What Is Economics?

Economics is a social science concerned with the production, distribution, and consumption of
goods and services. It studies how individuals, businesses, governments, and nations make
choices on allocating resources to satisfy their wants and needs, trying to determine how these
groups should organize and coordinate efforts to achieve maximum output.

Economics can generally be broken down into macroeconomics, which concentrates on the
behavior of the aggregate economy, and microeconomics, which focuses on individual
consumers and businesses.

key takeaways

 Economics is the study of how people allocate scarce resources for production,
distribution, and consumption, both individually and collectively.
 Two major types of economics are microeconomics, which focuses on the behavior of
individual consumers and producers, and macroeconomics, which examine overall
economies on a regional, national, or international scale.
 Economics is especially concerned with efficiency in production and exchange and uses
models and assumptions to understand how to create incentives and policies that will
maximize efficiency.
 Economists formulate and publish numerous economic indicators, such as gross domestic
product (GDP) and the Consumer Price Index (CPI).
 Capitalism, socialism, and communism are types of economic systems.