léconomie

Léconomie, or economics, is the social science that studies how individuals, firms, governments, and other institutions allocate scarce resources to satisfy human wants. It analyzes choices under scarcity, how markets coordinate those choices, and how policies influence outcomes.

The discipline is traditionally divided into microeconomics, which examines individual decision makers and markets for goods and services, and macroeconomics, which looks at aggregate indicators such as gross domestic product, inflation, unemployment, and economic growth. Economists also work in applied fields such as econometrics, development economics, behavioral economics, international economics, public economics, environmental economics, and industrial organization.

Core concepts include scarcity, opportunity cost, supply and demand, market equilibrium, efficiency, and welfare. Market mechanisms, competitive markets, monopoly, externalities, and public goods are central topics, as are policy instruments such as taxes, subsidies, regulation, and monetary policy. The field uses abstract models, statistical methods, and data analysis to test theories and inform decisions.

Historically, economics has evolved from classical theories of value and distribution to marginalism and neoclassical synthesis, Keynesian macroeconomics, monetarism, and more recently behavioral and Institutional economics. The discipline engages with ethical and political considerations, productivity, and development, seeking to explain and improve human well-being while acknowledging insufficiencies of models and data.

Economics is both qualitative and quantitative, and its findings influence public policy, business strategy, and everyday life. Critics point to measurement challenges and debates about growth, inequality, and sustainability as central ongoing concerns.