Economics

Economics is a social science concerned with the production, distribution and consumption of goods and services. It studies how individuals, businesses, governments and nations make choices on allocating resources to satisfy their wants and needs, and tries to determine how these groups should organize and coordinate efforts to achieve maximum output.

Economic analysis often progresses through deductive processes, much like mathematical logic, where the implications of specific human activities are considered in a “means-ends” framework.

Economics can generally be broken down into macroeconomics, which concentrates on the behavior of the aggregate economy, and microeconomics, which focuses on individual consumers.

Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of economic agents and how economies work. Microeconomics analyzes basic elements in the economy, including individual agents and markets, their interactions, and the outcomes of interactions. Individual agents may include, for example, households, firms, buyers, and sellers. Macroeconomics analyzes the entire economy (meaning aggregated production, consumption, savings, and investment) and issues affecting it, including unemployment of resources (labour, capital, and land), inflation, economic growth, and the public policies that address these issues (monetary, fiscal, and other policies). See glossary of economics.

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, in business, finance, health care, and government. Economic analysis is sometimes also applied to such diverse subjects as crime, education, the family, law, politics, religion, social institutions, war, science, and the environment.

Types of Economics

Economics study is generally broken down into two categories-

• Microeconomics focuses on how individual consumers and producers make their decisions. This includes a single person, a household, a business or a governmental organization. Microeconomics ranges from how these individuals trade with one another to how prices are affected by the supply and demand of goods. Also studied are the efficiency and costs associated with producing goods and services, how labor is divided and allocated, uncertainty, risk, and strategic game theory.
• Macroeconomics studies the overall economy. This can include a distinct geographical region, a country, a continent or even the whole world. Topics studied include government fiscal and monetary policy, unemployment rates, growth as reflected by changes in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and business cycles that result in expansion, booms, recessions and depressions.