Investopedia

Economics

Dictionary Says

Definition of 'Economics'

A social science that studies how individuals, governments, firms and nations make choices on allocating scarce resources to satisfy their unlimited wants. Economics can generally be broken down into: macroeconomics, which concentrates on the behavior of the aggregate economy; and microeconomics, which focuses on individual consumers.

Economics is often referred to as "the dismal science."
Investopedia Says

Investopedia explains 'Economics'

Two of the major approaches in economics are named the classical and Keynesian approaches. Classical economists believe that markets function very well, will quickly react to any changes in equilibrium and that a "laissez faire" government policy works best.

On the other hand, Keynesian economists believe that markets react very slowly to changes in equilibrium (especial to changes in prices) and that active government intervention is sometimes the best method to get the economy back into equilibrium.

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