Definitions of economics


Various definitions of 'economics' have been proposed, including the definition of 'economics' as "what economists do".
The earlier term for 'economics' was political 'economy'. It is adapted from the French Mercantilist usage of économie politique, which extended economy from the ancient Greek term for household management to the national realm as public administration of the affairs of state. Mister James Steuart wrote the first book in English with 'political economy' in the title, explaining that just as:
The title page gave as its subject matter "population, agriculture, trade, industry, money, coins, interest, circulation, banks, exchange, public credit and taxes".
The philosopher Adam Smith defines the subject as "an inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations," in particular as:
J.B. Say, distinguishing the subject from its public-policy uses, defines it as the science of production, distribution, and consumption of wealth. On the satirical side, Thomas Carlyle coined 'the dismal science' as an epithet for classical economics, in this context, commonly linked to the pessimistic analysis of Malthus. John Stuart Mill defines the subject in a social context as:
The shift from the social to the individual level appears within the main works of the Marginal Revolution. Carl Menger's definition reflects the focus on the economizing man:
William Stanley Jevons, another very influential author of the Marginal Revolution defines economics highlighting the hedonic and quantitative aspects of the science:
Alfred Marshall provides a still widely cited definition in his textbook Principles of Economics that extends analysis beyond wealth and from the societal to the microeconomic level, creating a certain synthesis of the views of those still more sympathetic with the classical political economy and those early adopters of the views expressed in the Marginal Revolution. Marshall's inclusion of the expression wellbeing was also very significant to the discussion on the nature of economics:
Lionel Robbins developed implications of what has been termed "erhaps the most commonly accepted current definition of the subject":
Robbins describes the definition as not classificatory in "pick out certain kinds of behaviour" but rather analytical in "focus attention on a particular aspect of behaviour, the form imposed by the influence of scarcity."
Some subsequent comments criticized the definition as overly broad in failing to limit its subject matter to analysis of markets. From the 1960s, however, such comments abated as the economic theory of maximizing behavior and rational-choice modeling expanded the domain of the subject to areas previously treated in other fields. There are other criticisms as well, such as in scarcity not accounting for the macroeconomics of high unemployment.
Gary Becker, a contributor to the expansion of economics into new areas, describes the approach he favors as "combin assumptions of maximizing behavior, stable preferences, and market equilibrium, used relentlessly and unflinchingly." One commentary characterizes the remark as making economics an approach rather than a subject matter but with great specificity as to the "choice process and the type of social interaction that analysis involves."
John Neville Keynes regarded the discussion leading up to the definition of economics more important than the definition itself. It would be a way to reveal the scope, direction and troubles the science faces.
A recent review of economics definitions includes a range of those in principles textbooks, such as descriptions of the subject as the study of:
It concludes that the lack of agreement need not affect the subject-matter that the texts treat. Among economists more generally, it argues that a particular definition presented may reflect the direction toward which the author believes economics is evolving, or should evolve.

Further references