economics summary

Learn about the importance of economics and its two major branches

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Below is the article summary. For the full article, see economics.

economics, Social science that analyzes and describes the consequences of choices made concerning scarce productive resources. Economics is the study of how individuals and societies choose to employ those resources: what goods and services will be produced, how they will be produced, and how they will be distributed among the members of society. Economics is customarily divided into microeconomics and macroeconomics. Of major concern to macroeconomists are the rate of economic growth, the inflation rate, and the rate of unemployment. Specialized areas of economic investigation attempt to answer questions on a variety of economic activity; they include agricultural economics, economic development, economic history, environmental economics, industrial organization, international trade, labour economics, money supply and banking, public finance, urban economics, and welfare economics. Specialists in mathematical economics and econometrics provide tools used by all economists. The areas of investigation in economics overlap with many other disciplines, notably history, mathematics, political science, and sociology.

monetary policy Summary

Monetary policy, measures employed by governments to influence economic activity, specifically by manipulating the supplies of money and credit and by altering rates of interest. (Read Milton Friedman’s Britannica entry on money.) The usual goals of monetary policy are to achieve or maintain full

What is fiscal policy and how does it affect the economy? Summary

Fiscal policy refers to the spending programs and tax policies that the government uses to guide the economy. Governments frequently use fiscal measures along with monetary policy to achieve economic policy goals, including: These three factors lay the general foundation for a government’s economic

consumerism Summary

Consumerism, in economics, the theory that consumer spending, or spending by individuals on consumer goods and services, is the principal driver of economic growth and a central measure of the productive success of a capitalist economy. Consumerism in this sense holds that, because consumer

Henry George Summary

Henry George was a land reformer and economist who in Progress and Poverty (1879) proposed the single tax: that the state tax away all economic rent—the income from the use of bare land but not from improvements—and abolish all other taxes. Leaving school before his 14th birthday, George worked for