DISCIPLINES ABOUT SOCIAL SCIENCES

What is Economics?

Name: Year & Section:

Hannah Grace Labor Grade 12-HUMMS Singapore
Directions:
a. Read pages 10-12 (Disciplines and Ideas in the Social Sciences Reader)
b. Supply the table with answers.

ECONOMICS
a. Etymology Economics has been defined in many ways. It comes from the
Greek work “oikanomia” meaning “household management”.

b. Definition There are so many definitions of Economics but to sum it up,

Economics covers all kinds of topics, but at the core, it is devoted
to understanding how society allocates its scarce resources. Any
country has limited resources. Since resources are generally
scarce and human wants tend to be unlimited, economics
encounter big problems. The biggest is that these resources are
not freely available. At the very core of economics lies the fact of
scarcity. Goods are limited, while wants seems infinite. Because
resources are scarce, we need to study how society choose from
the menu of possible goods and services, how different
commodities are produced and priced and who gets to consume
the goods that society produce.

c. Branches and its brief Branches of Economics are the following:

description a. Microeconomics – it deals with the behavior of individual
components such as household, firm and individual owner
of production.
b. Macroeconomics – it deals with the behavior of economy
as a whole with the view of understanding the interaction
between economic aggregates such as employment,
inflation and national income.
c. Positive Economics – it is an economic analysis that
explains what happens in the economy and why, without
making any recommendations to economic policy, or
simple idea, it deals with how the economy works.
d. Normative Economics – it concerns itself with what
should be. It is an economic statement that makes
recommendations to economic policy. This economic
statement is employed to make value judgments about
the economy and suggests solutions to economic
problems.

d. Significance to the life of people
and the community
Economics affects our daily lives in both obvious and subtle ways.
From an individual perspective, economics frames many choices
we have to make about work, leisure, consumption and how
much to save. Our lives are also influenced by macro-economic
trends, such as inflation, interest rates and economic growth.
Economics is also important for many areas of society. It can help
improve living standards and make society a better place.
Economics is like science in that it can be used to improve living
standards and also to make things worse. It partly depends on the
priorities of society and what we consider most important.