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Economics
Economics () is a social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of economic agents and how economies work. Microeconomics analyses what is viewed as basic elements within economies, including individual agents and markets, their interactions, and the outcomes of interactions. Individual agents may include, for example, households, firms, buyers, and sellers. Macroeconomics analyses economies as systems where production, distribution, consumption, savings, and investment expenditure interact, and factors affecting it: factors of production, such as labour, capital, land, and enterprise, inflation, economic growth, and public policies that have impact on these elements. It also seeks to analyse and describe the global economy. Other broad distinctions within economics include those between positive economics, describing "what is", and normative economics, advocating "what ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Heterodox Economics
Heterodox economics is any economic thought or theory that contrasts with orthodox schools of economic thought, or that may be beyond neoclassical economics.Frederic S. Lee, 2008. "heterodox economics," ''The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics'', 2nd Edition, v. 4, pp. 2–65 Abstract. These include institutional, evolutionary, feminist, social, post-Keynesian (not to be confused with New Keynesian), ecological, Austrian, complexity, Marxian, socialist, and anarchist economics. Economics may be called ''orthodox'' or ''conventional'' economics by its critics.C. Barry, 1998. ''Political-economy: A comparative approach''. Westport, CT: Praeger. Alternatively, mainstream economics deals with the "rationality–individualism–equilibrium nexus" and heterodox economics is more "radical" in dealing with the "institutions–history–social structure nexus". A 2008 review documented several prominent groups of heterodox economists since at least the 1990s as working together with ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Social Science
Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among individuals within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of society", established in the 19th century. In addition to sociology, it now encompasses a wide array of academic disciplines, including anthropology, archaeology, economics, human geography, linguistics, management science, communication science and political science. Positivist social scientists use methods resembling those of the natural sciences as tools for understanding society, and so define science in its stricter modern sense. Interpretivist social scientists, by contrast, may use social critique or symbolic interpretation rather than constructing empirically falsifiable theories, and thus treat science in its broader sense. In modern academic practice, researchers are often eclectic, using multiple methodologies (for instance, by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Inflation
In economics, inflation is an increase in the general price level of goods and services in an economy. When the general price level rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods and services; consequently, inflation corresponds to a reduction in the purchasing power of money. The opposite of inflation is deflation, a sustained decrease in the general price level of goods and services. The common measure of inflation is the inflation rate, the annualized percentage change in a general price index. As prices do not all increase at the same rate, the consumer price index (CPI) is often used for this purpose. The employment cost index is also used for wages in the United States. Most economists agree that high levels of inflation as well as hyperinflation—which have severely disruptive effects on the real economy—are caused by persistent excessive growth in the money supply. Views on low to moderate rates of inflation are more varied. Low or moderate inflation may be attri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Business Economics
Business economics is a field in applied economics which uses economic theory and quantitative methods to analyze business enterprises and the factors contributing to the diversity of organizational structures and the relationships of firms with labour, capital and product markets.Moschandreas, Maria (2000). ''Business Economics'', 2nd Edition, Thompson Learning,Descriptionand chapter-previelinks A professional focus of the journal ''Business Economics'' has been expressed as providing "practical information for people who apply economics in their jobs." Business economics is an integral part of traditional economics and is an extension of economic concepts to the real business situations. It is an applied science in the sense of a tool of managerial decision-making and forward planning by management. In other words, business economics is concerned with the application of economic theory to business management. Business economics is based on microeconomics in two categories: posit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mainstream Economics
Mainstream economics is the body of knowledge, theories, and models of economics, as taught by universities worldwide, that are generally accepted by economists as a basis for discussion. Also known as orthodox economics, it can be contrasted to heterodox economics, which encompasses various schools or approaches that are only accepted by a minority of economists. The economics profession has traditionally been associated with neoclassical economics. This association has however been challenged by prominent historians of economic thought like David Collander. They argue the current economic mainstream theories, such as game theory, behavioral economics, industrial organization, information economics, and the like, share very little common ground with the initial axioms of neoclassical economics. History Economics has always featured multiple schools of economic thought, with different schools having different prominence across countries and over time. The current use of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Behavioural Economics
Behavioral economics studies the effects of psychological, cognitive, emotional, cultural and social factors on the decisions of individuals or institutions, such as how those decisions vary from those implied by classical economic theory. Behavioral economics is primarily concerned with the bounds of rationality of economic agents. Behavioral models typically integrate insights from psychology, neuroscience and microeconomic theory. The study of behavioral economics includes how market decisions are made and the mechanisms that drive public opinion. The concepts used in behavioral economics today can be traced back to 18th-century economists, such as Adam Smith, who deliberated how the economic behavior of individuals could be influenced by their desires. The status of behavioral economics as a subfield of economics is a fairly recent development; the breakthroughs that laid the foundation for it were published through the last three decades of the 20th century. Behavior ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rational Choice Theory
Rational choice theory refers to a set of guidelines that help understand economic and social behaviour. The theory originated in the eighteenth century and can be traced back to political economist and philosopher, Adam Smith. The theory postulates that an individual will perform a cost-benefit analysis to determine whether an option is right for them.Gary Browning, Abigail Halcli, Frank Webster (2000). ''Understanding Contemporary Society: Theories of the Present'', London: SAGE Publications. It also suggests that an individual's self-driven rational actions will help better the overall economy. Rational choice theory looks at three concepts: rational actors, self interest and the invisible hand. Rationality can be used as an assumption for the behaviour of individuals in a wide range of contexts outside of economics. It is also used in political science, sociology, and philosophy. Overview The basic premise of rational choice theory is that the decisions made by individual ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Applied Economics
Applied economics is the study as regards the application of economic theory and econometrics in specific settings. As one of the two sets of fields of economics (the other set being the ''core''), it is typically characterized by the application of the ''core'', i.e. economic theory and econometrics to address practical issues in a range of fields including demographic economics, labour economics, business economics, industrial organization, agricultural economics, development economics, education economics, engineering economics, financial economics, health economics, monetary economics, public economics, and economic history. From the perspective of economic development, the purpose of applied economics is to enhance the quality of business practices and national policy making. The process often involves a reduction in the level of abstraction of this core theory. There are a variety of approaches including not only empirical estimation using econometrics, input-output analys ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Essays In Positive Economics
Milton Friedman's book ''Essays in Positive Economics'' (1953) is a collection of earlier articles by the author with as its lead an original essay "The Methodology of Positive Economics." This essay posits Friedman's famous, but controversial, principle (called the F-Twist by Samuelson) that assumptions need not be "realistic" to serve as scientific hypotheses; they merely need to make significant predictions. Contents of the book The book is organized in four parts: * Introduction : The Methodology of Positive Economics * Price Theory : The Marshallian Demand Curve : The ‘Welfare’ Effects of an Income Tax and an Excise Tax * Monetary Theory and Policy : The Effects of a Full-Employment Policy on Economic Stability: A Formal Analysis : A Monetary and Fiscal Framework for Economic Stability : The Case for Flexible Exchange Rates : Commodity-Reserve Currency : Discussion of the Inflationary Gap : Comments on Monetary Policy * Comments on Method : Lange on Price Flexibility and E ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Normative Economics
Normative economics (as opposed to positive economics) is the part of economics that deals with normative statements. It focuses on the idea of fairness and what the outcome of the economy or goals of public policy ''ought to be''.Paul A. Samuelson and William D. Nordhaus (2004). ''Economics'', 18th ed., pp. 5-6 & ndGlossary of Terms, "Normative vs. positive economics." Economists commonly prefer to distinguish normative economics ("what ought to be" in economic matters) from positive economics ("what is"). Many normative (value) judgments, however, are held conditionally, to be given up if facts or knowledge of facts changes, so that a change of values may be purely scientific. On the other hand, welfare economist Amartya Sen distinguishes ''basic (normative) judgements'', which do not depend on such knowledge, from ''nonbasic'' judgments, which do. He said, "no judgments are demonstrably basic" while some value judgments may be shown to be nonbasic. This leaves open the possibil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Positive Economics
Positive economics (as opposed to normative economics) is the part of economics that deals with positive statements. That is, it focuses on the description, quantification and explanation of economic phenomena.Stanley Wong (1987). "positive economics," The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics, v. 3, pp. 920-21 It deals with empirical facts as well as cause-and-effect behavioral relationships and emphasizes that economic theories must be consistent with existing observations and produce testable, precise predictions about the phenomena under question.Milton Friedman (1953). " The Methodology of Positive Economics," ''Essays in Positive Economics''. Positive economics as a science concerns analysis of economic behavior to determine what is true''.'' Examples of positive economic statements are "the unemployment rate in France is higher than that in the United States," or “an increase in government spending would lower the unemployment rate.” Either of these is potentially f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
International Economics
International economics is concerned with the effects upon economic activity from international differences in productive resources and consumer preferences and the international institutions that affect them. It seeks to explain the patterns and consequences of transactions and interactions between the inhabitants of different countries, including trade, investment and transaction. * International trade studies goods and services flows across international boundaries from supply-and-demand factors, economic integration, international factor movements, and policy variables such as tariff rates and trade quotas. * International finance studies the flow of capital across international financial markets, and the effects of these movements on exchange rates. * International monetary economics and international macroeconomics study flows of money across countries and the resulting effects on their economies as a whole. * International political economy, a sub-category of interna ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
