What is Economics

Abstract

What is economics? Economics is the study of how societies and individuals use limited resources to satisfy "unlimited" human wants. Resources are limited because they are scarce. Resources are scarce because there are more possible uses for the resources than there are resources available to be employed in those uses. When scarce resources confront "unlimited" wants, choices must be made. We can restate our definition of economics as follows: Economics is the study of how societies and individuals choose among alternative uses for scarce resources, in the never-ending effort to satisfy "unlimited" wants.