oikonomia management of a household administration from Economics is the social science that analyzes the production distribution and consumption of goods and services The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek house nomos custom or law hence rules of the house hold 1 Political economy was the earlier name for the subject but economists in the late 19th century suggested economics as a shorter term for economic science that also avoided a narrow political interest connotation and as similar in form to mathematics ethics and so forth 2 oikos A focus of the subject is how economic agents behave or interact and how economies work Consistent with this a primary textbook distinction is between microeconomics and macroeconomics Microeconomics examines the behavior of basic elements in the economy including individual agents such as households and firms or as buyers and sellers and markets and their interactions Macroeconomics analyzes the entire economy and issues affecting it including unemployment inflation economic growth and monetary and fiscal policy Other broad distinctions include those between positive economics describing what is and normative economics advocating what ought to be between economic theory and applied economics between rational and behavioral economics and between mainstream economics more orthodox and dealing with the rationality individualism equilibrium nexus and heterodox economics more radical and dealing with the institutions history social structure nexus 3 4 Economic analysis may be applied throughout society as in business finance health care and government but also to such diverse subjects as crime 5 education 6 the family law politics religion 7 social institutions war 8 and science 9 At the turn of the 21st century the expanding domain of economics in the social sciences has been described as economic imperialism 10 An increasing number of economists have called for increased emphasis on environmental sustainability this area of research is known as Ecological economics 11
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