Английский язык. Горохов В.М. - 21 стр.

                                        Text 2

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       Economics as a science

        The dictionary defines economics as "the study of wealth and the
consumption of goods and services in a society".
        Economics is a broad subject. It's a social science, because it studies the social
problem of choice from a scientific viewpoint. Economics studies how individuals,
firms, governments and other organizations within our society make choices, and
how those choices determine the way the resources of society are used. The
economy's limited resources include its land, labour, machines, oil and others.
        The detailed study of product, labour and capital markets is called
microeconomics ("micro" is derived from the Greek word meaning "small"). It is
focused on the behaviour of the units - the firms, households, and individuals - that
make up the economy. It's concerned with how the individual units make decisions
and what affects those decisions.
        By contrast, macroeconomics ("macro" comes from the Greek word "large")
looks at the behaviour of the economy as a whole, in particular the behaviour of such
aggregate measures as overall rates of unemployment, inflation, economic growth,
and the balance of trade.
        Microeconomics is the bottom-up view of the economy, macroeconomics is
the top-down view.
        Economists use models to study how the economy works and to make
predictions about what will happen if something is changed. A model can be
expressed in words or equations. The economists' basic model has three components:
assumption about how consumers behave, assumption about how firms behave and
assumption about the markets in which these consumers and firms interact.
        Economists are frequently called upon to make judgements on matters of
public policy: should the government reduce the deficit; should inflation be reduced;
if so, how? While rational choices involve balancing of costs and benefits,
economists spend more time discussing costs than benefits.

      Источник: Р. Moellgaard. Basic Concepts of Economics. Ch.I, The
Automobile and Economics -Markets and Governments in the Mixed Economy.
CEU. Prague, 1995.




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