Outline of economics

Economics classes make extensive use of supply and demand graphs like this one to teach about markets. In this graph, S and D refer to supply and demand and P and Q refer to the price and quantity.

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to economics:

Economics – analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. It aims to explain how economies work and how economic agents interact.

Description of economics

Economics can be described as all of the following:

Academic discipline – body of knowledge given to, or received by, a disciple (student); a branch or sphere of knowledge, or field of study, that an individual has chosen to specialize in.
Field of science – widely recognized category of specialized expertise within science, and typically embodies its own terminology and nomenclature. Such a field will usually be represented by one or more scientific journals, where peer-reviewed research is published. There are many economics-related scientific journals.
Social science – field of academic scholarship that explores aspects of human society.

Branches of economics

Macroeconomics – branch of economics dealing with the performance, structure, behavior, and decision-making of an economy as a whole, rather than individual markets.
Microeconomics – branch of economics that studies the behavior of individuals and firms in making decisions regarding the allocation of limited resources.
Mesoeconomics In-between macroeconomics and microeconomics with a focus on the intermediate level of analysis.

Subdisciplines of economics

Methodologies or approaches

Behavioural economics
Classical economics
Computational economics
Econometrics
Evolutionary economics
Experimental economics
Praxeology (used by the Austrian School)
Social psychology

Interdisciplinary fields involving economics

Types of economies

Economy – system of human activities related to the production, distribution, exchange, and consumption of goods and services of a country or other area.

Economies, by political & social ideological structure

Economic ideology

Economies, by scope

Economies, by regulation

Economic elements

Economic activities

Business
- Business cycle
Collective action
Commerce
Competition
Consumption
Distribution
Employment
Entrepreneurship
Export
Finance
Government spending
Import
Investment
Mergers and acquisitions
Pricing
- Geographical pricing
Production
Trade
- Balance of trade
- Fair trade
- Free trade
- International trade
- Safe trade
- Tax, tariff and trade
- Terms of trade
- Trade bloc
- Trade pact
- Trader Ethic

Economic forces

Economic problems

Trends and influences

Economic measures

Economic participants

Economic politics

Economic policy

Agricultural policy
Fiscal policy
Incomes policy
- Price controls
  - Price ceiling
    - Rent control
  - Price floor
    - Minimum wage
Industrial policy
Infrastructure-based development
Investment policy
Monetary policy
Policy mix – combination of a country's monetary policy and fiscal policy. These two channels influence growth and employment, and are generally determined by the central bank and the government (e.g., the United States Congress) respectively.
Stabilization policy
Tax policy

Infrastructure

Markets

Market

Types of markets

Aspects of markets

Market forms

Market form

Perfect competition, in which the market consists of a very large number of firms producing a homogeneous product.
Monopolistic competition, also called competitive market, where there are a large number of independent firms which have a very small proportion of the market share.
Monopoly, where there is only one provider of a product or service.
Monopsony, when there is only one buyer in a market.
Natural monopoly, a monopoly in which economies of scale cause efficiency to increase continuously with the size of the firm.
Oligopoly, in which a market is dominated by a small number of firms which own more than 40% of the market share.
Oligopsony, a market dominated by many sellers and a few buyers.

Market-oriented activities

Money

Resources

Resource management

Factors of production

Land

Natural resources

Labor

Division of labour

Capital

Economic theory

Economic ideologies

History of economics

History of economic thought

Ancient economic thought
- Aristotle
  - Nicomachean Ethics
Economics of the Age of Enlightenment
Mercantilism
- British Enlightenment
- French Enlightenment: Physiocracy
  - François Quesnay
    - Tableau économique
    - Anne Robert Jacques Turgot
    - Reflections on the Formation and Distribution of Wealth
Classical economics, political economy
- Adam Smith
  - The Wealth of Nations
- David Ricardo
Socialist economics
- Marxian economics
  - Labour theory of value
- Anarchist economics
Austrian School of Economics
Neoclassical economics
Keynesian economics
- John Maynard Keynes
  - Cambridge capital controversy
Neo-Keynesian economics
- Paul Samuelson
- John Hicks (economist)
  - Neoclassical synthesis
Post-Keynesian economics
New Keynesian economics
Chicago school of economics
- Milton Friedman
  - Monetarism

Economic history

Economic events
- Economic history of the world
  - Economics in the Middle Ages: feudalism and manorialism
  - Economics of the Renaissance: mercantilism
  - Industrial Revolution
  - Economic history of World War I
- Nixon shock
Economic history by region
Economic history by subject

General economic concepts

Economics organizations

Economics publications

Persons influential in the field of economics

List of economists

Nobel Memorial Prize–winning economic historians

Milton Friedman won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1976 for "his achievements in the fields of consumption analysis, monetary history and theory and for his demonstration of the complexity of stabilization policy".
Robert Fogel and Douglass North won the Nobel Memorial Prize in 1993 for "having renewed research in economic history by applying economic theory and quantitative methods in order to explain economic and institutional change".
Merton Miller, who started his academic career teaching economic history at the LSE, won the Nobel Memorial Prize in 1990 with Harry Markowitz and William F. Sharpe.