There are many subfields within economics, including (but not limited to):
- Behavioral Economics
- Labour Economics
- Development Economics
- Econometrics
- Industrial Organizational Economics
- Game Theory
- Environmental Economics
- Economic History
- Health Economics
- International Economics
- Cryptoeconomics
- Economic Inequality 

Subfields of Economics

This node outlines key economic metrics used to assess a country's economic activity and well-being. These include Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which measures total output; GDP per capita, which provides an average income per person; Disposable Income, representing income available after taxes and transfers; and Flows, which refer to economic quantities measured over a period of time.

Economic Measures

- Scarcity
- Opportunity costs
- Marginal changes
- Externality
- Productivity
- Inflation
- Business cycle
- Taxes
- Markets

Basic Concepts in Economics

At its core, the study of economics seeks to answer three fundamental questions that every society must address due to scarcity. These questions are: 1) What goods and services should be produced? 2) How should these goods and services be produced? 3) For whom should these goods and services be produced? The way a society answers these questions defines its economic system.

Core Economic Questions

Economic history is the academic study of economies or economic events of the past. It applies economic theory and quantitative methods to analyze historical events, understand long-term trends, and explore the origins of economic growth, institutions, and phenomena like the Industrial Revolution and the Great Divergence.

Economic History

Economic methodology is the study of the methods, principles, and practices used in economic inquiry. It examines how economists generate knowledge, including the construction and testing of theories, the use of models, the role of assumptions like *ceteris paribus*, and the challenges of establishing causality in a social science.

Economic Methodology

The study of the history of economics, examining the evolution of economic ideas, theories, and methodologies from antiquity to the present day. It explores how different schools of thought emerged, the contributions of key economists, and how historical context shaped economic analysis.

History of Economic Thought

This node serves as a collection of practical problems, case studies, and assessment questions that apply core economic principles to real-world or hypothetical scenarios. These examples are used to test and deepen the understanding of economic concepts.

Economic Problems and Case Studies

A city government is considering converting a large, vacant downtown lot into a new public park. The project would require significant public funds for construction and ongoing maintenance. From the perspective of the academic discipline that studies how people manage resources to meet their needs and wants, which of the following questions is the most fundamental to analyzing this decision?

Consider the historical shift from hunter-gatherer societies to settled agricultural societies. From the perspective of the academic discipline that studies how people interact with each other and their environment to produce their livelihoods, analyze this transition. Your analysis should break down the key changes in both the interactions *among people* and the interactions *between people and their natural surroundings*.

Analyzing Societal Transitions

A banana plantation's production manager provides you with the following data on total private costs at different output levels. First, calculate the marginal private cost of producing the 11th, 12th, and 13th ton of bananas. Second, based on your calculations, describe the trend in the marginal private cost and provide a plausible economic explanation for this trend, assuming the prices of inputs like labor and land remain constant.

Analyzing Banana Production Costs

A historian is studying the impact of the invention of the plow on ancient agricultural societies, focusing on how it changed food production, social structures, and trade patterns. Explain why this historian's work could also be considered a form of economic analysis, based on the definition of the academic discipline.

The Scope of Economic Analysis

The academic discipline of economics is primarily concerned with analyzing financial markets, such as the stock market, and the management of personal finances.

Analyze the following scenario from an economic perspective. Explain why the individual might choose to accept the offer, and describe the specific trade-off they are making between consumption now and consumption later.

Intertemporal Consumption Choice

Match each core component from the definition of economics to the scenario that best exemplifies it.

A historian, a sociologist, and an economist are all studying the societal changes during the Industrial Revolution. Which of the following research questions best represents the primary focus of the economist's perspective?

A government is debating two policies to improve how its citizens secure their livelihood.

*   **Policy A:** Subsidize a large, automated factory near the capital, creating 500 high-skill jobs.
*   **Policy B:** Fund a program to improve irrigation and provide tools for thousands of small family farms.

Evaluate which policy offers a more comprehensive case for analysis within the academic discipline that examines the interactions among people and their natural surroundings in the context of producing their subsistence. Justify your evaluation by explaining how your chosen policy allows for a deeper investigation of these interactions and their societal variations.

Evaluating Development Policies

The academic discipline that examines how people interact with each other and their natural surroundings to produce their means of subsistence, and how these interactions change over time, is known as ________.

Economics is the academic discipline that examines the interactions among people and between people and their natural surroundings in the context of producing and securing their means of subsistence. The field also investigates the evolution of these interactions through time and their variations among different societies.

Google

University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

Pepperdine University

San Jose State University

CORE Econ

- anthropology 
- behavioral sciences
- economics
- human geography
- linguistics
- sociology
- media studies
- musicology
- political science
- psychology
- gender studies

Disciplines in Social science

An economy is the system a society uses for the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The outcomes observed within an economy are the result of decisions and actions taken by its key participants: individuals (or households), firms, and governments. The study of economics analyzes the activities, institutions, and interactions among these actors from various perspectives, including microeconomics, macroeconomics, and international economics. The state of the economy is a crucial factor in modern society, influencing everything from individual prosperity to global political stability.

Economy

Wikipedia

To cite The Economy, we suggest combining the referencing style for an ebook and treating each unit as a chapter, for instance (using Harvard style): Bowles, S., Carlin, W. and Stevens, M. (2017). ‘Property and power: Mutual gains and conflicts’. Unit 5 in The CORE team, The Economy. Available at: https://www.core-econ.org. [Accessed on (date)].

https://www.core-econ.org/the-economy/v1/book/text/0-3-contents.html

CORE Econ - The Economy 1.0

To cite the ebook, use The CORE Econ Team 2023 The Economy 2.0: Microeconomics Open access e-text https://core-econ.org/the-economy/.

To cite a unit, use The CORE Econ Team 2023 The Economy 2.0: Microeconomics Open access e-text https://core-econ.org/the-economy/ Unit [unit number] (url).

CORE Econ - The Economy 2.0: Microeconomics

To cite the ebook, use The CORE Econ Team 2023 The Economy 2.0: Macroeconomics Open access e-text https://core-econ.org/the-economy/.

To cite a unit, use The CORE Econ Team 2023 The Economy 2.0: Macroeconomics Open access e-text https://core-econ.org/the-economy/ Unit [unit number] (url).

CORE Econ - The Economy 2.0: Macroeconomics

The study of human behavior, societies, and cultures throughout history (including the present). Anthropology, in broad terms, studies methods to describe and explain the similarities and differences in biology and culture of all humanity in all times and places. 

Anthropology

Study and analysis of multi-level government operations, along with their societal impacts.

Political Science

The study of language. Topics include language form, meaning, context and social, cultural and historical influences.

Linguistics

The study of societal behavior, structures, development, functions, and issues. 

Sociology

A system composed of many distributed elements whose aggregate properties cannot be predicted by observing the behavior of an element. Furthermore, the observable manifestations or 'forms' of a complex system may only represent superficial aspects, with its true 'essence' or fundamental nature remaining hidden or less apparent beneath the surface.

Complex Systems

Environmental Studies is a multidisciplinary study that incorporates concepts from the physical sciences, economics/commerce, the humanities, and social sciences.  It studies the environment and the human impact on the environment.  

Environmental Studies

Disability Studies is an interdisciplinary field of study that examines the consequences and implications of disability as well as various issues that impact the disability community.

Disability Studies

Law is a piece of legislation created by government or society to enforce a desired behavior or prohibit an undesired action. These rules govern the individuals that are citizens of that society or government or determine the actions taken by that body.

Gender studies is an interdisciplinary field that explores how all gender identities are developed and how they affect people’s experiences in society.

Gender Studies

Studies the range of human sexual behavior and sexuality. 

Sexology

Social science disciplines focused on the study of human and animal behaviors through their interactions with the world at large. The four predominant disciplines within the behavioral sciences are:
* Anthropology
* Economics
* Psychology
* Sociology

Behavioral Sciences

Economics

Psychology is formally defined as the scientific study of human behavior and mental processes. It focuses on understanding how individuals act, think, and feel, along with the underlying cognitive and physiological mechanisms. As a scientific discipline, it seeks to answer fundamental questions about a wide range of human phenomena by relying on empirical evidence rather than common sense.

Psychology

What are the three different perspectives to analyze an economy?

What are the main components of an economy?

What does the study of macroeconomics focus on?

What aspect of modern society is influenced by the economy?

Human survival and economic activity are fundamentally dependent on the natural world. The environment, encompassing both the physical surroundings and the biosphere (all life on Earth), serves a dual purpose: it provides the direct essentials for life, such as air, water, and food, and it supplies the raw materials like wood, metals, and oil used in the production of goods.

Economy and the Environment

Economic results, such as what goods and services are created, the methods of their production, and how income is distributed, are determined by the cumulative effect of countless interactions among various economic participants. A specific outcome detailing the distribution of value to all participants is formally called an allocation.

Economic Outcomes as a Result of Actor Interactions

The economy is a vast and intricate system, characterized by billions of interactions among millions of different actors, such as individuals, firms, and governments. Its complexity is often compared to that of a biological organism, with numerous components functioning interdependently.

The Economy as a System of Interacting Parts

Firms are the central entities for producing and distributing goods and services in an economy. Their owners decide on production specifics, including what to create and which technologies and inputs to use. To execute these plans, firms engage in two key types of markets: they hire employees in the labour market and sell their output in product markets. Additionally, firms often act as buyers themselves, purchasing goods and services like machinery and software from other firms.

Firms

The supply side of the economy encompasses all activities related to producing and supplying the total output of goods and services. It is primarily composed of the labour and product markets, and also includes the market for capital. This part of the economy is termed the 'supply side' because it focuses on the processes and decisions involved in making goods and services available for purchase, such as the flow of labor from households to firms and the provision of final products from firms to households.

Supply Side of the Economy

In economics, the 'supply side' refers to all activities involved in the production of an economy's output. In a macroeconomic context, this encompasses the functioning of the markets for labor and capital. From a microeconomic perspective, it pertains to the decisions of sellers who supply a specific good or service to a market.

Supply Side

The demand side of the economy represents the total expenditure on the goods and services it produces. The primary sources of this demand are consumption by households, investment by firms, government spending, and purchases by foreign customers (exports). A portion of domestic demand is also satisfied by imports. In a microeconomic model for a single good, the demand side refers to the collective decisions of that good's buyers.

Demand Side of the Economy

Economic events are the product of decisions made by key actors, including individuals, firms (through their owners and managers), and governments. A thorough understanding of the economy, therefore, depends on analyzing the decision-making processes of these groups and the factors that influence their choices.

Economic Decision-Making

An economy comprises a wide variety of human labor, ranging from service sector jobs like truck driving and retail checkout operation to manufacturing roles involved in producing goods such as clothing, tires, and advanced electronic components.

Diversity of Work in an Economy

In economics, the term 'institution' refers to the collection of formal laws and informal social norms that structure interactions among people and with the biosphere. This framework is also called 'the rules of the game,' and the two terms are treated as synonymous, used interchangeably to define the governing principles of an economic system.

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