economics

Economics is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. It seeks to understand how individuals, households, firms, and governments allocate limited resources to satisfy wants. It analyzes choices under scarcity, and how markets coordinate decisions through prices, incentives, and institutions.

Core concepts include supply and demand, opportunity cost, efficiency and equity, marginal analysis, market equilibrium, and welfare. It uses models and empirical data to study behavior, markets, and macro phenomena like inflation and unemployment. Methods include theoretical modeling, econometrics, and experimental or behavioral studies.

Major subfields include microeconomics (the study of individual markets and firm behavior), macroeconomics (aggregate measures such as GDP, inflation, and unemployment), econometrics (statistical analysis of economic data), behavioral economics (psychological factors in decision-making), development economics, international economics, environmental economics, and economic history. Tools include mathematical modeling and data analysis.

History and debates in economics trace a trajectory from classical and neoclassical theories through Keynesian and monetarist perspectives, with later contributions from institutional economics and behavioral insights. Policy applications include monetary and fiscal policy, regulation, and trade policy. Critiques emphasize limits of models, distributional impacts, externalities, information asymmetry, and challenges in measuring welfare.