Definition of Economics from Difference Scholar

1. Adam Smith Economics is the study of the production and consumption of goods and the
transfer of wealth to produce and obtain those goods. Economics explains how people
interact within markets to get what they want or accomplish certain goals. Since economics
is a driving force of human interaction, studying it often reveals why people and
governments behave in particular ways.
2. American Economics Association: Economics is the study of how people choose to use
resources. Resources include the time and talent people have available, the land, buildings,
equipment, and other tools on hand, and the knowledge of how to combine them to create
useful products and services.

3. "Economics is the study of people in the ordinary business of life."
4. Alfred Marshall, "Economics is the science which studies human behavior as a relationship
between given ends and scarce means which have alternative uses."

5. J.-B. Say (1803) defines it as the science of production, distribution, and consumption of
wealth.



6. James Steuart Economy in general [is] the art of providing for all the wants of a family, [so
the science of political economy] seeks to secure a certain fund of subsistence for all the
inhabitants, to obviate every circumstance which may render it precarious; to provide
everything necessary for supplying the wants of the society, and to employ the inhabitants
... in such manner as naturally to create reciprocal relations and dependencies between
them, so as to supply one another with reciprocal wants.

7. The philosopher Adam Smith (1776) defines the subject as "an inquiry into the nature and
causes of the wealth of nations," in particular as: a branch of the science of a statesman or
legislator [with the twofold objective of providing] a plentiful revenue or subsistence for the
people ... [and] to supply the state or commonwealth with a revenue for the public services.

8. J.-B. Say (1803), distinguishing the subject from its public-policy uses, defines it as the
science of production, distribution, and consumption of wealth.

9. John Stuart Mill (1844) defines the subject in a social context as: The science which traces
the laws of such of the phenomena of society as arise from the combined operations of
mankind for the production of wealth, in so far as those phenomena are not modified by the
pursuit of any other object.

10. Alfred Marshall provides a still widely cited definition in his textbook Principles of Economics
(1890) that extends analysis beyond wealth and from the societal to the microeconomic
level: Economics is a study of man in the ordinary business of life. It enquires how he gets his
income and how he uses it. Thus, it is on the one side, the study of wealth and on the other
and more important side, a part of the study of man.

11. Lionel Robbins (1932) definition of the subject: Economics is a science which studies human
behaviour as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses.
Robbins describes the definition as not classificatory in "picking out certain kinds of
behaviour" but rather analytical in "focusing attention on a particular aspect of behaviour,
the form imposed by the influence of scarcity."



12. Thomas Carlyle: "Economics is the social science that examines how people choose to use
limited or scarce resources in attempting to satisfy their unlimited wants."

13. Marshall defined economics as "a study of mankind in the ordinary business of life; it
examines that part of individual and social action which is most closely connected with the
attainment and with the use of the material requisites of wellbeing. Thus it is on one side a
study of wealth; and on the other, and more important side, a part of the study of man."

14. Economics is the social science that studies the processes that govern the production,
distribution and consumption of goods and services in an exchange economy.

15. Paul Samuelson 1970: defined economics as "the study of how a person or society
meets its unlimited needs and wants through the effective allocation of resources."

16. Lesley Louis: defined economics as the 'dismal science'. This is because the Utopian
people believed that good results were the cause of good motives and vice versa.
Naturally, economists disagreed with this statement.

17. Englishman W Stanley Jevons 19th century, who was an economist and logician,
defined economics as "the mechanics of utility and self-interest".

18. Multiflavour: Economics is the social science that examines how people choose to use
limited or scarce resources in attempting to satisfy their unlimited wants.

19. Jerda: define economics is the social science that examines how people choose to use
limited or scarce resources in attempting to satisfy their unlimited wants.

20. Shane Richardson: the study of how the forces of supply and demand allocate scarce
resources