Economics is a social science concerning behaviour in the fields of production, consumption, distribution, and exchange. Economists analyse the processes involved and investigate the consequences for the individual, such organizations as the firm, and society as a whole. There are many competing schools of thought in economics: the main division has been between the Classical and neoclassical schools. Adam Smith, the founder of the Classical school, emphasized primarily the concept of economic value and the distribution of wealth between the classes - workers, capitalists, and landlords. The Marxist school of thought is one of its offshoots. The neoclassical school, now the mainstream of western economic thought, emphasizes the role of allocating scarce resources between competing ends. The founders of this school, W S Jevons and M E L Walras, were known as Marginalists. Neoclassical economics is itself divided into two broad areas of research, microeconomics - analysing the relationship between individual economic units (the consumer, firm, etc.) - macroeconomics, which analyses the connection between economic aggregates, money, total employment, and government. Both fields place a heavy emphasis on the individual or household as the basic unit of analysis, rather than the classes. Research Economics
Abbreviations
Money
Research Economics