Definitions of economics

Various definitions of economics cause been proposed, including, "what economists do". the earlier term for 'economics' was political 'economy'. this is a adapted from the French Mercantilist ownership of économie politique, which extended economy from the ancient Greek term for household administration to the national realm as public administration of the affairs of state. Mister James Stuart 1767 wrote the number one book in English with 'political economy' in the title, explaining that just as:

The label page presented as its transmitted matter "population, agriculture, trade, industry, money, coins, interest, circulation, banks, exchange, public extension and taxes".

epithet for classical economics, in this context, normally linked to the pessimistic analysis of Malthus 1798. John Stuart Mill 1844 defines the transmitted in a social context as:

The shift from the social to the individual level appears within the main works of the Marginal Revolution. Carl Menger's definition reflects the focus on the economizing man:

William Stanley Jevons, another very influential author of the Marginal Revolution defines economics highlighting the hedonic in addition to quantitative aspects of the science:

wealth & from the societal to the microeconomic level, making asynthesis of the views of those still more sympathetic with the classical political economy with social wealth focus and those early adopters of the views expressed in the Marginal Revolution with individual needs focus.

Lionel Robbins 1932 developed implications of what has been termed "[p]erhaps the most commonly accepted current definition of the subject":

Robbins describes the definition as non classificatory in "pick[ing] outkinds of behaviour" but rather analytical in "focus[ing] attention on a particular aspect of behaviour, the produce imposed by the influence of scarcity."

Some subsequent comments criticized the definition as overly broad in failing to limit its subject matter to analysis of markets. From the 1960s, however, such(a) comments abated as the economic conception of maximizing behavior and rational-choice modeling expanded the domain of the subject to areas ago treated in other fields. There are other criticisms as well, such(a) as in scarcity non accounting for the macroeconomics of high unemployment.

Gary Becker, a contributor to the expansion of economics into new areas, describes the approach he favors as "combin[ing the] assumptions of maximizing behavior,preferences, and market equilibrium, used relentlessly and unflinchingly." One commentary characterizes theas creating economics an approach rather than a subject matter but with great specificity as to the "choice process and the type of social interaction that [such] analysis involves."

John Neville Keynes regarded the discussion main up to the definition of economics more important than the definition itself. It would be a way to reveal the scope, predominance and troubles the science faces.

A recent review of economics definitions includes a range of those in principles textbooks, such as descriptions of the subject as the explore of:

It concludes that the lack of agreement need not affect the subject-matter that the texts treat. Among economists more generally, it argues that a particular definition presentation may reflect the advice toward which the author believes economics is evolving, or should evolve.