ABSTRACT
As a discipline, economics is primarily concerned with the allocation to alternative employments of scarce resources that have various possible uses. How, it asks, are the finite amounts of land, labor, and capital that are available to a society apportioned to individual and government activities, and to the production of the various products that benefit individuals and society at large? How do those allocations modify over time? And how might allocations that are thought to be inappropriate or unsatisfactory be changed? Because the quantities of resources are limited to the extent that not all needs and desires can be met, it is clear that choices have to be made. And therefore, much of economics is concerned with the analysis and consequences of the making of choices or, in the jargon of the discipline, the making of decisions.
