Economics is the
social science that analyzes the
production,
distribution, and
consumption of
goods and
services. The term ''economics'' comes from the
Ancient Greek '''' ('','' "management of a household, administration") from '''' ('','' "house") + '''' ('','' "custom" or "law"), hence "rules of the house(hold)". Current economic models emerged from the broader field of
political economy in the late 19th century. A primary stimulus for the development of modern economics was the desire to use an empirical approach more akin to the physical sciences.
Economics aims to explain how economies work and how economic agents interact. Economic analysis is applied throughout society, in business, finance and government, but also in crime, education, the family, health, law, politics, religion, social institutions, war, and science. At the turn of the 21st century, the expanding domain of economics in the social sciences has been described as economic imperialism.
Common distinctions are drawn between various dimensions of economics. The primary textbook distinction is between microeconomics, which examines the behavior of basic elements in the economy, including individual markets and agents (such as consumers and firms, buyers and sellers), and macroeconomics, which addresses issues affecting an entire economy, including unemployment, inflation, economic growth, and monetary and fiscal policy. Other distinctions include: between positive economics (describing "what is") and normative economics (advocating "what ought to be"); between economic theory and applied economics; between mainstream economics (more "orthodox" dealing with the "rationality-individualism-equilibrium nexus") and heterodox economics (more "radical" dealing with the "institutions-history-social structure nexus"); and between rational and behavioral economics.
Microeconomics
Markets
Microeconomics, like macroeconomics, is a fundamental method for analyzing the
economy as a
system. It treats households and firms interacting through individual markets as irreducible elements of the economy, given scarcity and
government regulation. A
market might be for a ''product'', say fresh corn, or the ''services of a
factor of production'', say bricklaying. The theory considers
aggregates of ''quantity demanded'' by buyers and ''quantity supplied'' by sellers at each possible price per unit. It weaves these together to describe how the market may reach
equilibrium as to price and quantity or respond to market changes over time.
Such analysis includes the theory of supply and demand. It also examines market structures, such as perfect competition and monopoly for implications as to behavior and economic efficiency. Analysis of change in a single market often proceeds from the simplifying assumption that relations in other markets remain unchanged, that is, partial-equilibrium analysis. General-equilibrium theory allows for changes in different markets and aggregates across ''all'' markets, including their movements and interactions toward equilibrium.
Production, cost, and efficiency
In microeconomics,
production is the conversion of
inputs into
outputs. It is an economic process that uses inputs to create a
commodity for
exchange or direct use. Production is a
flow and thus a rate of output per period of time. Distinctions include such production alternatives as for
consumption (food, haircuts, etc.) vs.
investment goods (new tractors, buildings, roads, etc.),
public goods (national defense, small-pox vaccinations, etc.) or
private goods (new computers, bananas, etc.), and
"guns" vs. "butter".
Opportunity cost refers to the economic cost of production: the value of the next best opportunity foregone. Choices must be made between desirable yet mutually exclusive actions. It has been described as expressing "the basic relationship between scarcity and choice.". The opportunity cost of an activity is an element in ensuring that scarce resources are used efficiently, such that the cost is weighed against the value of that activity in deciding on more or less of it. Opportunity costs are not restricted to monetary or financial costs but could be measured by the real cost of output forgone, leisure, or anything else that provides the alternative benefit (utility).
Inputs used in the production process include such primary factors of production as labour services, capital (durable produced goods used in production, such as an existing factory), and land (including natural resources). Other inputs may include intermediate goods used in production of final goods, such as the steel in a new car.
Economic efficiency describes how well a system generates desired output with a given set of inputs and available technology. Efficiency is improved if more output is generated without changing inputs, or in other words, the amount of "waste" is reduced. A widely-accepted general standard is Pareto efficiency, which is reached when no further change can make someone better off without making someone else worse off.
thumb|220px|left|An example PPF with illustrative points marked The production-possibility frontier (PPF) is an expository figure for representing scarcity, cost, and efficiency. In the simplest case an economy can produce just two goods (say "guns" and "butter"). The PPF is a table or graph (as at the right) showing the different quantity combinations of the two goods producible with a given technology and total factor inputs, which limit feasible total output. Each point on the curve shows potential total output for the economy, which is the maximum feasible output of one good, given a feasible output quantity of the other good.
Scarcity is represented in the figure by people being willing but unable in the aggregate to consume ''beyond the PPF'' (such as at ''X'') and by the negative slope of the curve. If production of one good ''increases'' along the curve, production of the other good ''decreases'', an inverse relationship. This is because increasing output of one good requires transferring inputs to it from production of the other good, decreasing the latter. The slope of the curve at a point on it gives the trade-off between the two goods. It measures what an additional unit of one good costs in units forgone of the other good, an example of a ''real opportunity cost''. Thus, if one more Gun costs 100 units of butter, the opportunity cost of one Gun is 100 Butter. ''Along the PPF'', scarcity implies that choosing ''more'' of one good in the aggregate entails doing with ''less'' of the other good. Still, in a market economy, movement along the curve may indicate that the choice of the increased output is anticipated to be worth the cost to the agents.
By construction, each point on the curve shows ''productive efficiency'' in maximizing output for given total inputs. A point ''inside'' the curve (as at ''A''), is feasible but represents ''production inefficiency'' (wasteful use of inputs), in that output of ''one or both goods'' could increase by moving in a northeast direction to a point on the curve. Examples cited of such inefficiency include high unemployment during a business-cycle recession or economic organization of a country that discourages full use of resources. Being on the curve might still not fully satisfy allocative efficiency (also called Pareto efficiency) if it does not produce a mix of goods that consumers prefer over other points.
Much applied economics in public policy is concerned with determining how the efficiency of an economy can be improved. Recognizing the reality of scarcity and then figuring out how to organize society for the most efficient use of resources has been described as the "essence of economics," where the subject "makes its unique contribution."
Specialization
Specialization is considered key to economic efficiency based on theoretical and
empirical considerations. Different individuals or nations may have different real opportunity costs of production, say from differences in
stocks of
human capital per worker or
capital/
labour ratios. According to theory, this may give a
comparative advantage in production of goods that make more intensive use of the relatively more abundant, thus ''relatively'' cheaper, input. Even if one region has an
absolute advantage as to the ratio of its outputs to inputs in every type of output, it may still specialize in the output in which it has a comparative advantage and thereby gain from trading with a region that lacks any absolute advantage but has a comparative advantage in producing something else.
It has been observed that a high volume of trade occurs among regions even with access to a similar technology and mix of factor inputs, including high-income countries. This has led to investigation of economies of scale and agglomeration to explain specialization in similar but differentiated product lines, to the overall benefit of respective trading parties or regions.
The general theory of specialization applies to trade among individuals, farms, manufacturers, service providers, and economies. Among each of these production systems, there may be a corresponding ''division of labour'' with different work groups specializing, or correspondingly different types of capital equipment and differentiated land uses.
An example that combines features above is a country that specializes in the production of high-tech knowledge products, as developed countries do, and trades with developing nations for goods produced in factories where labor is relatively cheap and plentiful, resulting in different in opportunity costs of production. More total output and utility thereby results from specializing in production and trading than if each country produced its own high-tech and low-tech products.
Theory and observation set out the conditions such that market prices of outputs and productive inputs select an allocation of factor inputs by comparative advantage, so that (relatively) low-cost inputs go to producing low-cost outputs. In the process, aggregate output may increase as a by-product or by design. Such specialization of production creates opportunities for ''gains from trade'' whereby resource owners benefit from trade in the sale of one type of output for other, more highly valued goods. A measure of gains from trade is the ''increased income levels'' that trade may facilitate.
Supply and demand
Prices and quantities have been described as the most directly observable attributes of goods produced and exchanged in a market economy. The theory of supply and demand is an organizing principle for explaining how prices coordinate the amounts produced and consumed. In microeconomics, it applies to price and output determination for a market with perfect competition, which includes the condition of no buyers or sellers large enough to have price-setting power.
For a given market of a commodity, ''demand'' is the relation of the quantity that all buyers would be prepared to purchase at each unit price of the good. Demand is often represented by a table or a graph showing price and quantity demanded (as in the figure). Demand theory describes individual consumers as rationally choosing the most preferred quantity of each good, given income, prices, tastes, etc. A term for this is 'constrained utility maximization' (with income and wealth as the constraints on demand). Here, utility refers to the hypothesized relation of each individual consumer for ranking different commodity bundles as more or less preferred.
The law of demand states that, in general, price and quantity demanded in a given market are inversely related. That is, the higher the price of a product, the less of it people would be prepared to buy of it (other things unchanged). As the price of a commodity falls, consumers move toward it from relatively more expensive goods (the substitution effect). In addition, purchasing power from the price decline increases ability to buy (the income effect). Other factors can change demand; for example an increase in income will shift the demand curve for a normal good outward relative to the origin, as in the figure.
''Supply'' is the relation between the price of a good and the quantity available for sale at that price. It may be represented as a table or graph relating price and quantity supplied. Producers, for example business firms, are hypothesized to be ''profit-maximizers'', meaning that they attempt to produce and supply the amount of goods that will bring them the highest profit. Supply is typically represented as a directly-proportional relation between price and quantity supplied (other things unchanged). That is, the higher the price at which the good can be sold, the more of it producers will supply, as in the figure. The higher price makes it profitable to increase production. Just as on the demand side, the position of the supply can shift, say from a change in the price of a productive input or a technical improvement.
Market equilibrium occurs where quantity supplied equals quantity demanded, the intersection of the supply and demand curves in the figure above. At a price below equilibrium, there is a shortage of quantity supplied compared to quantity demanded. This is posited to bid the price up. At a price above equilibrium, there is a surplus of quantity supplied compared to quantity demanded. This pushes the price down. The model of supply and demand predicts that for given supply and demand curves, price and quantity will stabilize at the price that makes quantity supplied equal to quantity demanded. Similarly, demand-and-supply theory predicts a new price-quantity combination from a shift in demand (as to the figure), or in supply.
For a given quantity of a consumer good, the point on the demand curve indicates the value, or marginal utility, to consumers for that unit. It measures what the consumer would be prepared to pay for that unit. The corresponding point on the supply curve measures marginal cost, the increase in total cost to the supplier for the corresponding unit of the good. The price in equilibrium is determined by supply and demand. In a perfectly competitive market, supply and demand equate marginal cost and marginal utility at equilibrium.
On the supply side of the market, some factors of production are described as (relatively) ''variable'' in the short run, which affects the cost of changing output levels. Their usage rates can be changed easily, such as electrical power, raw-material inputs, and over-time and temp work. Other inputs are relatively ''fixed'', such as plant and equipment and key personnel. In the long run, all inputs may be adjusted by management. These distinctions translate to differences in the elasticity (responsiveness) of the supply curve in the short and long runs and corresponding differences in the price-quantity change from a shift on the supply or demand side of the market.
Marginalist theory, such as above, describes the consumers as attempting to reach most-preferred positions, subject to income and wealth constraints while producers attempt to maximize profits subject to their own constraints, including demand for goods produced, technology, and the price of inputs. For the consumer, that point comes where marginal utility of a good, net of price, reaches zero, leaving no net gain from further consumption increases. Analogously, the producer compares marginal revenue (identical to price for the perfect competitor) against the marginal cost of a good, with ''marginal profit'' the difference. At the point where marginal profit reaches zero, further increases in production of the good stop. For movement to market equilibrium and for changes in equilibrium, price and quantity also change "at the margin": more-or-less of something, rather than necessarily all-or-nothing.
Other applications of demand and supply include the distribution of income among the factors of production, including labour and capital, through factor markets. In a competitive labour market for example the quantity of labour employed and the price of labour (the wage rate) depends on the demand for labour (from employers for production) and supply of labour (from potential workers). Labour economics examines the interaction of workers and employers through such markets to explain patterns and changes of wages and other labour income, labour mobility, and (un)employment, productivity through human capital, and related public-policy issues.
Demand-and-supply analysis is used to explain the behavior of perfectly competitive markets, but as a standard of comparison it can be extended to any type of market. It can also be generalized to explain variables across the economy, for example, total output (estimated as real GDP) and the general price level, as studied in macroeconomics. Tracing the qualitative and quantitative effects of variables that change supply and demand, whether in the short or long run, is a standard exercise in applied economics. Economic theory may also specify conditions such that supply and demand through the market is an efficient mechanism for allocating resources.
Firms
People frequently do not trade directly on markets. Instead, on the supply side, they may work in and produce through ''firms''. The most obvious kinds of firms are corporations, partnerships and trusts. According to Ronald Coase people begin to organise their production in firms when the costs of doing business becomes lower than doing it on the market. Firms combine labour and capital, and can achieve far greater economies of scale (when the average cost per unit declines as more units are produced) than individual market trading.
In perfectly-competitive markets studied in the theory of supply and demand, there are many producers, none of which significantly influence price. Industrial organization generalizes from that special case to study the strategic behavior of firms that do have significant control of price. It considers the structure of such markets and their interactions. Common market structures studied besides perfect competition include monopolistic competition, various forms of oligopoly, and monopoly.
Managerial economics applies microeconomic analysis to specific decisions in business firms or other management units. It draws heavily from quantitative methods such as operations research and programming and from statistical methods such as regression analysis in the absence of certainty and perfect knowledge. A unifying theme is the attempt to optimize business decisions, including unit-cost minimization and profit maximization, given the firm's objectives and constraints imposed by technology and market conditions.
Uncertainty and game theory
Uncertainty in economics is an unknown prospect of gain or loss, whether quantifiable as
risk or not. Without it, household behavior would be unaffected by uncertain employment and income prospects,
financial and
capital markets would reduce to exchange of a single
instrument in each market period, and there would be no
communications industry. Given its different forms, there are various ways of representing uncertainty and modelling economic agents' responses to it.
Game theory is a branch of applied mathematics that considers strategic interactions between agents, one kind of uncertainty. It provides a mathematical foundation of industrial organization, discussed above, to model different types of firm behavior, for example in an oligopolistic industry (few sellers), but equally applicable to wage negotiations, bargaining, contract design, and any situation where individual agents are few enough to have perceptible effects on each other. As a method heavily used in behavioral economics, it postulates that agents choose strategies to maximize their payoffs, given the strategies of other agents with at least partially conflicting interests. In this, it generalizes maximization approaches developed to analyze market actors such as in the supply and demand model and allows for incomplete information of actors. The field dates from the 1944 classic ''Theory of Games and Economic Behavior'' by John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern. It has significant applications seemingly outside of economics in such diverse subjects as formulation of nuclear strategies, ethics, political science, and evolutionary biology.
Risk aversion may stimulate activity that in well-functioning markets smooths out risk and communicates information about risk, as in markets for insurance, commodity futures contracts, and financial instruments. Financial economics or simply finance describes the allocation of financial resources. It also analyzes the pricing of financial instruments, the financial structure of companies, the efficiency and fragility of financial markets, financial crises, and related government policy or regulation.
Some market organizations may give rise to inefficiencies associated with uncertainty. Based on George Akerlof's "Market for Lemons" article, the paradigm example is of a dodgy second-hand car market. Customers without knowledge of whether a car is a "lemon" depress its price below what a quality second-hand car would be. Information asymmetry arises here, if the seller has more relevant information than the buyer but no incentive to disclose it. Related problems in insurance are adverse selection, such that those at most risk are most likely to insure (say reckless drivers), and moral hazard, such that insurance results in riskier behavior (say more reckless driving). Both problems may raise insurance costs and reduce efficiency in driving otherwise willing transactors from the market ("incomplete markets"). Moreover, attempting to reduce one problem, say adverse selection by mandating insurance, may add to another, say moral hazard. Information economics, which studies such problems, has relevance in subjects such as insurance, contract law, mechanism design, monetary economics, and health care. Applied subjects include market and legal remedies to spread or reduce risk, such as warranties, government-mandated partial insurance, restructuring or bankruptcy law, inspection, and regulation for quality and information disclosure.
Market failure
The term "market failure" encompasses several problems which may undermine standard economic assumptions. Although economists categorise market failures differently, the following categories emerge in the main texts.
Information asymmetries and
incomplete markets may result in economic inefficiency but also a possibility of improving efficiency through market, legal, and regulatory remedies, as discussed above.
Natural monopoly, or the overlapping concepts of "practical" and "technical" monopoly, is an extreme case of ''failure of competition'' as a restraint on producers. The problem is described as one where the more of a product is made, the lower the unit costs are. This means it only makes economic sense to have one producer.
Public goods are goods which are undersupplied in a typical market. The defining features are that people can consume public goods without having to pay for them and that more than one person can consume the good at the same time.
Externalities occur where there are significant social costs or benefits from production or consumption that are not reflected in market prices. For example, air pollution may generate a negative externality, and education may generate a positive externality (less crime, etc.). Governments often tax and otherwise restrict the sale of goods that have negative externalities and subsidize or otherwise promote the purchase of goods that have positive externalities in an effort to correct the price distortions caused by these externalities. Elementary demand-and-supply theory predicts equilibrium but not the speed of adjustment for changes of equilibrium due to a shift in demand or supply.
In many areas, some form of price stickiness is postulated to account for quantities, rather than prices, adjusting in the short run to changes on the demand side or the supply side. This includes standard analysis of the business cycle in macroeconomics. Analysis often revolves around causes of such price stickiness and their implications for reaching a hypothesized long-run equilibrium. Examples of such price stickiness in particular markets include wage rates in labour markets and posted prices in markets deviating from perfect competition.
Macroeconomic instability, addressed below, is a prime source of market failure, whereby a general loss of business confidence or external shock can grind production and distribution to a halt, undermining ordinary markets that are otherwise sound.
Some specialised fields of economics deal in market failure more than others. The economics of the public sector is one example, since where markets fail, some kind of regulatory or government programme is the remedy. Much environmental economics concerns externalities or "public bads".
Policy options include regulations that reflect cost-benefit analysis or market solutions that change incentives, such as emission fees or redefinition of property rights.
Public sector
Public finance is the field of economics that deals with budgeting the revenues and expenditures of a
public sector entity, usually government. The subject addresses such matters as
tax incidence (who really pays a particular tax), cost-benefit analysis of government programs, effects on
economic efficiency and
income distribution of different kinds of spending and taxes, and fiscal politics. The latter, an aspect of
public choice theory, models public-sector behavior analogously to microeconomics, involving interactions of self-interested voters, politicians, and bureaucrats.
Much of economics is positive, seeking to describe and predict economic phenomena. Normative economics seeks to identify what economies ''ought'' to be like.
Welfare economics is a normative branch of economics that uses microeconomic techniques to simultaneously determine the allocative efficiency within an economy and the income distribution associated with it. It attempts to measure social welfare by examining the economic activities of the individuals that comprise society.
Macroeconomics
Macroeconomics examines the economy as a whole to explain broad aggregates and their interactions "top down," that is, using a simplified form of general-equilibrium theory. Such aggregates include national income and output, the unemployment rate, and price inflation and subaggregates like total consumption and investment spending and their components. It also studies effects of monetary policy and fiscal policy.
In order to procede with this examination it is necessary to envisage the macroeconomics system or (social organization of the greater community or nation) in a form that can be easily understood and appreciated. This is done by means of a macroeconomics model, which is a general expression of the system that is useful for purposes of discussion. The model can take a number of different forms including block diagrams, algebraic equations, mechanical analogy, electronic analogy, Leontief Matrix, etc. A suitable model for use in representing the macroeconomic system is shown in the illustration for a closed macroeconomics system without including "The Rest of The World". Money circulates around this model and goods, services, valuable legal documents etc. pass in return between the 6 entities or agents (also sometimes called sectors) that comprise the basic structure of the system. The system flows of money, goods etc., continuously try to self-adjust, in order to attain a condition of equilibrium.
Since at least the 1960s, macroeconomics has been characterized by further integration as to micro-based modeling of sectors, including rationality of players, efficient use of market information, and imperfect competition. This has addressed a long-standing concern about inconsistent developments of the same subject.
Macroeconomic analysis also considers factors affecting the long-term level and growth of national income. Such factors include capital accumulation, technological change and labor force growth.
Growth
''Growth economics'' studies factors that explain economic growth – the increase in output per capita of a country over a long period of time. The same factors are used to explain differences in the ''level'' of output per capita ''between'' countries, in particular why some countries grow faster than others, and whether countries converge at the same rates of growth.
Much-studied factors include the rate of investment, population growth, and technological change. These are represented in theoretical and empirical forms (as in the neoclassical and endogenous growth models) and in growth accounting.
Business cycle
The economics of a depression were the spur for the creation of "macroeconomics" as a separate discipline field of study. During the
Great Depression of the 1930s,
John Maynard Keynes authored a book entitled ''
The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money'' outlining the key theories of
Keynesian economics. Keynes contended that
aggregate demand for goods might be insufficient during economic downturns, leading to unnecessarily high unemployment and losses of potential output.
He therefore advocated active policy responses by the public sector, including monetary policy actions by the central bank and fiscal policy actions by the government to stabilize output over the business cycle
Thus, a central conclusion of Keynesian economics is that, in some situations, no strong automatic mechanism moves output and employment towards full employment levels. John Hicks' IS/LM model has been the most influential interpretation of ''The General Theory''.
Over the years, the understanding of the business cycle has branched into various schools, related to or opposed to Keynesianism. The neoclassical synthesis refers to the reconciliation of Keynesian economics with neoclassical economics, stating that Keynesianism is correct in the short run, with the economy following neoclassical theory in the long run.
The New classical school critiques the Keynesian view of the business cycle. It includes Friedman's permanent income hypothesis view on consumption, the "rational expectations revolution" spearheaded by Robert Lucas, and real business cycle theory.
In contrast, the New Keynesian school retains the rational expectations assumption, however it assumes a variety of market failures. In particular, New Keynesians assume prices and wages are "sticky", which means they do not adjust instantaneously to changes in economic conditions.
Thus, the new classicals assume that prices and wages adjust automatically to attain full employment, whereas the new Keynesians see full employment as being automatically achieved only in the long run, and hence government and central-bank policies are needed because the "long run" may be very long.
Inflation and monetary policy
Money is a ''means of final payment'' for goods in most price system economies and the unit of account in which prices are typically stated. It includes currency held by the nonbank public and checkable deposits. It has been described as a social convention, like language, useful to one largely because it is useful to others.
As a medium of exchange, money facilitates trade. Its economic function can be contrasted with barter (non-monetary exchange). Given a diverse array of produced goods and specialized producers, barter may entail a hard-to-locate double coincidence of wants as to what is exchanged, say apples and a book. Money can reduce the transaction cost of exchange because of its ready acceptability. Then it is less costly for the seller to accept money in exchange, rather than what the buyer produces.
At the level of an economy, theory and evidence are consistent with a positive relationship running from the total money supply to the nominal value of total output and to the general price level. For this reason, management of the money supply is a key aspect of monetary policy.
Fiscal policy and regulation
National accounting is a method for summarizing aggregate economic activity of a nation. The national accounts are double-entry accounting systems that provide detailed underlying measures of such information. These include the national income and product accounts (NIPA), which provide estimates for the money value of output and income per year or quarter.
NIPA allows for tracking the performance of an economy and its components through business cycles or over longer periods. Price data may permit distinguishing nominal from real amounts, that is, correcting money totals for price changes over time. The national accounts also include measurement of the capital stock, wealth of a nation, and international capital flows.
International economics
International trade studies determinants of goods-and-services flows across international boundaries. It also concerns the size and distribution of
gains from trade. Policy applications include estimating the effects of changing
tariff rates and trade quotas.
International finance is a macroeconomic field which examines the flow of
capital across international borders, and the effects of these movements on
exchange rates. Increased trade in goods, services and capital between countries is a major effect of contemporary
globalization.
The distinct field of ''development economics'' examines economic aspects of the development process in relatively low-income countries focusing on structural change, poverty, and economic growth. Approaches in development economics frequently incorporate social and political factors.
Economic systems is the branch of economics that studies the methods and institutions by which societies determine the ownership, direction, and allocation of economic resources. An ''economic system'' of a society is the unit of analysis.
Among contemporary systems at different ends of the organizational spectrum are socialist systems and capitalist systems, in which most production occurs in respectively state-run and private enterprises. In between are mixed economies. A common element is the interaction of economic and political influences, broadly described as political economy. ''Comparative economic systems'' studies the relative performance and behavior of different economies or systems.
Practice
Contemporary economics uses mathematics. Economists draw on the tools of
calculus,
linear algebra,
statistics,
game theory, and
computer science. Professional economists are expected to be familiar with these tools, while a minority specialize in econometrics and mathematical methods.
Theory
Mainstream economic theory relies upon
a priori quantitative
economic models, which employ a variety of concepts. Theory typically proceeds with an assumption of ''
ceteris paribus'', which means holding constant explanatory variables other than the one under consideration. When creating theories, the objective is to find ones which are at least as simple in information requirements, more precise in predictions, and more fruitful in generating additional research than prior theories.
In microeconomics, principal concepts include supply and demand, marginalism, rational choice theory, opportunity cost, budget constraints, utility, and the theory of the firm. Early macroeconomic models focused on modeling the relationships between aggregate variables, but as the relationships appeared to change over time macroeconomists were pressured to base their models in microfoundations.
The aforementioned microeconomic concepts play a major part in macroeconomic models – for instance, in monetary theory, the quantity theory of money predicts that increases in the money supply increase inflation, and inflation is assumed to be influenced by rational expectations. In development economics, slower growth in developed nations has been sometimes predicted because of the declining marginal returns of investment and capital, and this has been observed in the Four Asian Tigers. Sometimes an economic hypothesis is only ''qualitative'', not ''quantitative''.
Expositions of economic reasoning often use two-dimensional graphs to illustrate theoretical relationships. At a higher level of generality, Paul Samuelson's treatise ''Foundations of Economic Analysis'' (1947) used mathematical methods to represent the theory, particularly as to maximizing behavioral relations of agents reaching equilibrium. The book focused on examining the class of statements called ''operationally meaningful theorems'' in economics, which are theorems that can conceivably be refuted by empirical data.
Empirical investigation
Economic theories are frequently tested
empirically, largely through the use of
econometrics using
economic data. The controlled experiments common to the
physical sciences are difficult and uncommon in economics, and instead broad data is
observationally studied; this type of testing is typically regarded as less rigorous than controlled experimentation, and the conclusions typically more tentative. However, the field of
experimental economics is growing, and increasing use is being made of
natural experiments.
Statistical methods such as regression analysis are common. Practitioners use such methods to estimate the size, economic significance, and statistical significance ("signal strength") of the hypothesized relation(s) and to adjust for noise from other variables. By such means, a hypothesis may gain acceptance, although in a probabilistic, rather than certain, sense. Acceptance is dependent upon the falsifiable hypothesis surviving tests. Use of commonly accepted methods need not produce a final conclusion or even a consensus on a particular question, given different tests, data sets, and prior beliefs.
Criticism based on professional standards and non-replicability of results serve as further checks against bias, errors, and over-generalization, although much economic research has been accused of being non-replicable, and prestigious journals have been accused of not facilitating replication through the provision of the code and data. Like theories, uses of test statistics are themselves open to critical analysis, although critical commentary on papers in economics in prestigious journals such as the ''American Economic Review'' has declined precipitously in the past 40 years. This has been attributed to journals' incentives to maximize citations in order to rank higher on the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI).
In applied economics, input-output models employing linear programming methods are quite common. Large amounts of data are run through computer programs to analyze the impact of certain policies; IMPLAN is one well-known example.
Experimental economics has promoted the use of scientifically controlled experiments. This has reduced long-noted distinction of economics from natural sciences allowed direct tests of what were previously taken as axioms. In some cases these have found that the axioms are not entirely correct; for example, the ultimatum game has revealed that people reject unequal offers.
In behavioral economics, psychologist Daniel Kahneman won the Nobel Prize in economics in 2002 for his and Amos Tversky's empirical discovery of several cognitive biases and heuristics. Similar empirical testing occurs in neuroeconomics. Another example is the assumption of narrowly selfish preferences versus a model that tests for selfish, altruistic, and cooperative preferences. These techniques have led some to argue that economics is a "genuine science."
Profession
The professionalization of economics, reflected in the growth of graduate programs on the subject, has been described as "the main change in economics since around 1900". Most major
universities and many colleges have a major, school, or department in which
academic degrees are awarded in the subject, whether in the
liberal arts, business, or for professional study; see
Master of Economics.
The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (commonly known as the Nobel Prize in Economics) is a prize awarded to economists each year for outstanding intellectual contributions in the field. In the private sector, professional economists are employed as consultants and in industry, including banking and finance. Economists also work for various government departments and agencies, for example, the national Treasury, Central Bank or Bureau of Statistics.
Related subjects
Economics is one
social science among several and has fields bordering on other areas, including
economic geography,
economic history,
public choice,
energy economics,
cultural economics, and
institutional economics.
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 legal rules, to assess which legal rules are economically efficient, and to predict what the legal rules will be. A seminal article by Ronald Coase published in 1961 suggested that well-defined property rights could overcome the problems of externalities.
Political economy is the interdisciplinary study that combines economics, law, and political science in explaining how political institutions, the political environment, and the economic system (capitalist, socialist, mixed) influence each other. It studies questions such as how monopoly, rent-seeking behavior, and externalities should impact government policy. Historians have employed ''political economy'' to explore the ways in the past that persons and groups with common economic interests have used politics to effect changes beneficial to their interests.
Energy economics is a broad scientific subject area which includes topics related to energy supply and energy demand. Georgescu-Roegen reintroduced the concept of entropy in relation to economics and energy from thermodynamics, as distinguished from what he viewed as the mechanistic foundation of neoclassical economics drawn from Newtonian physics. His work contributed significantly to thermoeconomics and to ecological economics. He also did foundational work which later developed into evolutionary economics.
The sociological subfield of economic sociology arose, primarily through the work of Émile Durkheim, Max Weber and Georg Simmel, as an approach to analysing the effects of economic phenomena in relation to the overarching social paradigm (i.e. modernity). Classic works include Max Weber's ''The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism'' (1905) and Georg Simmel's ''The Philosophy of Money'' (1900). More recently, the works of Mark Granovetter, Peter Hedstrom and Richard Swedberg have been influential in this field.
History
Economic writings date from earlier
Mesopotamian,
Greek,
Roman,
Indian subcontinent,
Chinese,
Persian, and
Arab civilizations. Notable writers from antiquity through to the 14th century include
Aristotle,
Xenophon,
Chanakya (also known as Kautilya),
Qin Shi Huang,
Thomas Aquinas, and
Ibn Khaldun. The works of Aristotle had a profound influence on Aquinas, who in turn influenced the
late scholastics of the 14th to 17th centuries.
Joseph Schumpeter described the latter as "coming nearer than any other group to being the 'founders' of scientific economics" as to
monetary, interest, and
value theory within a
natural-law perspective.
Two groups, later called 'mercantilists' and 'physiocrats', more directly influenced the subsequent development of the subject. Both groups were associated with the rise of economic nationalism and modern capitalism in Europe. Mercantilism was an economic doctrine that flourished from the 16th to 18th century in a prolific pamphlet literature, whether of merchants or statesmen. It held that a nation's wealth depended on its accumulation of gold and silver. Nations without access to mines could obtain gold and silver from trade only by selling goods abroad and restricting imports other than of gold and silver. The doctrine called for importing cheap raw materials to be used in manufacturing goods, which could be exported, and for state regulation to impose protective tariffs on foreign manufactured goods and prohibit manufacturing in the colonies.
Physiocrats, a group of 18th century French thinkers and writers, developed the idea of the economy as a circular flow of income and output. Physiocrats believed that only agricultural production generated a clear surplus over cost, so that agriculture was the basis of all wealth. Thus, they opposed the mercantilist policy of promoting manufacturing and trade at the expense of agriculture, including import tariffs. Physiocrats advocated replacing administratively costly tax collections with a single tax on income of land owners. In reaction against copious mercantilist trade regulations, the physiocrats advocated a policy of laissez-faire, which called for minimal government intervention in the economy.
Modern economic analysis is customarily said to have begun with Adam Smith (1723–1790). Smith was harshly critical of the mercantilists but described the physiocratic system "with all its imperfections" as "perhaps the purest approximation to the truth that has yet been published" on the subject.
Classical political economy
Publication of
Adam Smith's ''
The Wealth of Nations'' in 1776, has been described as "the effective birth of economics as a separate discipline." The book identified land, labor, and capital as the three factors of production and the major contributors to a nation's wealth.
Smith discusses the benefits of the specialization by division of labour. His "theorem" that "the division of labor is limited by the extent of the market" has been described as the "core of a theory of the functions of firm and industry" and a "fundamental principle of economic organization." To Smith has also been ascribed "the most important substantive proposition in all of economics" and foundation of resource-allocation theory – that, under competition, owners of resources (labor, land, and capital) will use them most profitably, resulting in an equal rate of return in equilibrium for all uses (adjusted for apparent differences arising from such factors as training and unemployment).
In Smith's view, the ideal economy is a self-regulating market system that automatically satisfies the economic needs of the populace. He described the market mechanism as an "invisible hand" that leads all individuals, in pursuit of their own self-interests, to produce the greatest benefit for society as a whole. Smith incorporated some of the Physiocrats' ideas, including laissez-faire, into his own economic theories, but rejected the idea that only agriculture was productive.
In his famous invisible-hand analogy, Smith argued for the seemingly paradoxical notion that competitive markets tended to advance broader ''social'' interests, although driven by narrower ''self''-interest. The general approach that Smith helped initiate was called political economy and later classical economics. It included such notables as Thomas Malthus, David Ricardo, and John Stuart Mill writing from about 1770 to 1870. The period from 1815 to 1845 was one of the richest in the history of economic thought.
While Adam Smith emphasized the production of income, David Ricardo focused on the distribution of income among landowners, workers, and capitalists. Ricardo saw an inherent conflict between landowners on the one hand and labor and capital on the other. He posited that the growth of population and capital, pressing against a fixed supply of land, pushes up rents and holds down wages and profits.
Thomas Robert Malthus used the idea of diminishing returns to explain low living standards. Human population, he argued, tended to increase geometrically, outstripping the production of food, which increased arithmetically. The force of a rapidly growing population against a limited amount of land meant diminishing returns to labor. The result, he claimed, was chronically low wages, which prevented the standard of living for most of the population from rising above the subsistence level.
Malthus also questioned the automatic tendency of a market economy to produce full employment. He blamed unemployment upon the economy's tendency to limit its spending by saving too much, a theme that lay forgotten until John Maynard Keynes revived it in the 1930s.
Coming at the end of the Classical tradition, John Stuart Mill parted company with the earlier classical economists on the inevitability of the distribution of income produced by the market system. Mill pointed to a distinct difference between the market's two roles: allocation of resources and distribution of income. The market might be efficient in allocating resources but not in distributing income, he wrote, making it necessary for society to intervene.
Value theory was important in classical theory. Smith wrote that the "real price of every thing ... is the toil and trouble of acquiring it" as influenced by its scarcity. Smith maintained that, with rent and profit, other costs besides wages also enter the price of a commodity. Other classical economists presented variations on Smith, termed the 'labour theory of value'. Classical economics focused on the tendency of markets to move to long-run equilibrium.
Marxism
Marxist (later, Marxian) economics descends from classical economics. It derives from the work of Karl Marx. The first volume of Marx's major work, ''Das Kapital'', was published in German in 1867. In it, Marx focused on the labour theory of value and what he considered to be the exploitation of labour by capital. The labour theory of value held that the value of an exchanged commodity was determined by the labor that went into its production.
Neoclassical economics
A body of theory later termed 'neoclassical economics' or '
marginalism' formed from about 1870 to 1910. The term 'economics' was popularized by such neoclassical economists as
Alfred Marshall as a concise synonym for 'economic science' and a substitute for the earlier, broader term '
political economy'. This corresponded to the influence on the subject of mathematical methods used in the
natural sciences.
Neoclassical economics systematized supply and demand as joint determinants of price and quantity in market equilibrium, affecting both the allocation of output and the distribution of income. It dispensed with the labour theory of value inherited from classical economics in favor of a marginal utility theory of value on the demand side and a more general theory of costs on the supply side. In the 20th century, neoclassical theorists moved away from an earlier notion suggesting that total utility for a society could be measured in favor of ordinal utility, which hypothesizes merely behavior-based relations across persons.
In microeconomics, neoclassical economics represents incentives and costs as playing a pervasive role in shaping decision making. An immediate example of this is the consumer theory of individual demand, which isolates how prices (as costs) and income affect quantity demanded. In macroeconomics it is reflected in an early and lasting neoclassical synthesis with Keynesian macroeconomics.
Neoclassical economics is occasionally referred as ''orthodox economics'' whether by its critics or sympathizers. Modern mainstream economics builds on neoclassical economics but with many refinements that either supplement or generalize earlier analysis, such as econometrics, game theory, analysis of market failure and imperfect competition, and the neoclassical model of economic growth for analyzing long-run variables affecting national income.
Keynesian economics
Keynesian economics derives from John Maynard Keynes, in particular his book ''The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money'' (1936), which ushered in contemporary macroeconomics as a distinct field. The book focused on determinants of national income in the short run when prices are relatively inflexible. Keynes attempted to explain in broad theoretical detail why high labour-market unemployment might not be self-correcting due to low "effective demand" and why even price flexibility and monetary policy might be unavailing. Such terms as "revolutionary" have been applied to the book in its impact on economic analysis.
Keynesian economics has two successors. Post-Keynesian economics also concentrates on macroeconomic rigidities and adjustment processes. Research on micro foundations for their models is represented as based on real-life practices rather than simple optimizing models. It is generally associated with the University of Cambridge and the work of Joan Robinson.
New-Keynesian economics is also associated with developments in the Keynesian fashion. Within this group researchers tend to share with other economists the emphasis on models employing micro foundations and optimizing behavior but with a narrower focus on standard Keynesian themes such as price and wage rigidity. These are usually made to be endogenous features of the models, rather than simply assumed as in older Keynesian-style ones.
Chicago School of economics
The Chicago School of economics is best known for its free market advocacy and
monetarist ideas. According to
Milton Friedman and monetarists, market economies are inherently stable if the money supply does not greatly expand or contract.
Ben Bernanke, current Chairman of the Federal Reserve, is among the economists today generally accepting Friedman's analysis of the causes of the Great Depression.
Milton Friedman effectively took many of the basic principles set forth by Adam Smith and the classical economists and modernized them. One example of this is his article in the September 1970 issue of The New York Times Magazine, where he claims that the social responsibility of business should be “to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits...(through) open and free competition without deception or fraud.”
Other schools and approaches
Other well-known schools or trends of thought referring to a particular style of economics practiced at and disseminated from well-defined groups of academicians that have become known worldwide, include the
Austrian School, the
Freiburg School, the
School of Lausanne,
post-Keynesian economics and the
Stockholm school. Contemporary
mainstream economics is sometimes separated into the Saltwater approach of those universities along the
Eastern and
Western coasts of the US, and the Freshwater, or Chicago-school approach.
Within macroeconomics there is, in general order of their appearance in the literature; classical economics, Keynesian economics, the neoclassical synthesis, post-Keynesian economics, monetarism, new classical economics, and supply-side economics. Alternative developments include ecological economics, institutional economics, evolutionary economics, dependency theory, structuralist economics, world systems theory, econophysics, and biophysical economics.
Criticism
"
The dismal science" is a derogatory alternative name for economics devised by the
Victorian historian
Thomas Carlyle in the 19th century. It is often stated that Carlyle gave economics the nickname "the dismal science" as a response to the late 18th century writings of The Reverend
Thomas Robert Malthus, who grimly predicted that starvation would result, as projected population growth exceeded the rate of increase in the food supply. However, the actual phrase was coined by Carlyle in the context of a debate with
John Stuart Mill on
slavery, in which Carlyle argued for slavery, while Mill opposed it.
Some economists, like John Stuart Mill or Leon Walras, have maintained that the production of wealth should not be tied to its distribution. The former is in the field of "applied economics" while the latter belongs to "social economics" and is largely a matter of power and politics.
In ''The Wealth of Nations'', Adam Smith addressed many issues that are currently also the subject of debate and dispute. Smith repeatedly attacks groups of politically aligned individuals who attempt to use their collective influence to manipulate a government into doing their bidding. In Smith's day, these were referred to as factions, but are now more commonly called special interests, a term which can comprise international bankers, corporate conglomerations, outright oligopolies, monopolies, trade unions and other groups.
Economics per se, as a social science, is independent of the political acts of any government or other decision-making organization, however, many policymakers or individuals holding highly ranked positions that can influence other people's lives are known for arbitrarily using a plethora of economic concepts and rhetoric as vehicles to legitimize agendas and value systems, and do not limit their remarks to matters relevant to their responsibilities. The close relation of economic theory and practice with politics is a focus of contention that may shade or distort the most unpretentious original tenets of economics, and is often confused with specific social agendas and value systems. Notwithstanding, economics legitimately has a role in informing government policy. It is, indeed, in some ways an outgrowth of the older field of political economy. Some academic economic journals are currently focusing increased efforts on gauging the consensus of economists regarding certain policy issues in hopes of effecting a more informed political environment. Currently, there exists a low approval rate from professional economists regarding many public policies. Policy issues featured in a recent survey of AEA economists include trade restrictions, social insurance for those put out of work by international competition, genetically modified foods, curbside recycling, health insurance (several questions), medical malpractice, barriers to entering the medical profession, organ donations, unhealthy foods, mortgage deductions, taxing internet sales, Wal-Mart, casinos, ethanol subsidies, and inflation targeting.
In ''Steady State Economics'' 1977, Herman Daly argues that there exist logical inconsistencies between the emphasis placed on economic growth and the limited availability of natural resources.
Issues like central bank independence, central bank policies and rhetoric in central bank governors discourse or the premises of macroeconomic policies (monetary and fiscal policy) of the state, are focus of contention and criticism.
Deirdre McCloskey has argued that many empirical economic studies are poorly reported, and while her critique has been well-received, she and Stephen Ziliak argue that practice has not improved. This latter contention is controversial.
A 2002 International Monetary Fund study looked at “consensus forecasts” (the forecasts of large groups of economists) that were made in advance of 60 different national recessions in the ’90s: in 97% of the cases the economists did not predict the contraction a year in advance. On those rare occasions when economists did successfully predict recessions, they significantly underestimated their severity.
Criticism of assumptions
Economics has been subject to criticism that it relies on unrealistic, unverifiable, or highly simplified assumptions, in some cases because these assumptions simplify the proofs of desired conclusions. Examples of such assumptions include
perfect information,
profit maximization and
rational choices.
The field of
information economics includes both mathematical-economical research and also
behavioral economics, akin to studies in
behavioral psychology.
Nevertheless, prominent mainstream economists such as Keynes and Joskow have observed that much of economics is conceptual rather than quantitative, and difficult to model and formalize quantitatively. In a discussion on oligopoly research, Paul Joskow pointed out in 1975 that in practice, serious students of actual economies tended to use "informal models" based upon qualitative factors specific to particular industries. Joskow had a strong feeling that the important work in oligopoly was done through informal observations while formal models were "trotted out ''ex post''". He argued that formal models were largely not important in the empirical work, either, and that the fundamental factor behind the theory of the firm, behavior, was neglected.
Despite these concerns, mainstream graduate programs have become increasingly technical and mathematical.
See also
Bachelor of Economics
Budget
Cand.oecon.
Economic study of collective action
Constitutional economics
Dominant group (economics)
Economic ideology
Economic policy
Economics terminology that differs from common usage
List of economics films
Master of Economics
Socioeconomics
Social Capital
World Trade Organization
Notes
References
Charles Robert McCann, Jr., 2003. ''The Elgar Dictionary of Economic Quotations'', Edward Elgar. Preview.
External links
;General information
Economic journals on the web
Economics at
Encyclopædia Britannica.
Intute: Economics: Internet directory of UK universities.
Research Papers in Economics (RePEc)
Resources For Economists: American Economic Association-sponsored guide to 2,000+ Internet resources from "Data" to "Neat Stuff," updated quarterly.
;Institutions and organizations
Economics Departments, Institutes and Research Centers in the World
Organization For Co-operation and Economic Development (OECD) Statistics
United Nations Statistics Division
World Bank Data
;Study resources
A guide to several online economics textbooks
Economics at About.com
Economics textbooks on Wikibooks
Introduction to Economics: Short Creative commons-licensed introduction to basic economics
MERLOT Learning Materials: Economics: US-based database of learning materials
MIT OpenCourseWare: Economics: Archive of study materials from MIT courses
Online Learning and Teaching Materials UK Economics Network's database of text, slides, glossaries and other resources
Schools of Thought: Compare various economic schools of thought on particular issues
The Library of Economics and Liberty (Econlib): Economics Books, Articles, Blog (EconLog), Podcasts (EconTalk)
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![Special Event: Commemorative event on “Building our future”, in observance of the first World Down Syndrome Day (21 March) [co-organized by the Permanent Missions of Brazil and Poland, the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, the United Nations Children’s Fund, Down Syndrome International and other stakeholders]](http://web.archive.org./web/20120425100852/http://cdn0.wn.com/pd/16/ef/b95bcf179304906a0be811132f94_medium.jpg "Special Event: Commemorative event on “Building our future”, in observance of the first World Down Syndrome Day (21 March) [co-organized by the Permanent Missions of Brazil and Poland, the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, the United Nations Children’s Fund, Down Syndrome International and other stakeholders]")
![Special Event: Commemorative event on “Building our future”, in observance of the first World Down Syndrome Day (21 March) [co-organized by the Permanent Missions of Brazil and Poland, the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, the United Nations Children’s Fund, Down Syndrome International and other stakeholders]](http://web.archive.org./web/20120425100852/http://cdn4.wn.com/pd/b3/57/41d78229e66388cfcf8d900f29a5_medium.jpg "Special Event: Commemorative event on “Building our future”, in observance of the first World Down Syndrome Day (21 March) [co-organized by the Permanent Missions of Brazil and Poland, the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, the United Nations Children’s Fund, Down Syndrome International and other stakeholders]")
![Special Event: Commemorative event on “Building our future”, in observance of the first World Down Syndrome Day (21 March) [co-organized by the Permanent Missions of Brazil and Poland, the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, the United Nations Children’s Fund, Down Syndrome International and other stakeholders]](http://web.archive.org./web/20120425100852/http://cdn7.wn.com/pd/d0/37/0c269a6b7dae067de141d7d2ee3b_medium.jpg "Special Event: Commemorative event on “Building our future”, in observance of the first World Down Syndrome Day (21 March) [co-organized by the Permanent Missions of Brazil and Poland, the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, the United Nations Children’s Fund, Down Syndrome International and other stakeholders]")
![Special Event: Commemorative event on “Building our future”, in observance of the first World Down Syndrome Day (21 March) [co-organized by the Permanent Missions of Brazil and Poland, the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, the United Nations Children’s Fund, Down Syndrome International and other stakeholders]](http://web.archive.org./web/20120425100852/http://cdn6.wn.com/pd/4e/46/8f289d9997c023caff4b011f73e5_medium.jpg "Special Event: Commemorative event on “Building our future”, in observance of the first World Down Syndrome Day (21 March) [co-organized by the Permanent Missions of Brazil and Poland, the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, the United Nations Children’s Fund, Down Syndrome International and other stakeholders]")
![Trianon memorial, Kiskunhalas. The Austro-Hungarian Empire was one economic unit with autarkic characteristics[67][68] during its golden age and therefore achieved rapid growth, especially in the early 20th century when GNP grew by 1.76%.](http://web.archive.org./web/20120425100852/http://cdn6.wn.com/pd/e2/d0/1eb7f67a47d17003d601f9522719_medium.jpg "Trianon memorial, Kiskunhalas. The Austro-Hungarian Empire was one economic unit with autarkic characteristics[67][68] during its golden age and therefore achieved rapid growth, especially in the early 20th century when GNP grew by 1.76%.")
