Economics is the social science The social sciences are the fields of scientific knowledge and academic scholarship that study social groups and, more generally, human society. The social sciences initially were constituted of five fields: Jurisprudence and Amendment of the Law; Education; Health; Economy and Trade; Art. The contemporary field of science comprise academic that studies the production Production refers to the economic process of converting of inputs into outputs and is a field of study in microeconomics. Production uses resources to create a good or service that is suitable for exchange. This can include manufacturing, storing, shipping, and packaging. Some economists define production broadly as all economic activity other, distribution Distribution in economics refers to the way total output or income is distributed among individuals or among the factors of production (Samuelson and Nordhaus, 2001, p. 762). In general theory and the national income and product accounts, each unit of output corresponds to a unit of income. One use of national accounts is for classifying factor, and consumption Consumption is a common concept in economics, and gives rise to derived concepts such as consumer debt. Generally consumption is defined by opposition to production. But the precise definition can vary because different schools of economists define production quite differently. According to some economists, only the final purchase of goods and of goods In economics, a good is any object or service that increases utility, directly or indirectly. It should not to be confused with the adjective "good", as used in a moral or ethical sense. A good that cannot be used by consumers directly, such as an "office building" or "capital equipment", can also be referred to as a and services A service is the non-material equivalent of a good. Service provision has been defined as an economic activity that does not result in ownership and is claimed to be a process that creates benefits by facilitating either a change in customers, a change in their physical possessions, or a change in their intangible assets. For a guide to the subject see Outline of economics Economics, is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. By extension, economics also studies economies, economic systems, human welfare, the creation and distribution of wealth, and the scarcity and use of resources. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek Ancient Greek is the historical stage in the development of the Greek language spanning across the Archaic , Classical (c. 5th–4th centuries BC), and Hellenistic (c. 3rd century BC–6th century AD) periods of ancient Greece and the ancient world. It is predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek. Its Hellenistic phase is known as Koine οἰκονομία (oikonomia, "management of a household, administration") from οἶκος (oikos, "house") + νόμος (nomos, "custom" or "law"), hence "rules of the house(hold)".[1] Current economic models developed out of the broader field of political economy Political economy originally was the term for studying production, buying and selling, and their relations with law, custom, and government. Political economy originated in moral philosophy. It developed in the 18th century as the study of the economies of states—polities, hence political economy in the late 19th century, owing to a desire to use an empirical The word empirical denotes information gained by means of observation, experience, or experiment. A central concept in science and the scientific method is that all evidence must be empirical, or empirically based, that is, dependent on evidence or consequences that are observable by the senses. It is usually differentiated from the philosophic approach more akin to the physical sciences.[2] A definition that captures much of modern economics is that of Lionel Robbins Lionel Charles Robbins, Baron Robbins, FBA was a British economist and adherent to the Austrian School of Economics. He is known for his proposed definition of economics, and for his instrumental efforts in shifting Anglo-Saxon economics from its Marshallian direction. He was the head of the economics department at the London School of Economics in a 1932 essay Lionel Robbins' Essay sought to define more precisely economics as a science and to coax substantive implications. Analysis is relative to "accepted solutions of particular problems" based on best modern practice as referenced, especially including the works of Philip Wicksteed, Ludwig von Mises, and other Continental European economists: "the science which studies human behaviour as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses."[3] Scarcity Scarcity is the problem of infinite human needs and wants, in a world of finite resources. Society has insufficient productive resources to fulfill those wants and needs. Alternatively, scarcity implies that not all of society's goals can be pursued at the same time; trade-offs are made of one good against others. In an influential 1932 essay, means that available resources In economics, factors of production are the resources employed to produce goods and services. They facilitate production but do not become part of the product (as with raw materials) or are significantly transformed by the production process (as with fuel used to power machinery). To 19th century economists, the factors of production were land ( are insufficient to satisfy all wants and needs. Absent scarcity and alternative uses of available resources, there is no economic problem The economic problem, sometimes called the fundamental economic problem, is one of the fundamental economic theories in the operation of any economy. It asserts that there is scarcity, that the finite resources available are insufficient to satisfy all human wants. The problem then becomes how to determine what is to be produced and how the. The subject thus defined involves the study of choices Rational choice theory, also known as rational action theory, is a framework for understanding and often formally modeling social and economic behavior. It is the dominant theoretical paradigm in microeconomics. It is also central to modern political science and is used by scholars in other disciplines such as sociology and philosophy as they are affected by incentives and resources.
Economics aims to explain how economies An economy is the realized economic system of a country or other area. It includes the production, exchange, distribution, and consumption of goods and services of that area. The study of different types and examples of economies is the subject of economic systems. A given economy is the end result of a process that involves its technological work and how economic agents In economics, an agent is an actor and decision maker in a model. Typically, every agent makes decisions by solving a well or ill defined optimization/choice problem. The term agent can also be seen as equivalent to player in game theory interact. Economic analysis is applied throughout society, in business A business is a legally recognized organization designed to provide goods and/or services to consumers. Businesses are predominant in capitalist economies, most being privately owned and formed to earn profit that will increase the wealth of its owners and grow the business itself. The owners and operators of a business have as one of their main, finance Finance is the science of funds management. The general areas of finance are business finance, personal finance, and public finance. Finance includes saving money and often includes lending money. The field of finance deals with the concepts of time, money and risk and how they are interrelated. It also deals with how money is spent and budgeted and government A government is the body within an organization that has the authority to make and enforce rules, laws and regulations, but also in crime Societies define crime as the breach of one or more rules or laws for which some governing authority via mechanisms such as "police power" may ultimately prescribe a conviction. While every crime violates the law, not every violation of the law counts as a crime; for example: breaches of contract and of other civil law may rank as ",[4] education Education economics or the economics of education is the study of economic issues relating to education, including the demand for education and the financing and provision of education,[5] the family The family, although recognized as fundamental from Adam Smith on, received little systematic treatment in economics before the 1950s. A significant exception was Thomas Malthus's model of population growth. The work of Gary Becker and others initiated contemporary research on family economics with the application and extension of microeconomic, health Health economics is a branch of economics concerned with issues related to scarcity in the allocation of health and health care. For example, it is now clear that medical debt is the principle cause of bankruptcy in the United States. In broad terms, health economists study the functioning of the health care system and the private and social, law Law and Economics, or economic analysis of law, is an approach to legal theory that applies methods of economics to law. It includes the use of economic concepts to explain the effects of laws, to assess which legal rules are economically efficient, and to predict which legal rules will be promulgated, politics Public choice in economic theory is the use of modern economic tools to study problems that are traditionally in the province of political science, religion,[6] social institutions Institutional economics, known by some as institutionalist political economy, focuses on understanding the role of human-made institutions in shaping economic behaviour. The institutional economists were typically critical of American social, financial and business institutions. What is now called new institutional economics, is a very different, war,[7] and science Science refers in its broadest sense to any systematic knowledge-base or prescriptive practice that is capable of resulting in a prediction or predictable type of outcome. In this sense, science may refer to a highly skilled technique or practice.[8] The expanding domain of economics in the social sciences The social sciences are the fields of scientific knowledge and academic scholarship that study social groups and, more generally, human society. The social sciences initially were constituted of five fields: Jurisprudence and Amendment of the Law; Education; Health; Economy and Trade; Art. The contemporary field of science comprise academic has been described as economic imperialism Economic imperialism in contemporary economics refers to economic analysis of seemingly non-economic aspects of life, such as crime, law, irrational behavior, the family, prejudice, politics, sociology, religion, war, science and research.[9][10] Common distinctions are drawn between various dimensions of economics: between positive economics Positive economics is the branch of economics that concerns the description and explanation of economic phenomena . It focuses on facts and cause-and-effect relationships and includes the development and testing of economics theories. Earlier terms were value-free economics and its German counterpart wertfrei economics. These terms were challenged (describing "what is") and normative economics Normative economics is the branch of economics that incorporates value judgments about what the economy ought to be like or what particular policy actions ought to be recommended to achieve a desirable goal. Normative economics looks at the desirability of certain aspects of the economy. It underlies expressions of support for particular economic (advocating "what ought to be") or between economic theory and applied economics Applied economics is a term that refers to the application of economic theory and analysis. While not a field of economics, it is typically characterized by the application of economic theory and econometrics to address practical issues in a range of fields including labour economics, development economics, monetary economics, public economics or between mainstream economics Mainstream economics has also been defined as work which mainstream economists are willing to engage, which requires conforming to the mainstream language of mathematical models. Under this definition, schools which are typically thought of as heterodox because they do not work under the typical neoclassical assumptions, including econophysics, (more "orthodox" dealing with the "rationality-individualism-equilibrium nexus") and heterodox economics Heterodox economics refers to the approaches, or schools of economic thought, that are considered outside of mainstream, that is, orthodox economics. Heterodox economics is an umbrella term used to cover various separate unorthodox approaches, schools, or traditions. These include institutional, post-Keynesian, socialist, Marxian, feminist, (more "radical" dealing with the "institutions-history-social structure nexus"[11]). However the primary textbook distinction is between microeconomics Microeconomics is a branch of economics that studies how households and firms make decisions to allocate limited resources, typically in markets where goods or services are being bought and sold. Microeconomics examines how these decisions and behaviours affect the supply and demand for goods and services, which determines prices; and how prices, ("small" economics), which examines the economic behavior of agents (including individuals and firms) and macroeconomics Macroeconomics (from prefix "macr-" meaning "large" + "economics") is a branch of economics that deals with the performance, structure, and behavior of a national or regional economy as a whole. Along with microeconomics, macroeconomics is one of the two most general fields in economics. It is the study of the ("big" economics), addressing issues of unemployment, inflation, monetary and fiscal policy for an entire economy.
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Fri, 04 Sep 2009 15:13:56 GM
Economists and others weigh in on the increase in the unemployment rate and moderating job losses.
Q. I interested in majoring in economics and want to use my knowledge to help people from lower incomes. I've been volunteering at a soup kitchen and was just wondering whether economics can really the homeless people who frequent the kitchen. Thanks!
Asked by Dan P - Sun Oct 19 21:53:26 2008 - - 3 Answers - 0 Comments
A. It depend on why they are homeless. Government policies can effect the unemployment rate, wages and income distribution, so those that are homeless because they can not find work, can be helped if economist find and advocate better policies. However many people become homeless because they have mental illness or addictions, so just having more jobs and better opportunities will not be enough to help them.
Answered by meg - Sun Oct 19 22:30:25 2008
