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A vegetable vendor in a marketplace.
Economists study how people make decisions, such as those that occur in a market.
A stock exchange. Buyers and sellers are not present themselves. They use intermediaries and technology to trade. Most ideas about buying and selling are the same as in a "real" market though.

Economics is the study of how people make choices to get what they want, when they cannot get everything they want. It has been defined as "the study of scarcity and choice" and is basically about individual choice, decisions people make about what to buy and what not to buy. Investing and passive income relates to economics. [1] The word comes from Ancient Greek, and relates to Stores oíkos "house" and νόμος nomos "custom" or "law".[2] The models used in economics today were mostly started in the 19th century. People took ideas from the field of political economy because they wanted to use an empirical approach similar to the one used in the natural sciences.[3]

Subjects and objects in economics[change | change source]

The subjects in economic study are households, business companies, the government (the state), and foreign countries. Households offer their "factors of production" to companies. This includes work, land, capital (machines, buildings) and information. They get income which they use to buy or 'consume' goods.

Business companies produce and sell goods and buy factors of production from households and from other companies.

The state or public sector includes institutions and organisations. The state takes some of the earnings from the business companies and households, and uses it to pay for "public goods" like streets or education, to be available for everyone. The last subject is foreign countries this includes all households, business companies and state institutions, which are not based in one's own country. They demand and supply goods from abroad.

The objects in economic study are consumer goods, capital goods, and factors of production. Consumer goods are classified as "usage goods" (for example, toilet paper), as "purpose goods" (for example, a car), and as "services" (for example, the work of a cleaning lady). Capital goods are goods which are necessary for producing other goods. Examples of these are buildings, equipment, and machines. Factors of production are work, ground, capital, information, and environment.

General economic rules[change | change source]

  • All people have to decide between their options.
  • The cost of a goods is what a person gives up for the goods.
  • When a person gives up something (like money) to get a good, he also gives up other things that he could have gotten instead. The true cost of something is what you give up to get it. This includes not only the money spent in buying or doing something, but also the economic benefits (utility) that you didn't get because you bought or did that thing and can no longer buy or do something else. This is called opportunity cost.
  • People react to incentives. Making an option more attractive will make more people choose it.
  • Markets are usually good for the organisation of economic life. In the free market, goods will be shared by people and companies making small decisions. The “invisible hand” of the market (Adam Smith) states that if everyone tries to get what they want, everyone will be as well-off as they could possibly be.
  • Sometimes prices do not fully show the cost or benefit to society. For example, air pollution is bad for society, and education is good for society. The government can put a tax (or do something to reduce sales) on items that are bad for society. It can also support (like giving money for) items that are good for society.
  • The living standard of a country depends on the skills to produce services and goods. Productivity is the amount of the produced goods divided by total working hours.
  • When there is an increase in the total money supply, or when the cost to produce things rise, prices go up. This is called inflation.

History[change | change source]

Economists are strongly influenced by the times they live in. For example, Karl Marx lived in a time where workers' conditions were very poor, and John Maynard Keynes lived through the Great Depression of the 1930s. Today's economists can look back and understand why they made their judgements, and try to make better ones.

Branches of economics[change | change source]

The two main branches of economics are microeconomics and macroeconomics.

Macroeconomics is about the economy in general. For example, if a country's wealth goes up or if millions of people become unemployed, those are things that macroeconomists study. Microeconomics is about smaller and more specific things such as how families and households spend their money.

There are a number of other branches of economics:

Famous economists[change | change source]

Famous economists in history include:

Famous economists of the 19th and 20th century include Léon Walras, Carl Menger, N. Gregory Mankiw and Friedrich August von Hayek.

References[change | change source]

  1. Krugman, Paul; Robin Wells (2012) Microeconomics: Second Edition in Modules Worth Publishers page 2
  2. Harper, Douglas (November 2001). "Online Etymology Dictionary — Economy". Retrieved October 27, 2007.
  3. Clark, B. (1998). Political-economy: A comparative approach. Westport, CT: Preager.

Other pages[change | change source]

Other websites[change | change source]