Library Guides: Economics: Background Information

Overview of Economics

[Economics is] the study of scarcity, the study of how people use resources, or the study of decision-making. Economics often involves topics like wealth, finance, recessions, and banking, leading to the misconception that economics is all about money and the stock market. Actually, it's a much broader discipline that helps us understand historical trends, interpret today's headlines, and make predictions for coming decades.

American Economic Association

Economics can be broadly divided into two main branches, microeconomics and macroeconomics. Microeconomics studies how individuals make choices under constraints. Macroeconomics studies the economy on a large scale. Central to economics as a discipline are models—theoretical, stylized constructs representing and describing economic processes. Statistical methods and tools are constantly being developed to take economic models to data in the field of econometrics.

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Full text of current and past issues can be accessed through various third-party vendor databases; go to the Access Online tab in this title's catalog record. Print editions are also available; refer to the Locations tab in this title's catalog record.

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