Kaboré . On 31 January, the military junta restored the constitution and appointed Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba as interim president, but he was himself overthrown in a second coup on 30 September and replaced by military captain Ibrahim Traoré . Burkina Faso remains one of

6900-515: The country's traditionally powerful trade unions, and on 25 November 1980, Col. Saye Zerbo overthrew President Lamizana in a bloodless coup . Colonel Zerbo established the Military Committee of Recovery for National Progress as the supreme governmental authority, thus eradicating the 1977 constitution. Colonel Zerbo also encountered resistance from trade unions and was overthrown two years later by Maj. Dr. Jean-Baptiste Ouédraogo and

7015-505: The country: "Burkina" comes from Mooré and means "upright", showing how the people are proud of their integrity, while "Faso" comes from the Dioula language (as written in N'Ko : ߝߊ߬ߛߏ߫ faso ) and means "fatherland" (literally, "father's house"). The "-bé" suffix added onto "Burkina" to form the demonym "Burkinabé" comes from the Fula language and means "women or men". The CIA summarizes

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7130-484: The coup's alleged mastermind was sentenced to life imprisonment. In 2000, the constitution was amended to reduce the presidential term to five years and set term limits to two, preventing successive re-election. The amendment took effect during the 2005 elections. If passed beforehand, it would have prevented Compaoré from being reelected. Other presidential candidates challenged the election results. But in October 2005,

7245-442: The coup. There is some evidence for France's support of the coup. Compaoré gave the deterioration in relations with neighbouring countries as one of the reasons for the coup. He argued that Sankara had jeopardised foreign relations with the former colonial power ( France ) and with neighbouring Ivory Coast . Following the coup, Compaoré immediately reversed the nationalizations, overturned nearly all of Sankara's policies, returned

7360-488: The design of modern monetary policy and are now standard workhorses in most central banks. After the 2007–2008 financial crisis , macroeconomic research has put greater emphasis on understanding and integrating the financial system into models of the general economy and shedding light on the ways in which problems in the financial sector can turn into major macroeconomic recessions. In this and other research branches, inspiration from behavioural economics has started playing

7475-506: The distribution of income among landowners, workers, and capitalists. Ricardo saw an inherent conflict between landowners on the one hand and labour and capital on the other. He posited that the growth of population and capital, pressing against a fixed supply of land, pushes up rents and holds down wages and profits. Ricardo was also the first to state and prove the principle of comparative advantage , according to which each country should specialise in producing and exporting goods in that it has

7590-483: The districts in the western part of what is now Burkina Faso and the bordering eastern fringe of Mali became the stage of one of the most important armed oppositions to colonial government: the Volta-Bani War . The French government finally suppressed the movement but only after suffering defeats. It also had to organize its largest expeditionary force of its colonial history to send into the country to suppress

7705-469: The economy can and should be studied in only one way (for example by studying only rational choices), and going even one step further and basically redefining economics as a theory of everything, is peculiar. Questions regarding distribution of resources are found throughout the writings of the Boeotian poet Hesiod and several economic historians have described Hesiod as the "first economist". However,

7820-651: The etymology as "land of the honest (incorruptible) men". The French Colony of Upper Volta was named for its location on the upper courses of the Volta River (the Black , Red and White Volta ). The northwestern part of present-day Burkina Faso was populated by hunter-gatherers from 14,000 BCE to 5,000 BCE. Their tools, including scrapers , chisels and arrowheads , were discovered in 1973 through archaeological excavations . Agricultural settlements were established between 3600 and 2600 BCE. The Bura culture

7935-688: The first large-scale macroeconometric model , applying the Keynesian thinking systematically to the US economy . Immediately after World War II, Keynesian was the dominant economic view of the United States establishment and its allies, Marxian economics was the dominant economic view of the Soviet Union nomenklatura and its allies. Monetarism appeared in the 1950s and 1960s, its intellectual leader being Milton Friedman . Monetarists contended that monetary policy and other monetary shocks, as represented by

8050-540: The following decades, many economists followed Keynes' ideas and expanded on his works. John Hicks and Alvin Hansen developed the IS–LM model which was a simple formalisation of some of Keynes' insights on the economy's short-run equilibrium. Franco Modigliani and James Tobin developed important theories of private consumption and investment , respectively, two major components of aggregate demand . Lawrence Klein built

8165-483: The forces of the powerful ruler Samori Ture complicated the situation, came under French occupation in 1897. By 1898, the majority of the territory corresponding to Burkina Faso was nominally conquered; however, French control of many parts remained uncertain. The Franco-British Convention of 14 June 1898 created the country's modern borders. In the French territory, a war of conquest against local communities and political powers continued for about five years. In 1904,

8280-509: The global economy . Other broad distinctions within economics include those between positive economics , describing "what is", and normative economics , advocating "what ought to be"; between economic theory and applied economics ; between rational and behavioural economics ; and between mainstream economics and heterodox economics . Economic analysis can be applied throughout society, including business , finance , cybersecurity , health care , engineering and government . It

8395-614: The governments of Mali , France, and Burkina Faso launched a joint operation named " Operation Panga ", which involved 1,300 soldiers from the three countries, in the Fhero Forest, near the Burkina Faso-Mali border , considered a sanctuary for Ansarul Islam. The head of Ansarul Islam, Ibrahim Malam Dicko, was killed in June 2017 and Jafar Dicko became leader. On 2 March 2018, Jama'at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin attacked

8510-493: The growing desertification of the Sahel . Sankara called on every village to build a medical dispensary and had over 350 communities build schools with their own labour. In the 1980s, when ecological awareness was still very low, Sankara was one of the few African leaders to consider environmental protection a priority. He engaged in three major battles: against bush fires "which will be considered as crimes and will be punished as such"; against cattle roaming "which infringes on

8625-424: The growth in the money stock, was an important cause of economic fluctuations, and consequently that monetary policy was more important than fiscal policy for purposes of stabilisation . Friedman was also skeptical about the ability of central banks to conduct a sensible active monetary policy in practice, advocating instead using simple rules such as a steady rate of money growth. Monetarism rose to prominence in

8740-604: The honest men ; (the literal translation is land of the upright men ). The presidential decree was confirmed by the National Assembly on 4 August 1984. Sankara's government comprised the National Council for the Revolution (CNR – French : Conseil national révolutionnaire ), with Sankara as its president, and established popular Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDRs). The Pioneers of

8855-463: The importance of various market failures for the functioning of the economy, as had Keynes. Not least, they proposed various reasons that potentially explained the empirically observed features of price and wage rigidity , usually made to be endogenous features of the models, rather than simply assumed as in older Keynesian-style ones. After decades of often heated discussions between Keynesians, monetarists, new classical and new Keynesian economists,

8970-610: The insurrection. Armed opposition wracked the Sahelian north when the Tuareg and allied groups of the Dori region ended their truce with the government. French Upper Volta was established on 1 March 1919. The French feared a recurrence of armed uprising and had related economic considerations. To bolster its administration, the colonial government separated the present territory of Burkina Faso from Upper Senegal and Niger. The new colony

9085-667: The largely pacified territories of the Volta basin were integrated into the Upper Senegal and Niger colony of French West Africa as part of the reorganization of the French West African colonial empire. The colony had its capital in Bamako . The language of colonial administration and schooling became French. The public education system started from humble origins. Advanced education was provided for many years during

9200-449: The market's two roles: allocation of resources and distribution of income. The market might be efficient in allocating resources but not in distributing income, he wrote, making it necessary for society to intervene. Value theory was important in classical theory. Smith wrote that the "real price of every thing ... is the toil and trouble of acquiring it". Smith maintained that, with rent and profit, other costs besides wages also enter

9315-493: The military intervened. The 1966 military coup deposed Yaméogo, suspended the constitution, dissolved the National Assembly, and placed Lt. Col. Sangoulé Lamizana at the head of a government of senior army officers. The army remained in power for four years. On 14 June 1976, the Voltans ratified a new constitution that established a four-year transition period toward complete civilian rule. Lamizana remained in power throughout

9430-437: The most famous passages in all economics," Smith represents every individual as trying to employ any capital they might command for their own advantage, not that of the society, and for the sake of profit, which is necessary at some level for employing capital in domestic industry, and positively related to the value of produce. In this: He generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he

9545-563: The north. The dam's power plant generates electricity for the Volta River Authority , and the reservoir also provides water transport routes. It is a resource for irrigation and fish farming . The depth of the river is about 45 feet (14 m) below Lake Volta. The Volta River is crossed by the Adome Bridge just below the Akosombo Dam. The Akwamu people who once built a kingdom in both east and west banks of

9660-492: The outcomes of interactions. Individual agents may include, for example, households, firms, buyers, and sellers. Macroeconomics analyses economies as systems where production, distribution, consumption, savings , and investment expenditure interact, and factors affecting it: factors of production , such as labour , capital , land , and enterprise , inflation , economic growth , and public policies that have impact on these elements . It also seeks to analyse and describe

9775-493: The passage of the Basic Law (Loi Cadre) of 23 July 1956. This act was followed by reorganization measures approved by the French parliament early in 1957 to ensure a large degree of self-government for individual territories. Upper Volta became an autonomous republic in the French community on 11 December 1958. Full independence from France was received in 1960. The Republic of Upper Volta (French: République de Haute-Volta )

9890-503: The pessimistic analysis of Malthus (1798). John Stuart Mill (1844) delimited the subject matter further: The science which traces the laws of such of the phenomena of society as arise from the combined operations of mankind for the production of wealth, in so far as those phenomena are not modified by the pursuit of any other object. Alfred Marshall provided a still widely cited definition in his textbook Principles of Economics (1890) that extended analysis beyond wealth and from

10005-625: The plan Michel Kafando became the transitional president and Lt. Col. Zida became the acting Prime Minister and Defense Minister. On 16 September 2015, the Regiment of Presidential Security (RSP) carried out a coup d'état , seizing the president and prime minister and then declaring the National Council for Democracy the new national government. However, on 22 September 2015, the coup leader, Gilbert Diendéré , apologized and promised to restore civilian government. On 23 September 2015

10120-420: The planting of wooded strips about fifty kilometers wide, crossing the country from east to west. Cereal production, close to 1.1 billion tons before 1983, was predicted to rise to 1.6 billion tons in 1987. Jean Ziegler, former UN special rapporteur for the right to food, said that the country "had become food self-sufficient." On 15 October 1987, Sankara and twelve other government officials were assassinated in

10235-487: The present, modified by substituting the word "wealth" for "goods and services" meaning that wealth may include non-material objects as well. One hundred and thirty years later, Lionel Robbins noticed that this definition no longer sufficed, because many economists were making theoretical and philosophical inroads in other areas of human activity. In his Essay on the Nature and Significance of Economic Science , he proposed

10350-409: The price of a commodity. Other classical economists presented variations on Smith, termed the ' labour theory of value '. Classical economics focused on the tendency of any market economy to settle in a final stationary state made up of a constant stock of physical wealth (capital) and a constant population size . Marxist (later, Marxian) economics descends from classical economics and it derives from

10465-575: The prime minister and interim president were restored to power. General elections took place on 29 November 2015. Roch Marc Christian Kaboré won the election in the first round with 53.5% of the vote, defeating businessman Zéphirin Diabré , who took 29.7%. Kaboré was sworn in as president on 29 December 2015. Kaboré was re-elected in the general election of 22 November 2020 , but his party Mouvement du Peuple pour le Progrès (MPP), failed to reach absolute parliamentary majority. It secured 56 seats out of

10580-429: The purest approximation to the truth that has yet been published" on the subject. The publication of Adam Smith 's The Wealth of Nations in 1776, has been described as "the effective birth of economics as a separate discipline." The book identified land, labour, and capital as the three factors of production and the major contributors to a nation's wealth, as distinct from the physiocratic idea that only agriculture

10695-412: The rights of peoples because unattended animals destroy nature"; and against the illegitimate cutting of firewood "whose profession will have to be organized and regulated". As part of a development program involving a large part of the population, ten million trees were planted in Burkina Faso in fifteen months during the revolution. To face the advancing desert and recurrent droughts, Sankara also proposed

10810-465: The river spanning present day Ghana , Togo and Benin call it Firaw . They have a deity dedicated to the river named Mfodwo. The Volta River was named by Portuguese gold traders in Ghana. It was their farthest extent of exploration before returning ( volta is Portuguese for "twist" or "turn"). "River of return" (perhaps because it was where ships turned around and headed for home) or “river of

10925-412: The scope and method of economics, emanating from that definition. A body of theory later termed "neoclassical economics" formed from about 1870 to 1910. The term "economics" was popularised by such neoclassical economists as Alfred Marshall and Mary Paley Marshall as a concise synonym for "economic science" and a substitute for the earlier " political economy ". This corresponded to the influence on

11040-486: The so-called Lucas critique and the presentation of real business cycle models . During the 1980s, a group of researchers appeared being called New Keynesian economists , including among others George Akerlof , Janet Yellen , Gregory Mankiw and Olivier Blanchard . They adopted the principle of rational expectations and other monetarist or new classical ideas such as building upon models employing micro foundations and optimizing behaviour, but simultaneously emphasised

11155-444: The source of the word economy. Joseph Schumpeter described 16th and 17th century scholastic writers, including Tomás de Mercado , Luis de Molina , and Juan de Lugo , as "coming nearer than any other group to being the 'founders' of scientific economics" as to monetary , interest , and value theory within a natural-law perspective. Two groups, who later were called "mercantilists" and "physiocrats", more directly influenced

11270-406: The state or commonwealth with a revenue for the publick services. Jean-Baptiste Say (1803), distinguishing the subject matter from its public-policy uses, defined it as the science of production, distribution, and consumption of wealth . On the satirical side, Thomas Carlyle (1849) coined " the dismal science " as an epithet for classical economics , in this context, commonly linked to

11385-408: The subject of mathematical methods used in the natural sciences . Neoclassical economics systematically integrated supply and demand as joint determinants of both price and quantity in market equilibrium, influencing the allocation of output and income distribution. It rejected the classical economics' labour theory of value in favour of a marginal utility theory of value on the demand side and

11500-402: The subject or different views among economists. Scottish philosopher Adam Smith (1776) defined what was then called political economy as "an inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations", in particular as: a branch of the science of a statesman or legislator [with the twofold objectives of providing] a plentiful revenue or subsistence for the people ... [and] to supply

11615-471: The subject": Economics is the science which studies human behaviour as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses. Robbins described the definition as not classificatory in "pick[ing] out certain kinds of behaviour" but rather analytical in "focus[ing] attention on a particular aspect of behaviour, the form imposed by the influence of scarcity ." He affirmed that previous economists have usually centred their studies on

11730-826: The subsequent development of the subject. Both groups were associated with the rise of economic nationalism and modern capitalism in Europe. Mercantilism was an economic doctrine that flourished from the 16th to 18th century in a prolific pamphlet literature, whether of merchants or statesmen. It held that a nation's wealth depended on its accumulation of gold and silver. Nations without access to mines could obtain gold and silver from trade only by selling goods abroad and restricting imports other than of gold and silver. The doctrine called for importing inexpensive raw materials to be used in manufacturing goods, which could be exported, and for state regulation to impose protective tariffs on foreign manufactured goods and prohibit manufacturing in

11845-467: The war is not winnable or if the expected costs outweigh the benefits, the deciding actors (assuming they are rational) may never go to war (a decision ) but rather explore other alternatives. Economics cannot be defined as the science that studies wealth, war, crime, education, and any other field economic analysis can be applied to; but, as the science that studies a particular common aspect of each of those subjects (they all use scarce resources to attain

11960-515: The word Oikos , the Greek word from which the word economy derives, was used for issues regarding how to manage a household (which was understood to be the landowner, his family, and his slaves ) rather than to refer to some normative societal system of distribution of resources, which is a more recent phenomenon. Xenophon , the author of the Oeconomicus , is credited by philologues for being

12075-460: The work of Karl Marx . The first volume of Marx's major work, Das Kapital , was published in 1867. Marx focused on the labour theory of value and theory of surplus value . Marx wrote that they were mechanisms used by capital to exploit labour. The labour theory of value held that the value of an exchanged commodity was determined by the labour that went into its production, and the theory of surplus value demonstrated how workers were only paid

12190-703: Was colonized by the French as part of French West Africa ; in 1958, Upper Volta became a self-governing colony within the French Community . In 1960, it gained full independence with Maurice Yaméogo as president . Since it gained its independence, the country has been subject to instability, droughts , famines and corruption. There have also been various coups , in 1966 , 1980 , 1982 , 1983 , 1987 , and twice in 2022 ( January and September ). There were also unsuccessful coup attempts in 1989 , 2015 , and 2023 . Thomas Sankara came to power following

12305-614: Was an Iron-Age civilization centred in the southwest portion of modern-day Niger and in the southeast part of contemporary Burkina Faso. Iron industry , in smelting and forging for tools and weapons, had developed in Sub-Saharan Africa by 1200 BCE. To date, the oldest evidence of iron smelting found in Burkina Faso dates from 800 to 700 BCE and forms part of the Ancient Ferrous Metallurgy World Heritage Site. From

12420-611: Was an army mutiny ; the president named new chiefs of staff, and a curfew was imposed in Ouagadougou . Compaoré's government played the role of negotiator in several West-African disputes, including the 2010–2011 Ivorian crisis , the Inter-Togolese Dialogue (2007), and the 2012 Malian Crisis . As of 2014 , Burkina Faso remained one of the least-developed countries in the world. Starting on 28 October 2014 protesters began to march and demonstrate in Ouagadougou against President Compaoré, who appeared ready to amend

12535-539: Was deposed and assassinated in a coup led by Blaise Compaoré , who became president and ruled the country until his removal on 31 October 2014 . Since the mid-2010s, Burkina Faso has been severely affected by the rise of insurgencies in the Sahel. Several militias , partly allied with the Islamic State (IS) or al-Qaeda , operate in Burkina Faso and across the border in Mali and Niger . More than one million of

12650-413: Was dismantled on 5 September 1932, being split between the French colonies of Ivory Coast , French Sudan and Niger . Ivory Coast received the largest share, which contained most of the population as well as the cities of Ouagadougou and Bobo-Dioulasso. France reversed this change during the period of intense anti-colonial agitation that followed the end of World War II . On 4 September 1947, it revived

12765-422: Was established on 11 December 1958 as a self-governing colony within the French Community . The name Upper Volta related to the nation's location along the upper reaches of the Volta River . The river's three tributaries are called the Black , White and Red Volta . These were expressed in the three colors of the former national flag . Before attaining autonomy, it had been French Upper Volta and part of

12880-426: Was named Haute Volta for its location on the upper courses of the Volta River (the Black , Red and White Volta ), and François Charles Alexis Édouard Hesling became its first governor . Hesling initiated an ambitious road-making program to improve infrastructure and promoted the growth of cotton for export. The cotton policy – based on coercion – failed, and revenue generated by the colony stagnated. The colony

12995-421: Was no part of it. By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. The Reverend Thomas Robert Malthus (1798) used the concept of diminishing returns to explain low living standards. Human population , he argued, tended to increase geometrically, outstripping the production of food, which increased arithmetically. The force of

13110-892: Was productive. Smith discusses potential benefits of specialisation by division of labour , including increased labour productivity and gains from trade , whether between town and country or across countries. His "theorem" that "the division of labor is limited by the extent of the market" has been described as the "core of a theory of the functions of firm and industry " and a "fundamental principle of economic organization." To Smith has also been ascribed "the most important substantive proposition in all of economics" and foundation of resource-allocation theory—that, under competition , resource owners (of labour, land, and capital) seek their most profitable uses, resulting in an equal rate of return for all uses in equilibrium (adjusted for apparent differences arising from such factors as training and unemployment). In an argument that includes "one of

13225-437: Was recognised as well as the traditional Keynesian insistence that fiscal policy could also play an influential role in affecting aggregate demand . Methodologically, the synthesis led to a new class of applied models, known as dynamic stochastic general equilibrium or DSGE models, descending from real business cycles models, but extended with several new Keynesian and other features. These models proved useful and influential in

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