Econ

Economics, often abbreviated as econ in academic settings, is a social science concerned with how people choose to use scarce resources to produce goods and services and distribute them among competing uses. It analyzes how individuals and firms make decisions, how markets allocate resources, and how policies influence economic outcomes. The field is typically divided into microeconomics, which studies individual agents and markets, and macroeconomics, which examines aggregate indicators such as GDP, inflation, and unemployment.

Econometrics uses statistical methods to test hypotheses and estimate relationships using real-world data. Other important subfields include development economics, international economics, labor economics, public economics, financial economics, and behavioral economics, among others.

Core concepts: scarcity, opportunity cost, incentives, marginal analysis, supply and demand, equilibrium, efficiency, and welfare. Models rely on assumptions about preferences, technologies, and information, and they are used to explain outcomes and guide policy.

History: economics has roots in moral philosophy; modern economics emerged in the 18th and 19th centuries with Smith, Malthus, Ricardo, and later marginalists like Walras and Jevons, followed by Keynesian macroeconomics in the 1930s and the development of econometrics in the mid-20th century, leading to diverse approaches today.

Impact and pedagogy: Economics is taught widely in universities and informs government policy, business strategy, and public debate. Research is published in academic journals and presented at conferences.