Q. What is Economics?
A.
There's no one universally accepted answer to the question "What is economics?" Various definitions are:
***The Economist's Dictionary of Economics defines economics as "The study of the production, distribution and consumption of wealth in human society."
***Saint Michael's College answers the question "What is Economics?" with the answer "Most simply put, economics is the study of making choices."
***Indiana University - Purdue University Indianapolis answers the question "What is Economics?" with the explanation "Economics is a social science that studies human behavior.
Economics has a unique method for analyzing and predicting individual behavior as well as the effects of institutions such as firms and governments, or clubs and religions."
***Lastly Wikipedia defines economics as: "Economics is a social science that studies human behavior as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses (Lionell Robbins, 1935). That is, economics is the study of the trade-offs involved when choosing between alternate sets of decisions."
If I were asked to provide an answer to the question of "What is Economics?" on a test, I'd probably write the following explanation:
"Economics is the study of how individuals and groups make decisions with limited resources as to best satisfy their wants, needs, and desires".
The definition is perhaps better suited to Microeconomics, but it gets the important idea across that economics isn't not simply the study of money and the stock market
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