essay on modern economics

Economics Essay Examples

Ace Your Essay With Our Economics Essay Examples

Published on: Jun 6, 2023

Last updated on: Jan 31, 2024

Share this article

Are you struggling to understand economics essays and how to write your own?

It can be challenging to grasp the complexities of economic concepts without practical examples.

But don’t worry!

We’ve got the solution you've been looking for. Explore quality examples that bridge the gap between theory and real-world applications. In addition, get insightful tips for writing economics essays.

So, if you're a student aiming for academic success, this blog is your go-to resource for mastering economics essays.

Let’s dive in and get started!

On This Page On This Page -->

What is an Economics Essay?

An economics essay is a written piece that explores economic theories, concepts, and their real-world applications. It involves analyzing economic issues, presenting arguments, and providing evidence to support ideas.

The goal of an economics essay is to demonstrate an understanding of economic principles and the ability to critically evaluate economic topics.

Why Write an Economics Essay?

Writing an economics essay serves multiple purposes:

Demonstrate Understanding: Showcasing your comprehension of economic concepts and their practical applications.
Develop Critical Thinking: Cultivating analytical skills to evaluate economic issues from different perspectives.
Apply Theory to Real-World Contexts: Bridging the gap between economic theory and real-life scenarios.
Enhance Research and Analysis Skills: Improving abilities to gather and interpret economic data.
Prepare for Academic and Professional Pursuits: Building a foundation for success in future economics-related endeavors.

Paper Due? Why Suffer? That's our Job!

If youâre wondering, âhow do I write an economics essay?â, consulting an example essay might be a good option for you. Here are some economics essay examples:

Short Essay About Economics

Fiscal policy plays a crucial role in shaping economic conditions and promoting growth. During periods of economic downturn or recession, governments often resort to fiscal policy measures to stimulate the economy. This essay examines the significance of fiscal policy in economic stimulus, focusing on two key tools: government spending and taxation.

Government spending is a powerful instrument used to boost economic activity. When the economy experiences a slowdown, increased government expenditure can create a multiplier effect, stimulating demand and investment. By investing in infrastructure projects, education, healthcare, and other sectors, governments can create jobs, generate income, and spur private sector activity. This increased spending circulates money throughout the economy, leading to higher consumption and increased business investments. However, it is important for governments to strike a balance between short-term stimulus and long-term fiscal sustainability.

Taxation is another critical aspect of fiscal policy. During economic downturns, governments may employ tax cuts or incentives to encourage consumer spending and business investments. By reducing tax burdens on individuals and corporations, governments aim to increase disposable income and boost consumption. Lower taxes can also incentivize businesses to expand and invest in new ventures, leading to job creation and economic growth. However, it is essential for policymakers to consider the trade-off between short-term stimulus and long-term fiscal stability, ensuring that tax cuts are sustainable and do not result in excessive budget deficits.

In conclusion, fiscal policy serves as a valuable tool in stimulating economic growth and mitigating downturns. Through government spending and taxation measures, policymakers can influence aggregate demand, promote investment, and create a favorable economic environment. However, it is crucial for governments to implement these policies judiciously, considering the long-term implications and maintaining fiscal discipline. By effectively managing fiscal policy, governments can foster sustainable economic growth and improve overall welfare.

A Level Economics Essay Examples

Here is an essay on economics a level structure:

Globalization, characterized by the increasing interconnectedness of economies and societies worldwide, has brought about numerous benefits and challenges. One of the significant issues associated with globalization is its impact on income inequality. This essay explores the implications of globalization on income inequality, discussing both the positive and negative effects, and examining potential policy responses to address this issue.

Globalization has led to a rise in the demand for skilled workers in many sectors. As countries integrate into the global economy, they become more specialized and engage in activities that utilize their comparative advantages. This shift toward skill-intensive industries increases the demand for skilled labor, resulting in a skill premium where high-skilled workers earn higher wages compared to low-skilled workers. Consequently, income inequality may widen as those with the necessary skills benefit from globalization while those without face limited employment opportunities and stagnant wages.

Globalization has also led to labor market displacement and job polarization. Developing countries, attracted by lower labor costs, have become manufacturing hubs, leading to job losses in industries that cannot compete internationally. This displacement primarily affects low-skilled workers in developed economies. Moreover, advancements in technology and automation have further contributed to job polarization, where middle-skilled jobs are declining while high-skilled and low-skilled jobs expand. This trend exacerbates income inequality as middle-income earners face challenges in finding stable employment opportunities.

To address the implications of globalization on income inequality, policymakers can implement several strategies. Firstly, investing in education and skills development is crucial. By equipping individuals with the necessary skills for the evolving labor market, governments can reduce the skill gap and provide opportunities for upward mobility. Additionally, redistributive policies, such as progressive taxation and social welfare programs, can help mitigate income inequality by ensuring a more equitable distribution of resources. Furthermore, fostering inclusive growth and promoting entrepreneurship can create job opportunities and reduce dependency on traditional sectors vulnerable to globalization.

Globalization has had a profound impact on income inequality, posing challenges for policymakers. While it has facilitated economic growth and raised living standards in many countries, it has also exacerbated income disparities. By implementing effective policies that focus on education, skill development, redistribution, and inclusive growth, governments can strive to reduce income inequality and ensure that the benefits of globalization are more widely shared. It is essential to strike a balance between the opportunities offered by globalization and the need for social equity and inclusive development in an interconnected world.

Band 6 Economics Essay Examples

Government intervention in markets is a topic of ongoing debate in economics. While free markets are often considered efficient in allocating resources, there are instances where government intervention becomes necessary to address market failures and promote overall welfare. This essay examines the impact of government intervention on market efficiency, discussing the advantages and disadvantages of such interventions and assessing their effectiveness in achieving desired outcomes.

Government intervention can correct market failures that arise due to externalities, public goods, and imperfect competition. Externalities, such as pollution, can lead to inefficiencies as costs or benefits are not fully accounted for by market participants. By imposing regulations or taxes, the government can internalize these external costs and incentivize firms to adopt more socially responsible practices. Additionally, the provision of public goods, which are non-excludable and non-rivalrous, often requires government intervention as private markets may under provide them. By supplying public goods like infrastructure or national defense, the government ensures efficient allocation and benefits for society.

Information asymmetry, where one party has more information than another, can hinder market efficiency. This is particularly evident in markets with complex products or services, such as healthcare or financial services. Government intervention through regulations and oversight can enhance transparency, consumer protection, and market efficiency. For example, regulations that require companies to disclose accurate and standardized information empower consumers to make informed choices. Similarly, regulatory bodies in financial markets can enforce rules to mitigate risks and ensure fair and transparent transactions, promoting market efficiency.

While government intervention can address market failures, it can also create unintended consequences and distortions. Excessive regulations, price controls, or subsidies can result in inefficiencies and unintended outcomes. For instance, price ceilings may lead to shortages, while price floors can create surpluses. Moreover, government interventions can stifle innovation and competition by reducing incentives for private firms to invest and grow. Policymakers need to carefully design interventions to strike a balance between correcting market failures and avoiding excessive interference that hampers market efficiency.

Government intervention plays a crucial role in addressing market failures and promoting market efficiency. By correcting externalities, providing public goods and services, and reducing information asymmetry, governments can enhance overall welfare and ensure efficient resource allocation. However, policymakers must exercise caution to avoid unintended consequences and market distortions. Striking a balance between market forces and government intervention is crucial to harness the benefits of both, fostering a dynamic and efficient economy that serves the interests of society as a whole.

Here are some downloadable economics essays:

Economics essay pdf

Economics essay introduction

Economics Extended Essay Examples

In an economics extended essay, students have the opportunity to delve into a specific economic topic of interest. They are required to conduct an in-depth analysis of this topic and compile a lengthy essay.

Here are some potential economics extended essay question examples:

How does foreign direct investment impact economic growth in developing countries?
What are the factors influencing consumer behavior and their effects on market demand for sustainable products?
To what extent does government intervention in the form of minimum wage policies affect employment levels and income inequality?
What are the economic consequences of implementing a carbon tax to combat climate change?
How does globalization influence income distribution and the wage gap in developed economies?

IB Economics Extended Essay Examples

Economics Extended Essay Topic Examples

Extended Essay Research Question Examples Economics

Tips for Writing an Economics Essay

Writing an economics essay requires specific expertise and skills. So, it's important to have some tips up your sleeve to make sure your essay is of high quality:

Start with a Clear Thesis Statement: It defines your essay's focus and argument. This statement should be concise, to the point, and present the crux of your essay.
Conduct Research and Gather Data: Collect facts and figures from reliable sources such as academic journals, government reports, and reputable news outlets. Use this data to support your arguments and analysis and compile a literature review.
Use Economic Theories and Models: These help you to support your arguments and provide a framework for your analysis. Make sure to clearly explain these theories and models so that the reader can follow your reasoning.
Analyze the Micro and Macro Aspects: Consider all angles of the topic. This means examining how the issue affects individuals, businesses, and the economy as a whole.
Use Real-World Examples: Practical examples and case studies help to illustrate your points. This can make your arguments more relatable and understandable.
Consider the Policy Implications: Take into account the impacts of your analysis. What are the potential solutions to the problem you're examining? How might different policies affect the outcomes you're discussing?
Use Graphs and Charts: These help to illustrate your data and analysis. These visual aids can help make your arguments more compelling and easier to understand.
Proofread and Edit: Make sure to proofread your essay carefully for grammar and spelling errors. In economics, precision and accuracy are essential, so errors can undermine the credibility of your analysis.

These tips can help make your essay writing journey a breeze. Tailor them to your topic to make sure you end with a well-researched and accurate economics essay.

To wrap it up , writing an economics essay requires a combination of solid research, analytical thinking, and effective communication.

You can craft a compelling piece of work by taking our examples as a guide and following the tips.

However, if you are still questioning "how do I write an economics essay?", it's time to get professional help from the best essay writing service - CollegeEssay.org.

Our economics essay writing service is always ready to help students like you. Our experienced economics essay writers are dedicated to delivering high-quality, custom-written essays that are 100% plagiarism free.

Also try out our AI essay writer and get your quality economics essay now!

Barbara P (Literature)

Barbara is a highly educated and qualified author with a Ph.D. in public health from an Ivy League university. She has spent a significant amount of time working in the medical field, conducting a thorough study on a variety of health issues. Her work has been published in several major publications.

Paper Due? Why Suffer? That’s our Job!

Legal & Policies

Privacy Policy
Cookies Policy
Terms of Use
Refunds & Cancellations
Our Writers
Success Stories
Our Guarantees
Affiliate Program
Referral Program
AI Essay Writer

Disclaimer: All client orders are completed by our team of highly qualified human writers. The essays and papers provided by us are not to be used for submission but rather as learning models only.

Suggestions or feedback?

MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Machine learning
Sustainability
Black holes
Classes and programs

Departments

Aeronautics and Astronautics
Brain and Cognitive Sciences
Architecture
Political Science
Mechanical Engineering

Centers, Labs, & Programs

Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL)
Picower Institute for Learning and Memory
Lincoln Laboratory
School of Architecture + Planning
School of Engineering
School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences
Sloan School of Management
School of Science
MIT Schwarzman College of Computing

The power of economics to explain and shape the world

Press contact :.

Photo of Abijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo standing side-by-side against a blurred background

Previous image Next image

Nobel Prize-winning economist Esther Duflo sympathizes with students who have no interest in her field. She was such a student herself — until an undergraduate research post gave her the chance to learn first-hand that economists address many of the major issues facing human and planetary well-being. “Most people have a wrong view of what economics is. They just see economists on television discussing what’s going to happen to the stock market,” says Duflo, the Abdul Latif Jameel Professor of Poverty Alleviation and Development Economics. “But what people do in the field is very broad. Economists grapple with the real world and with the complexity that goes with it.”

That’s why this year Duflo has teamed up with Professor Abhijit Banerjee to offer 14.009 (Economics and Society’s Greatest Problems), a first-year discovery subject — a class type designed to give undergraduates a low-pressure, high-impact way to explore a field. In this case, they are exploring the range of issues that economists engage with every day: the economic dimensions of climate change, international trade, racism, justice, education, poverty, health care, social preferences, and economic growth are just a few of the topics the class covers. “We think it’s pretty important that the first exposure to economics is via issues,” Duflo says. “If you first get exposed to economics via models, these models necessarily have to be very simplified, and then students get the idea that economics is a simplistic view of the world that can’t explain much.” Arguably, Duflo and Banerjee have been disproving that view throughout their careers. In 2003, the pair founded MIT’s Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab, a leading antipoverty research network that provides scientific evidence on what methods actually work to alleviate poverty — which enables governments and nongovernmental organizations to implement truly effective programs and social policies. And, in 2019 they won the Nobel Prize in economics (together with Michael Kremer of the University of Chicago) for their innovative work applying laboratory-style randomized, controlled trials to research a wide range of topics implicated in global poverty. “Super cool”

First-year Jean Billa, one of the students in 14.009, says, “Economics isn’t just about how money flows, but about how people react to certain events. That was an interesting discovery for me.”

It’s also precisely the lesson Banerjee and Duflo hoped students would take away from 14.009, a class that centers on weekly in-person discussions of the professors’ recorded lectures — many of which align with chapters in Banerjee and Duflo’s book “Good Economics for Hard Times” (Public Affairs, 2019). Classes typically start with a poll in which the roughly 100 enrolled students can register their views on that week’s topic. Then, students get to discuss the issue, says senior Dina Atia, teaching assistant for the class. Noting that she finds it “super cool” that Nobelists are teaching MIT’s first-year students, Atia points out that both Duflo and Banerjee have also made themselves available to chat with students after class. “They’re definitely extending themselves,” she says. “We want the students to get excited about economics so they want to know more,” says Banerjee, the Ford Foundation International Professor of Economics, “because this is a field that can help us address some of the biggest problems society faces.” Using natural experiments to test theories

Early in the term, for example, the topic was migration. In the lecture, Duflo points out that migration policies are often impacted by the fear that unskilled migrants will overwhelm a region, taking jobs from residents and demanding social services. Yet, migrant flows in normal years represent just 3 percent of the world population. “There is no flood. There is no vast movement of migrants,” she says. Duflo then explains that economists were able to learn a lot about migration thanks to a “natural experiment,” the Mariel boat lift. This 1980 event brought roughly 125,000 unskilled Cubans to Florida over a matter a months, enabling economists to study the impacts of a sudden wave of migration. Duflo says a look at real wages before and after the migration showed no significant impacts. “It was interesting to see that most theories about immigrants were not justified,” Billa says. “That was a real-life situation, and the results showed that even a massive wave of immigration didn’t change work in the city [Miami].”

Question assumptions, find the facts in data Since this is a broad survey course, there is always more to unpack. The goal, faculty say, is simply to help students understand the power of economics to explain and shape the world. “We are going so fast from topic to topic, I don’t expect them to retain all the information,” Duflo says. Instead, students are expected to gain an appreciation for a way of thinking. “Economics is about questioning everything — questioning assumptions you don’t even know are assumptions and being sophisticated about looking at data to uncover the facts.” To add impact, Duflo says she and Banerjee tie lessons to current events and dive more deeply into a few economic studies. One class, for example, focused on the unequal burden the Covid-19 pandemic has placed on different demographic groups and referenced research by Harvard University professor Marcella Alsan, who won a MacArthur Fellowship this fall for her work studying the impact of racism on health disparities.

Duflo also revealed that at the beginning of the pandemic, she suspected that mistrust of the health-care system could prevent Black Americans from taking certain measures to protect themselves from the virus. What she discovered when she researched the topic, however, was that political considerations outweighed racial influences as a predictor of behavior. “The lesson for you is, it’s good to question your assumptions,” she told the class. “Students should ideally understand, by the end of class, why it’s important to ask questions and what they can teach us about the effectiveness of policy and economic theory,” Banerjee says. “We want people to discover the range of economics and to understand how economists look at problems.”

Story by MIT SHASS Communications Editorial and design director: Emily Hiestand Senior writer: Kathryn O'Neill

Share this news article on:

Press mentions.

Prof. Esther Duflo will present her research on poverty reduction and her “proposal for a global minimum tax on billionaires and increased corporate levies to G-20 finance chiefs,” reports Andrew Rosati for Bloomberg. “The plan calls for redistributing the revenues to low- and middle-income nations to compensate for lives lost due to a warming planet,” writes Rosati. “It also adds to growing calls to raise taxes on the world’s wealthiest to help its most needy.”

Previous item Next item

Popular new major blends technical skills and human-centered applications

Report: Economics drives migration from Central America to the U.S.

MIT economists Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo stand outside their home after learning that they have been named co-winners of the 2019 Nobel Prize in economic sciences. They will share the prize with Michael Kremer of Harvard University.

MIT economists Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee win Nobel Prize

More mit news.

Three women hold children while outside their homes.

How social structure influences the way people share money

Read full story →

Light securing a data pathway between a computer and a cloud-based computing platform

New security protocol shields data from attackers during cloud-based computation

Photo of the brown, rocky, clay Mars surface.

Mars’ missing atmosphere could be hiding in plain sight

A woman sleeps while wearing an Elemind headband. It has a sensor on the forehead.

Startup helps people fall asleep by aligning audio signals with brainwaves

Study evaluates impacts of summer heat in U.S. prison environments

A close-up photo of an imaging sensor and circuitry.

Fifteen Lincoln Laboratory technologies receive 2024 R&D 100 Awards

More news on MIT News homepage →

Massachusetts Institute of Technology 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA, USA

Map (opens in new window)
Events (opens in new window)
People (opens in new window)
Careers (opens in new window)
Accessibility
Social Media Hub
MIT on Facebook
MIT on YouTube
MIT on Instagram

Great Economics Essay Topics for Deeper Insight and Understanding

Table of contents

1 Economic History Topics
2 Macro and Microeconomics Essay Topics
3 Healthcare Economics Essay Topics
4 Socio-Economic Analysis Essay Topics
5 Consumerism-Related Topics for Research Papers
6 Public Economic Development Essay Topics
7 Topics for Finance Economic Paper
8 Essay Topics about Taxes
9 Economic Analysis on Human Development Paper Topic Ideas
10 Labor and Economic Growth Essay Topics
11 Essay Topics on the Economic Theory of Employment
12 Conclusion

If you have difficulties coming up with a topic for your writing – paper writing service is here for you. In the process of studying, you will often encounter the need to write an economics essay in various fields. Among the variety of economics research directions and a wide range of problems to study, it is sometimes difficult to formulate the research topic when writing essays. In this article, we will consider the most relevant and interesting essay topics for study.

Economic History Topics

The study of economic history implies a detailed consideration of the very phenomenon of science. With the help of historical and statistical methods, you have to study the links between modern economies and historical events, the economic marvel that affected the course of global economic development.

The Industrial Revolution: Analyzing the Economic and Social Transformations of the 19th Century.
The Great Depression: Understanding the Causes and Consequences of the Economic Crisis of the 1930s.
Examining the Costs and Benefits of Military Conflict on National Economies.
The Rise and Fall of Communism: Analyzing the Economic and Political Implications of Socialist Systems.
Understanding the Economic Impacts of Increasing International Trade and Investment.
Examining the Impacts of Imperialism on Economic Development.
Evolution of Currency and Monetary Systems.
The Origins of Capitalism: Understanding the Economic and Social Forces that Shaped Modern Markets.
Economic and Agricultural Impacts of Technological Innovations in Farming.

Macro and Microeconomics Essay Topics

Let’s look at the broadest scientific field for economics research. The subject of studies of Macroeconomics is the global economy. It examines the economic data of entire countries and unions, studying international economics. While Microeconomics explores the individual level in the context of an enterprise, small and medium businesses. It also discovers such components of the market as international trade, stock market, microeconomics of migration industrial organization microeconomics.

Fiscal and Monetary Policy: The Role of Government in Influencing the Economy through Tax Policies and Monetary Policy.
International Trade: The Impact of Globalization on the Economy, Including the Effects of Tariffs, Trade Agreements, and Currency Exchange Rates.
Business Cycles: The Natural Fluctuations of the Economy and the Causes and Consequences of Booms and Busts.
Inflation and Deflation: The Impact of Changes in the Price Level of Goods and Services on the Economy and Its Consumers.
The Factors That Contribute to the Long-Term Growth of an Economy and the Importance of Investment, Innovation, and Productivity.
The Distribution of Wealth and Income in an Economy and the Impact of Policies Aimed At Reducing Income Inequality.
The Role of Banks, Stock Markets, and Other Financial Institutions in the Economy and the Impact of Financial Crises.
The Impact of Government Debt on Economic Growth.
Exploring the Functions and Policies of Central Banks and Their Impact on the Economy.
Primary Economic Endeavors of the Geographic Area Colonies Lumber
Macroeconomic Effects of International Capital Flows.
Theories of Economic Growth: Analyzing Different Theories of Economic Growth, Including Endogenous Growth Theory and Neoclassical Growth Theory.
Exploring Methods and Techniques for Forecasting Key Economic Variables Such as GDP, Inflation, and Employment.
Examining the Different Types of Market Failures, Including Externalities, Public Goods, and Monopolies, and Exploring Different Policy Approaches for Addressing Market Failures.
Investigating How Firms Produce Goods and Services and Exploring How Production Costs Impact Market Outcomes.
Analyzing the Conditions Necessary for Perfect Competition and Exploring the Implications for Market Outcomes.
The Economics of Oligopoly: Examining the Behavior of Firms in Oligopoly Markets and Exploring the Impact on Market Outcomes.
The Future of Work: Microeconomic Impacts of Automation and Artificial Intelligence.
The Economics of Education: Analyzing the Costs and Benefits of Higher Learning.
The Effects of Macroeconomics on the Housing Market.

Healthcare Economics Essay Topics

Healthcare economics is based on the study of factors affecting the cost of the industry as well as pricing policy depending on the current spending. This implies the economic research of complicated healthcare systems with the aim of financial analysis. You can choose to analyze patient satisfaction economics, international criminal justice, sports economics, and talent economics as important healthcare issues.

The Rising Cost of Healthcare: Analyzing the Impact of Inflation and Technology.
Examining the Economic Benefits and Challenges of Single-Payer Systems.
Understanding the Economics Behind the Cost of Prescription Drugs.
Health Insurance Markets: Analyzing the Role of Competition and Regulation.
Healthcare Workforce: Examining the Economics of Physician Shortages and Nurse Staffing.
The Economics of Medical Innovation: Balancing Costs and Benefits.
The Role of Prevention in Healthcare Economics: Cost Savings and Quality of Life.
Examining the Costs and Benefits of Investing in Behavioral Health Services.
The Economics of Happiness: Measuring the Relationship Between Income and Well-Being.

Need help with essay writing? Get your paper written by a professional writer Get Help Reviews.io 4.9/5

Socio-Economic Analysis Essay Topics

Socio economic essay topics revolve around the analysis of key economic features, the causes and consequences of financial decisions, and their significance for society. The ultimate goal of economics research is to evaluate the social and economic impact and to detect malicious features that can undermine a nation’s economic stability.

Social and Economic Impacts of Unequal Distribution of Wealth.
Socio-Economic Implications of Independent Work and Flexible Labor Arrangements.
Analyzing the Impacts of Migration on Social and Economic Outcomes.
The Sociology of Poverty: Understanding the Causes and Consequences of Economic Deprivation.
Social Entrepreneurship: Examining the Role of Business in Addressing Societal Challenges and Inequalities.
Understanding the Social and Economic Implications of an Aging Population.
Examining the Socio-Economic Differences Between Rural and Urban Areas.
The Impact of Migrant Remittance on Economic Development .

Consumerism-Related Topics for Research Papers

This branch of economics research studies consumer behavior trends, namely the impact of personal economics on the common good. For example, some scientists believe that increased consumption has a positive effect on production trends. While other experts believe that such inequalities are unacceptable and adhere to the economic policy of sustainable development. A sustainable economy has recently become the center of scientific concern and a vast amount of economic essay topics.

The Psychology of Consumerism: Understanding the Emotional Drivers Behind Shopping Habits.
Sustainable Consumerism: Examining the Economic and Environmental Impacts of Ethical Consumption.
Analyzing the Influence of Marketing on Purchasing Decisions.
Examining the Economic Costs and Social Consequences of Overconsumption.
The Economics of Branding: Understanding the Value of Brand Names and Logos.
The Sharing Economy: Analyzing the Economic Impacts of Collaborative Consumption.
The Rise of E-commerce: Examining the Advantages and Disadvantages of Online Shopping.
The Consumer Society: Analyzing the Role of Materialism in Modern Culture.
The Future of Consumerism: Exploring Emerging Trends and Their Economic Implications.

Public Economic Development Essay Topics

If you’re choosing public development as your economics essay subject, you should include an economic evaluation of basic concepts that are related to social welfare. This area may include the city’s economy comparative analysis as a part of urban economics, law enforcement studies, and many other social domains.

Fiscal Policy and Economic Growth: Analyzing the Role of Government Spending and Taxation.
Public Debt and Deficits: Examining the Economic Impacts of Government Borrowing.
Taxation and Social Welfare: Balancing Economic Efficiency and Equity.
The Economics of Government Procurement: Analyzing the Costs and Benefits of Public Contracting.
The Economics of Healthcare Financing: Understanding the Costs and Benefits of Different Payment Systems.
Municipal Finance: Analyzing the Economics of Local Government Budgeting and Expenditure.
Sovereign Debt Crises: Analyzing the Economic Implications of Debt Defaults and Restructurings.

Topics for Finance Economic Paper

Your economics essay in financial management is going to revolve around the system of planning and apportionment of funds in markets. You can choose anything from urban finance and aggregate economics to critical analysis of foreign direct investment in inter international economy.

The Future of Fintech: Exploring Emerging Trends and their Financial Implications.
Examining the Economic Impacts of Government Oversight and Policy.
Investment Banking: Analyzing the Economics of Securities Underwriting and Capital Raising.
The Economics of Real Estate Investment: Understanding Property Markets and Valuations.
Risk Management: Examining the Economics of Hedging Strategies and Portfolio Diversification.
Financial Markets and Globalization: Analyzing the Economic Implications of International Capital Flows.
The Economics of Venture Capital: Understanding the Role of Risk Capital in Entrepreneurship and Innovation.

Essay Topics about Taxes

Economic essay topics about taxes imply a comparative analysis of different taxation systems. Research on this topic will concern not only the tax system itself but also the study of bypass schemes, offshore zones, and other tricks. One example of intriguing economics topics is the study of the detrimental effects of taxes on ecology, as the problems of environmental protection remain unresolved.

Examining the Relationship between Government Revenue and Entrepreneurship.
The Costs and Benefits of Different Tax Systems.
The Ethics of Taxation: Analyzing the Social and Economic Implications of Taxation on Income Distribution.
Understanding the Economics of Offshore Tax Evasion and Avoidance.
The History of Taxation: Examining the Evolution of Taxation Systems from Ancient Times to the Present.
The Economic Impacts of Taxes on Carbon Emissions and Pollution.
Impacts of Sales Tax and Value-Added Tax on Consumer Behavior.

Economic Analysis on Human Development Paper Topic Ideas

Human development centers on the role of the public in economic convergence. You are supposed to concentrate on critical analysis of the progress of humanity, the level of life in developed and developing countries, track of economic behavior that leads to rapid economic growth, as well as the correct usage of scarce resources for general well-being.

The Role of Gender Equality in Economic and Social Progress.
Analyzing the Measurement and Evolution of Global Human Development.
Understanding the Cognitive and Emotional Factors that Shape Human Growth.
Analyzing the Role of Government Policies in Promoting Human Well-being.
Supporting Women’s Economic Empowerment in Fragile States .
The Relationship between Health Outcomes and Economic and Social Progress.
Positive and Negative Impacts of Technological Advances on Human Progress.
Exploring Emerging Trends and Challenges in Promoting Sustainable Human Development.

Labor and Economic Growth Essay Topics

Labor economics essay topics involve analysis of the labor force as an integral part of production. Among the topic ideas, you can study such economic problems as the correlation between population growth and surplus labor force in developing nations.

Economic Impacts of Freelance Work and Contingent Labor.
Impacts of Immigration on Labor Markets and Economic Growth.
Understanding the Factors that Contribute to Pay Disparities between Men and Women.
The Role of Unions in the Labor Market.
Examining the Economic Impacts of Minimum Wage Laws on Employment and Wages.
Labor Mobility: Understanding the Impacts of Labor Migration on Regional and National Labor Markets.
The Economics of Discrimination: Impacts of Race, Ethnicity, and Gender on Labor Market Outcomes.
Technological and Demographic Change on the Labor Market.

Essay Topics on the Economic Theory of Employment

Economics topics that consider the theory of employment study the decisions in the field of the labor force. In the coursework of research, you may study the services that individuals provide, the benefits of a cashless economy and its payment methods, and which role statistical data play in fulfilling the labor market needs.

Analyzing the Impacts of Technological and Demographic Changes on Employment.
Factors that Contribute to Employment Growth.
Economic Benefits in Attracting and Retaining Employees.
Examining the Economic Impacts of Employment Policies and Programs.
Understanding the Impacts of Workplace Environment and Culture on Employee Performance.
Impacts of Aging Populations and Retirement Trends on the Labor Market.
Capitalism and the Use of Disaster to Increase Economic Power .

Whatever topic you choose for your economics research, make sure it is within your field of interest. Scientific work always goes smoothly when you are motivated to bring newness to the underlying concepts. We wish you good luck with this difficult choice, as all economics essay topics are fascinating, and your task as a research paper writer is to bring your individual perspective to science.

Readers also enjoyed

WHY WAIT? PLACE AN ORDER RIGHT NOW!

Just fill out the form, press the button, and have no worries!

We use cookies to give you the best experience possible. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy.

Verify originality of an essay

Get ideas for your paper

Cite sources with ease

Economics Essay Topics: A Complete List for Deep Analysis

Updated 17 Sep 2024

Economics stands as one of the most influential and essential social sciences, deeply intertwined with the functioning of modern society. By examining the flow of value, resources, and decision-making processes, economics impacts nearly every facet of our daily lives, from personal finances and business operations to governmental policies and global markets. Its principles and theories help us understand complex societal interactions and offer practical solutions to pressing issues, making it an indispensable tool for fostering growth and development in today’s world.

The range of economics essay topics is vast, reflecting the discipline’s broad focus on human interactions at both micro and macro levels. Whether you are interested in the behaviors of individuals and businesses or the global economy’s trends and challenges, finding a topic that is both relevant to your assignment and engaging to explore can be overwhelming. That’s where our essay writing service comes in. We can help you navigate this extensive field by offering expert guidance in selecting a topic that aligns with your interests and academic goals, ensuring a well-researched and impactful essay.

Tips for Choosing Compelling Economics Topics

Here are some practical steps to help you streamline the process of selecting a strong economics essay topic:

Identify the Relevant Field of Study: Economics is a vast discipline, divided into various subcategories such as microeconomics, macroeconomics, social economics, and more. To ensure you pick a suitable topic, start by narrowing down the specific area of economics you’re most interested in or required to focus on. This will help refine your search for relevant and targeted economics paper topics.
Choose a Topic That Interests You: Even the most fascinating topic can fall flat if you aren't genuinely interested in it. Focus on subjects or questions that spark your curiosity and passion for learning. When you’re personally engaged, you’re more likely to produce a well-thought-out and compelling essay.
Ensure the Availability of Trustworthy Sources: Economics, like other social sciences, can be susceptible to manipulation to support particular viewpoints. Before committing to a topic, verify that there are credible, reliable sources of information available. The quality of your essay will depend heavily on your ability to draw from accurate and well-researched data.
Keep the Reader Engaged: A dry, data-heavy essay can quickly lose the reader’s interest. Choose a topic that allows you to weave raw data with compelling narratives or critical insights. Your aim should be to captivate your audience, making the topic not only informative but also enjoyable to read.

Prominent economics areas to explore

Fundamental Economics : Cost-benefit analysis, decision-making processes, and their impact on society.
Macroeconomics : Concepts of supply and demand, national income, inflation, and economic growth.
Microeconomics : Market structures, competitive strategies, and pricing mechanisms.
International Economics : Global trade, international markets, and the effects of globalization.
Personal Economics : Consumer behavior, personal finance, and investment strategies.
Social Economics : Class structures, income inequality, and the cultural effects of economic policies.

By following these tips, you'll be better equipped to choose a topic that not only fits your academic needs but also excites you to dive deeper into the world of economics.

Economics Essay Topics

These general topics explore the specifics of the field, its difference from other studies, and relevant questions in the modern state of this science.

The Role of Economic Policies in Reducing Income Inequality
Behavioral Economics: How Psychology Influences Consumer Decisions
The Impact of Technology on Global Labor Markets
Exploring the Relationship Between Inflation and Unemployment
Economic Factors Contributing to Housing Market Crises
The Effects of Tariffs and Trade Wars on Global Economies
Analyzing the Impact of Climate Change on Economic Growth
The Economics of Renewable Energy: Costs vs. Benefits
The Gig Economy: Benefits and Challenges for Workers and Employers
The Role of Government in Market Regulation and Economic Stability
Globalization: Economic Advantages and Disadvantages
The Economics of Higher Education: Cost, Access, and Outcomes
The Role of Central Banks in Economic Growth and Stability
Taxation Policies and Their Effect on Wealth Distribution
The Economics of Population Growth and Decline

World Economics Essay Questions

How do developing countries balance economic growth with environmental protection?
What are the economic consequences of international sanctions on a country's economy?
How does foreign direct investment influence the economic development of emerging markets?
What role does the World Bank play in reducing global poverty?
How has the COVID-19 pandemic reshaped global economic structures?
What are the economic benefits and drawbacks of free trade agreements?
How does the rise of digital currencies affect global financial markets?
What is the impact of immigration on the economies of host countries?
How does corruption affect economic growth in developing countries?
What are the economic implications of Brexit for the UK and the EU?
How do natural disasters influence global supply chains and economic growth?
What is the role of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in stabilizing economies?
How do remittances impact the economies of developing nations?
What are the economic consequences of rising protectionism in world trade?
How does income inequality affect economic stability on a global scale?

Macroeconomics Essay Topics

Macroeconomics deals with economic systems as a whole. It is extremely important to discuss, as it can help to learn more about how well the system is performing and what can be done to improve it.

The Role of Monetary Policy in Controlling Inflation
How Fiscal Policy Impacts Economic Growth and Stability
The Effect of Public Debt on National Economies
The Influence of Interest Rates on Investment and Consumption
Global Economic Growth Trends and the Role of Emerging Markets
Analyzing the Economic Impact of War and Conflict on National Economies
The Role of Exchange Rates in International Trade
The Effectiveness of Austerity Measures in Economic Recovery
How Globalization Has Changed the Structure of National Economies
The Impact of Tax Cuts on Economic Growth and Income Distribution
The Relationship Between Unemployment Rates and Economic Growth
Analyzing the Causes and Consequences of Economic Recessions
The Role of Central Banks in Preventing Financial Crises
The Economic Effects of Large-Scale Infrastructure Projects
How Population Aging Affects National Economies

Microeconomics Essay Topics

Microeconomics, on the other hand, deals with the economy on an individual scale. Discussing the importance of personal decision making and how it impacts the system is actually just as important as paying attention to the large scale, so let’s take a look at the topics you can explore:

The Economics of Consumer Choice: Factors Influencing Buying Decisions
How Monopolies Impact Market Efficiency and Consumer Welfare
The Role of Price Elasticity in Consumer Behavior
The Effects of Minimum Wage Laws on Employment and Income Distribution
Analyzing the Economics of Supply and Demand in Various Industries
The Role of Competition in Enhancing Innovation and Market Efficiency
The Economics of Small Businesses in a Globalized Market
The Impact of Technological Advancements on Production Costs and Efficiency
How Firms Make Pricing Decisions in Different Market Structures
The Role of Advertising in Shaping Consumer Preferences
The Economics of Labor Unions and Their Influence on Wages
Analyzing the Impact of Government Subsidies on Market Outcomes
The Influence of Behavioral Economics on Market Behavior
How Market Failures Lead to Government Intervention
The Impact of Consumer Confidence on Market Dynamics

Save your time! We can take care of your essay

Proper editing and formatting
Free revision, title page, and bibliography
Flexible prices and money-back guarantee

Healthcare Economics Essay Topics

The Economic Impact of Universal Healthcare on National Budgets
Analyzing the Cost-Effectiveness of Preventive Healthcare Measures
How Healthcare Markets Respond to Government Regulations and Policies
The Economics of Pharmaceutical Pricing and Access to Medication
The Role of Health Insurance in Reducing Healthcare Disparities
The Economic Implications of an Aging Population on Healthcare Systems
How Medical Technology Advancements Affect Healthcare Costs
The Role of Public vs. Private Healthcare Systems in Economic Growth
The Economics of Mental Health Services and Their Impact on Workforce Productivity
Analyzing the Costs and Benefits of Vaccination Programs
How Healthcare Financing Models Influence Patient Access to Care
The Economics of Health Inequalities Across Different Socioeconomic Groups
How Healthcare Provider Competition Affects Service Quality and Costs
The Impact of Medical Tourism on National Healthcare Systems
The Economic Consequences of Chronic Disease Management Programs

Consumerism Essay Topics

The Role of Advertising in Driving Consumerism
The Psychological Impact of Consumerism on Society
The Relationship Between Consumerism and Environmental Degradation
How Social Media Influences Modern Consumer Habits
The Impact of Consumerism on Personal Financial Stability
Consumerism and Its Effect on Cultural Identity
The Rise of Sustainable Consumerism: Can It Slow Climate Change?
The Economics of Fast Fashion and Its Environmental Impact
The Role of Consumerism in Economic Growth
Consumerism and Mental Health: The Pressure to "Keep Up"
How the Gig Economy Fuels Consumerism
The Impact of Consumer Credit on Spending Behavior
Ethical Consumerism: Trends and Challenges
How Consumerism Shapes the Global Economy
The Influence of Consumerism on Waste Generation and Disposal

Finance Paper Topics

The Role of Fintech in Revolutionizing Personal Finance
How Stock Market Fluctuations Impact the Economy
The Role of Central Banks in Maintaining Financial Stability
Behavioral Finance: How Emotions Influence Investment Decisions
The Economics of Cryptocurrency: Risks and Rewards
The Importance of Financial Literacy in Modern Society
The Role of Venture Capital in Startup Ecosystems
The Impact of Interest Rate Changes on Corporate Investment Strategies
How Globalization Has Reshaped International Finance
Analyzing the Causes and Consequences of Financial Crises
The Influence of Corporate Governance on Financial Performance
The Role of Credit Ratings in Financial Markets
Financial Regulations and Their Impact on Economic Growth
The Relationship Between Inflation and Investment Returns
Analyzing the Economic Impact of Government Debt

Socio-Economic Essay Topics

The Economic Implications of Gender Inequality in the Workplace
How Education Levels Influence Economic Growth in Developing Countries
The Role of Social Welfare Programs in Reducing Poverty
The Impact of Urbanization on Socio-Economic Development
How Socio-Economic Factors Affect Access to Healthcare
The Influence of Social Class on Consumer Behavior
The Role of Income Inequality in Shaping Political Stability
How Socio-Economic Factors Contribute to Crime Rates
The Impact of Globalization on Social and Economic Inequalities
How Migration Affects the Socio-Economic Structure of Host Countries
The Role of Education in Enhancing Socio-Economic Mobility
The Relationship Between Economic Development and Environmental Sustainability
How the Digital Divide Exacerbates Socio-Economic Inequality
The Influence of Social Capital on Economic Development
The Role of Economic Policies in Addressing Social Inequalities

Economic History Topics

The Economic Impact of the Industrial Revolution on Global Trade
The Role of Colonialism in Shaping Modern Global Economies
The Great Depression and Its Lasting Effects on Economic Policies
The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union’s Command Economy
How the Gold Standard Influenced Global Financial Systems
The Economic Consequences of World War II on Europe and the U.S.
The Role of Mercantilism in Shaping Colonial Economies
The History of Trade Unions and Their Impact on Labor Markets
The Economic Origins and Impacts of the 2008 Financial Crisis
The Role of Slavery in the Economic Development of the Americas
The Evolution of Banking Systems Through History
How Technological Advancements Have Shaped Economic History
The Economic Impacts of the Bretton Woods Agreement
The Role of Agriculture in the Development of Early Economies
The History of Economic Thought: From Adam Smith to Modern Economics

Tax Topics for an Essay

The Impact of Progressive vs. Flat Tax Systems on Income Inequality
The Role of Tax Incentives in Stimulating Economic Growth
How Corporate Tax Rates Influence Business Investment Decisions
The Economics of Tax Evasion and Its Effects on Government Revenue
The Relationship Between Taxation and Public Spending Efficiency
The Effectiveness of Sin Taxes on Reducing Harmful Behaviors
The Role of International Tax Law in Combatting Tax Havens
How Property Taxes Influence Local Economic Development
The Impact of Tax Reform on Small Businesses
How Inheritance Taxes Affect Wealth Distribution
The Role of Carbon Taxes in Combating Climate Change
The Effectiveness of Tax Policies in Reducing Poverty
The Economics of Value-Added Tax (VAT) Systems Around the World
The Impact of Taxes on Consumer Spending and Economic Growth
How Sales Taxes Affect Consumer Behavior and Business Strategies

Human Development Essay Topics

The Role of Education in Promoting Human Development
How Access to Healthcare Influences Human Development Indices
The Economic Impact of Gender Equality on Human Development
The Role of Microfinance in Supporting Human Development in Low-Income Countries
How Technological Advancements Contribute to Human Development
The Relationship Between Human Development and Economic Growth
The Role of Sustainable Development in Improving Human Well-Being
How Human Development Index (HDI) Scores Reflect Global Inequality
The Impact of Nutrition on Human Development and Economic Productivity
How Social Protection Programs Influence Human Development
The Role of Clean Water Access in Advancing Human Development
How Government Policies Shape Human Development Outcomes
The Influence of Early Childhood Education on Long-Term Human Development
The Role of Cultural Factors in Human Development
How Globalization Impacts Human Development in Developing Nations

Final thoughts

In conclusion, this diverse collection of economics essay topics covers a wide range of crucial areas within the field. From macro-level issues like global economic systems to micro-level decisions like personal spending habits, each topic provides valuable insights into how economic forces shape our lives. These topics not only help students grasp the complexities of finance, markets, and global trade but also demonstrate how economics influences everything from government policies to everyday decision-making.

Writing essays on these subjects goes beyond just completing schoolwork—it’s an opportunity to delve into the real-world implications of economic theory and practice. By tackling these topics, students gain a deeper understanding of how economies function and how their decisions as consumers, citizens, and future professionals impact the larger financial ecosystem. Through this exploration, they become better equipped to critically assess and contribute to important economic conversations, both locally and globally.

Selecting the right economics essay topic can be a daunting task due to the breadth of the subject, but it’s a crucial first step in producing a well-structured and engaging paper. If you find yourself needing assistance, turning to a professional essay writing service can provide expert guidance and ensure your essay is both insightful and meticulously crafted. This support can be especially valuable in helping you navigate complex topics and produce work that stands out academically.

Was this helpful?

Thanks for your feedback.

Written by David Kidwell

David is one of those experienced content creators from the United Kingdom who has a high interest in social issues, culture, and entrepreneurship. He always says that reading, blogging, and staying aware of what happens in the world is what makes a person responsible. He likes to learn and share what he knows by making things inspiring and creative enough even for those students who dislike reading.

150+ Personal Essay Topics to Spark Your Creativity

What Is a Personal Essay and Why Is It Important? A personal essay is a form of writing that allows the author to express personal experiences, ...

100+ Engaging Evaluation Essay Topics: From Internet Trends to Cultural Identity

Evaluation essays involve making value judgments about various subjects. To craft an effective evaluation essay, you must first identify a clear ar...

Join our 150K of happy users

Get original papers written according to your instructions
Save time for what matters most

Home — Blog — Topic Ideas — 120 Essay Topic in Economics: Useful Ideas and Tips

120 Essay Topic in Economics: Useful Ideas and Tips

An essay on the study of economics offers a fascinating exploration of how societies allocate scarce resources to meet their unlimited wants and needs. Economics, often referred to as the "dismal science," provides valuable insights into the workings of markets, businesses, governments, and individual decision-making processes. As a social science, it analyzes human behavior in relation to the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services.

By studying economics papers topics , students delve into a wide range of topics, ranging from microeconomics, which focuses on individual economic agents such as households and firms, to macroeconomics, which examines broader aspects of the economy, including inflation, unemployment, and economic growth.

The essay typically begins with an introduction that sets the context and provides a clear thesis statement outlining the main argument. It is essential to showcase a solid understanding of economic principles and theories while employing real-world examples and data to support arguments.

One of the critical aspects of an economics essay is the analysis of economic models and concepts. Students may explore theories like supply and demand, elasticity, market structures, cost-benefit analysis, fiscal and monetary policy, and more. Using empirical evidence and case studies, they can apply these concepts to real-world situations to demonstrate their understanding and analytical skills.

Moreover, an essay on economics often involves discussing current economic issues and policies. Analyzing economic challenges faced by countries, the impact of globalization, income inequality , environmental sustainability, or the role of government intervention are just a few examples of pertinent topics. Not surprisingly, many students have difficulty writing them. Perhaps we can help you if you study some economics essay examples and improve your knowledge.

To craft a compelling economics essay, students should conduct thorough research, draw from reputable sources, and critically evaluate various viewpoints. The essay should present a coherent and logical flow of ideas, supported by evidence and data, leading to well-reasoned conclusions. And in any case, it’s worth starting with an analysis of suitable topics, and in this article, we will try to help you by providing various ideas for reflection.

✨ Most Popular Economic Essay Topics

The Role of Government in Shaping Economic Policies: A Comparative Analysis
Globalization and its Impact on Emerging Economies
Income Inequality: Causes, Consequences, and Solutions
The Economics of Climate Change: Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies
The Pros and Cons of Free Trade Agreements on National Economies
Monetary Policy and its Effects on Inflation and Unemployment
The Economics of Healthcare: Examining Costs, Access, and Quality
The Impact of Technological Advancements on Economic Growth
Behavioral Economics: Understanding Irrational Decision-Making
The Economics of Education: Investing in Human Capital
The Housing Market Bubble: Lessons from the 2008 Financial Crisis
The Role of Entrepreneurship in Economic Development
The Economics of Artificial Intelligence and Automation
Government Debt and Fiscal Policy: Evaluating Sustainable Practices
Economic Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Challenges and Recovery Strategies

💡 Important Economic Essay Topics

Studying economics is essential for several reasons, as it provides valuable insights into the functioning of societies, markets, and individual decision-making processes. Here are some key reasons why studying finances and economics is important:

Understanding Human Behavior: Economics analyzes how individuals, households, and firms make choices in the face of limited resources and unlimited wants. It provides a framework to understand human behavior and decision-making , which is crucial for businesses, policymakers, and individuals alike.
Allocation of Resources: Economics helps societies allocate scarce resources efficiently. By studying concepts like supply and demand , production, and distribution, economists can identify optimal resource allocation to maximize overall welfare and economic growth.
Impact of Policies: Economic analysis informs policymakers about the potential consequences of their decisions. It helps in formulating effective policies related to taxation, trade, monetary, and fiscal matters, aiming to improve economic conditions and societal well-being.
Business Decision-Making: For businesses, understanding economic principles is crucial for strategic planning, pricing strategies, market analysis, and assessing risks and opportunities. Economic insights enable businesses to adapt to changing market conditions and make informed decisions.
Global Perspective: Economics provides a global perspective, allowing nations to engage in international trade and understand the implications of globalization . It fosters cooperation and collaboration between countries to address economic challenges on a global scale.
Addressing Inequality: Economic studies shed light on income and wealth distribution, allowing societies to address issues of inequality and poverty. Understanding the root causes of economic disparities can help design policies to promote inclusive growth and social justice.
Personal Finance Management: Understanding economic principles can benefit individuals in managing personal finances, making informed investments, and planning for the future.

Thus, the study of economics is critical to understanding the complex dynamics of modern societies and economies. It is economics papers topics that provide individuals, businesses, and policymakers with valuable tools to make informed decisions, promote sustainable growth, and address pressing social and economic challenges locally, nationally, and globally.

Socio-Economic Essay Topics

The Ever-Evolving American Dream.
Is the American Dream Still Alive?
The American Dream: Success, Mobility, Critiques.
Socialism and Capitalism.
Addressing Disparities of Health Equity.
Relationship Between Income Inequality and Crime Rates.
Abolishing Federal Minimum Wage: A Proposal.
Impact of Minimum Wage Policies.
Universal Basic Income: A Viable Solution or a Dangerous Experiment
Poverty Alleviation Strategies: Lessons from Successful Programs.
Unemployment and its Socio-Economic Effects.
The Influence of Social Media on Consumer Behavior and Society.
Socio-Economic Factors in Urbanization and Rural Migration.
Socio-Economic Implications of Aging Populations.
Immigration and its Effects on Socio-Economic Dynamics.
Socio-Economic Effects of Access to Quality Healthcare and Education.
Social Mobility and its Correlation with Economic Prosperity.
The Intersection of Socio-Economic Status and Health Outcomes.
The Role of Culture in Shaping Socio-Economic Patterns.
Corporate Social Responsibility: Balancing Profitability and Social Welfare

International Economics Essay Topics

The Impacts of Global Trade Agreements on Developing Economies
Exchange Rate Policies and Their Effects on International Trade
Foreign Direct Investment and Economic Development
The Role of Multinational Corporations in the Global Economy
Economic Integration in Regional Blocs: Pros and Cons
The Balance of Payments: Trends and Challenges
International Capital Flows and Financial Crises
The Effectiveness of International Aid in Promoting Economic Growth
The Economics of Globalization: Prospects and Challenges
International Economic Sanctions: Rationale and Consequences
The Role of International Organizations in Global Economic Governance
The Impact of International Migration on Sending and Receiving Countries' Economies
Trade Liberalization and Income Inequality in Developing Countries
The Economics of Foreign Aid: Achievements and Limitations
International Economic Policies and Income Distribution.
The Significance of the Stock Market: History, Function, and Future
Understanding Supply and Demand Dynamics
The Role of Digital Currency in Shaping International Trade
Environmental Policies and Their Impact on Global Economic Relations
Technological Innovations and Their Influence on Global Supply Chains

Labor Economics Essay Topic Ideas

The Evolution of Work and Employment
FNP Employment Contract
The Gig Economy: Challenges and Opportunities for Workers
Labor Unions and Collective Bargaining in Modern Economies
Technological Advancements and the Future of Work
Labor Mobility and its Effects on Economic Growth
Youth Unemployment: Addressing the Challenges of Entry into the Labor Market
Labor Market Segmentation: Understanding Dual Labor Markets
The Economics of Immigration and its Impact on Local Labor Markets
Gender Wage Gap: Analyzing Causes and Closing the Divide
Automation and Job Displacement: Policy Responses for the Workforce
Human Capital Investment: Education and Training in the Labor Market
Labor Market Policies for Aging Populations and Retirement Transitions
Labor Market Flexibility and Employment Protection Legislation
Income Inequality and its Connection to Labor Market Outcomes
The Economics of Occupational Safety and Health
Discrimination in the Workplace: Examining Persistent Disparities
The Economics of Unemployment Insurance: Incentives and Impact
Informal Labor Markets: Challenges and Policy Approaches
Labor Economics of Developing Countries: Unique Issues and Solutions

Essay Topics in the Economics of Sports

The Economics of Professional Sports Leagues: Revenue Sharing and Competitive Balance
Stadium Financing and Economic Impact on Local Communities
The Role of Salary Caps in Professional Sports: Fairness and Competitiveness
Sports Sponsorship and its Influence on Branding and Revenue Generation
Economic Analysis of Mega Sporting Events: Costs and Benefits
Ticket Pricing Strategies in Sports: Maximizing Revenue and Fan Engagement
Sports Betting and its Economic Implications
The Economics of Player Transfers and Player Valuation in Sports
Sports Broadcast Rights and Media Economics
Youth Sports Participation and its Long-term Socio-Economic Effects
The Economic Impact of Sports Facilities on Tourism and Local Economies
Sports Analytics: The Role of Data in Player Performance and Team Strategies
The Economics of Sports Franchise Relocation and Expansion
Economic Incentives for Athletes: Performance-Based Contracts and Bonuses
Sports Merchandising and Consumer Behavior: Factors Influencing Sales
Esports Economics: The Rise of Competitive Video Gaming
Sports Development Programs and Economic Growth in Developing Countries
Economic Challenges of Doping and Anti-Doping Policies in Sports
Sports Economics and Fan Loyalty: Factors Affecting Fan Spending and Attendance
The Economic Impact of Sports Injuries on Players and Teams.

Essay Topics on City Economics

Urbanization and Economic Growth: Trends and Implications
The Economics of Gentrification: Effects on Housing and Communities
Urban Transport Economics: Evaluating Public Transit and Mobility Solutions
Urban Planning and Land Use: Balancing Economic Development and Sustainability
The Impact of Urban Renewal Projects on Local Economies
Housing Affordability in Urban Areas: Challenges and Policy Interventions
Economic Incentives for Urban Development: Tax Incentives and Subsidies
The Economics of Urban Sprawl: Costs and Benefits
Urban Informal Economies: Informal Sector Dynamics and Contributions
Urban Poverty and Social Exclusion: Analyzing Economic Disparities
The Economics of Urban Crime: Strategies for Crime Reduction
Urban Environmental Economics: Managing Pollution and Sustainability
Smart Cities and the Economics of Technological Urban Innovations
Urban Economic Resilience: Coping with Shocks and Disruptions
The Economics of Urban Education: Addressing Inequality in Schools
Urban Infrastructure Investment and Economic Productivity
The Role of Cultural and Creative Industries in Urban Economies
Urban Tourism Economics: Balancing Tourist Impact and Local Needs
Urban Agriculture and Food Security: Economic and Social Benefits
Urban Governance and Economic Development: The Role of Local Government.

Business Economics Essay Topics

Cost-Benefit Analysis in Business Decision Making
Customer Reviews and Sales Figures in E-commerce
Market Structure and Business Performance: A Comparative Analysis
Business Cycles and Their Impact on Economic Stability
The Role of Entrepreneurship in Economic Growth and Innovation
The Economics of Corporate Mergers and Acquisitions
Business Ethics and their Influence on Economic Outcomes
The Economics of Risk Management in Business Operations
International Trade and its Effects on Business Competitiveness
Environmental Sustainability in Business: Balancing Profit and Social Responsibility
Business Strategy and its Relationship with Economic Performance
The E-Commerce Impact on Traditional Businesses
The Economics of Advertising and Consumer Behavior
Business Innovation and its Influence on Industry Dynamics
Small Business Economics: Challenges and Opportunities for Growth
Economic Analysis of Market Entry and Exit Strategies
Technology Adoption and its Impact on Business Efficiency
The Role of Financial Markets in Business Operations and Investment
The Economics of Supply Chain Management: Efficiency and Resilience
Business Taxation and its Effects on Investment and Profits.

💫 Tips on How to Write Your Essay in Economics

Writing an economics essay can be intellectually stimulating but rewarding as it allows you to explore complex economic concepts, express your understanding effectively, and learn from various economics paper topics. To create a compelling economics paper topic, follow these basic steps:

Understand the Essay Prompt: Carefully read and comprehend the essay prompt to grasp the specific question or topic you are required to address. Identify key terms and concepts to guide your research and analysis.
Research and Gather Evidence: Conduct in-depth research using reputable sources such as academic journals, books, and economic databases. Collect relevant data and evidence to support your arguments and strengthen the essay's credibility.
Create a Clear Thesis Statement: Formulate a concise and clear thesis statement that outlines the main argument or position you will be defending in the essay. The thesis should be specific, focused, and reflect the main point of your paper.
Plan and Organize: Outline your essay structure before you begin writing. A well-structured essay should have an introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion. Each body paragraph should discuss a single main idea or argument, supported by evidence.
Introduction: Start with an engaging introduction that provides context for your essay and introduces your thesis statement. Hook the reader's attention and provide a brief overview of the key points you will be discussing.
Body Paragraphs: Each body paragraph should begin with a topic sentence that presents the main idea of the paragraph. Use evidence and examples to support your arguments and relate them back to your thesis. Analyze the data and discuss its implications in relation to the topic.
Use Economic Terminology: Incorporate relevant economic terminology and concepts to demonstrate your understanding of the subject matter. However, avoid jargon that might confuse the reader.
Critical Analysis: Provide a critical analysis of the economic theories and evidence presented. Evaluate strengths and weaknesses, and consider alternative viewpoints to present a balanced perspective.
Counterarguments and Rebuttals: Address potential counterarguments to your thesis and provide well-reasoned rebuttals. Acknowledging opposing views enhances the credibility of your essay.
Conclusion: Summarize the main points discussed in the essay and restate your thesis in a conclusive manner. Avoid introducing new information in the conclusion.
Proofread and Edit: After completing your essay, review it carefully for clarity, coherence, and grammar. Ensure that your arguments flow logically, and make any necessary revisions to strengthen the overall quality.
Cite Your Sources: Properly cite all the sources used in your research following the citation style specified by your instructor (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.).

By following these steps, you can write a well-structured and persuasive economics essay that demonstrates your grasp of economic concepts and analytical skills, contributing to a comprehensive understanding of the subject matter.

We use cookies to personalyze your web-site experience. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

Economics Essay Topics You’ll Actually Want to Write About

It’s the night before your economics essay is due, and your mind’s swirling with terms like “supply and demand” and “inflation rates,” but no clear topic stands out. We've all been there. Writing about economics can feel like you’re drowning in charts, graphs, and theories without a life vest. But it doesn't have to be this hard.

This article will lay out a variety of economics essay topics across different categories — everything from microeconomics to international trade. We’re here to help you find the perfect angle for your next essay, saving you time and stress.

And if by the end of this, you’re still feeling stuck, EssayService has got your back. We can help you deal with any essay, no matter the topic, and make sure you’re putting out your best work.

Economics Essay Topics For Students

Crafting an economics essay can feel like a big task, especially when choosing the right topic. The good news is that there’s no shortage of interesting ideas, though! In this section, you'll find a variety of economics essay topics that are relevant, manageable, and perfect for students, covering everything from personal finance to global economic development issues.

Economics Essay Topics For High School Students

How Social Media Shapes Teen Buying Habits – Examine how platforms like Instagram and TikTok are reshaping teen consumer behavior.
The Business of Fast Fashion – Look into the rise of cheap, trendy clothes and how it ties into government regulations and nation’s economic stability.
Minimum Wage and Teen Jobs – Discuss how increasing the minimum wage could shift job availability for high school students.
Inflation and Everyday Costs – Break down how the rising cost of goods affects things like groceries, gas, and clothes that people buy daily.
Funding for School Lunch Programs – Investigate how money allocated to school meals helps both students and the local community.
The Power of Advertising in Teen Choices – Analyze how commercials and online ads push teenagers to buy specific products.
The Rise of Gig Jobs Among Teens – Look at why more high school students are taking up side jobs like food delivery or freelancing.
The Short Supply of Popular Video Game Consoles – Discuss how the scarcity of consoles like the PS5 pushes prices higher.
Recessions and College Plans – Consider how economic downturns make some teens rethink whether to go to college or delay it.
Competition Between Streaming Services – Compare Netflix, Hulu, and Disney+ and how their rivalry changes subscription prices and content variety.

Economics Essay Topics for College Students

The Economics of Student Loan Debt in 2024 – Analyze how rising student debt affects recent graduates and the overall economy.
Cryptocurrency in Global Markets – Study how Bitcoin and other digital currencies are being used in international trade and financial markets.
The Shift to Remote Work and Its Economic Implications – Discuss how the growth of remote work changes job markets, housing prices, and business structures.
Universal Basic Income: Pros and Cons – Investigate whether providing a basic income to all citizens could help reduce poverty and inequality.
The Role of Government in Managing Climate Change Costs – Look into how governments worldwide fund climate initiatives and the economic challenges involved.
The Economics of Healthcare in a Post-Pandemic World – Analyze how the COVID-19 pandemic reshaped healthcare spending and policy.
The Growing Influence of Automation on the Job Market – Discuss how automation and AI technology are replacing certain jobs and what this means for the future.
How Trade Tariffs Affect Global Supply Chains – Study how tariffs imposed by governments on imports and exports are changing global trade and production.
The Housing Market Crisis: Causes and Solutions – Examine the reasons behind rising housing costs and potential strategies for making homes more affordable.
The Impact of Globalization on Small Businesses – Investigate how small businesses are adapting to compete in an increasingly global market.

Economics Essay Topics for University Students

The Economic Consequences of Brexit – Examine how the UK’s exit from the European Union is reshaping trade, labor markets, and investment in Europe.
The Role of Central Banks in Stabilizing Economies – Analyze how institutions like the Federal Reserve manage inflation and interest rates to maintain economic stability.
The Economics of Renewable Energy Transition – Investigate the financial challenges and opportunities involved in shifting from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources.
The Global Supply Chain Crisis and Its Long-Term Effects – Discuss how recent disruptions in global supply chains are influencing international trade and manufacturing.
The Economics of Population Aging – Explore how aging populations in countries like Japan and Italy are affecting healthcare costs, pension systems, and workforce dynamics.
The Impact of Cryptocurrency Regulations on Financial Markets – Analyze how recent regulatory changes are shaping the future of digital currencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum.
The Role of Behavioral Economics in Policy Making – Study how insights from behavioral economics are being used to design more effective public policies.
Income Inequality in Developed vs. Developing Countries – Compare the drivers of income inequality in wealthy nations versus those in developing economies.
The Economic Implications of Climate Change on Agriculture – Look into how shifts in climate patterns are affecting agricultural productivity and food security worldwide.
The Gig Economy and Its Effect on Traditional Employment Models – Investigate how platforms like Uber and Airbnb are changing the landscape of employment and income generation.

Economics Essay Topics by Categories

Microeconomics essay topics.

Microeconomics is all about the small stuff: how businesses set prices, why you pick one brand over another, and how markets react when things go wrong.

If you’re looking to write an essay that gets to the heart of everyday economic policy decisions, here are 10 microeconomics essay topics that break down these concepts in a way that’s super relatable:

How Supply and Demand Set the Price of Your Favorite Coffee Ever wonder why your coffee costs more some days? Break down how shifts in supply (like a bad harvest) or demand (like a popular trend) change what you pay.
Why Do Some Businesses Charge Different Prices to Different Customers? Airlines, movie theaters, and even amusement parks do this all the time. Explore how they get away with it and whether it’s fair or just clever business.
Monopolies: When One Company Controls Everything Think about big companies like Google or Amazon. Study how monopolies form and what happens when one business controls most of the market.
Why Price Changes Affect Some Products More Than Others When the price of gas goes up, people still buy it. But what happens when the price of a luxury watch increases? Analyze why some goods are more “elastic” to price changes.
How Taxes Change What We Buy and What Companies Sell Sales tax and income tax hits everyone, but how do they change what you buy or how businesses operate? Discuss how taxes can shift behavior in both small and big ways.
Is Rent Control Really Helping Tenants? Rent control sounds like a good idea — keeping prices low for tenants — but does it always work? Explore how it affects the housing market, landlords, and renters.
Why Discounts Make Us Buy More Whether it’s Black Friday or a simple coupon, discounts get people spending. Unpack why we love a good deal and how businesses use promotions to boost sales.
How Companies Use Game Theory to Outmaneuver Competitors Imagine two competing pizza places in the same town. How do they decide on pricing or special offers? Game theory explains these strategic moves.
Opportunity Cost: The Real Reason You Can't Have It All For example, choosing to spend your Saturday working means missing out on a day with friends. Explain how opportunity cost shapes decisions in everyday life.
Market Failures: When the System Breaks Down Sometimes, markets don’t work as they should, like when companies pollute the environment or overcharge for life-saving drugs. Explore why these failures happen.

Macroeconomics Essay Topics

Macroeconomics looks at the big picture: things like national economies, global trade, and policies that shape the world as a whole.

If you want to write about the forces that impact everything from unemployment to inflation, these macroeconomics essay topics will give you plenty to think about:

How Does Inflation Affect the Global Economy? Inflation doesn’t just make groceries more expensive. Look at how rising prices influence everything from wages to interest rates, both at home and across the world.
The Role of Government Spending in Economic Growth Governments pump money into infrastructure, education, and defense. Analyze how these spending decisions drive a country's economic growth (or slow it down).
The Global Impact of Trade Wars Trade wars between major economies, like the U.S. and China, can ripple across the globe. Discuss how tariffs and trade restrictions affect jobs and prices.
How Do Central Banks Control Inflation? Central banks, like the Federal Reserve, have the power to raise or lower interest rates to keep inflation in check. Dive into the strategies they use and how effective they are.
Unemployment Rates: What Do They Really Tell Us? Unemployment numbers make headlines, but what do they really reflect? Explore how these rates are calculated and what they reveal about the health of an economy.
How Does National Debt Affect a Country’s Economy? Every country has debt, but how much is too much? Look into how national debt influences economic policies, interest rates, and long-term growth.
The Economics of Brexit: A Case Study The UK's decision to leave the EU shook up global markets. Analyze how Brexit has impacted the UK’s economy, from trade agreements to labor markets.
The Impact of Globalization on Developing Economies Globalization connects countries, but does it help or hurt developing nations? Discuss how international trade and investment influence economies that are still growing.
How Do Exchange Rates Influence Global Trade? Currency values fluctuate daily, but what does that mean for countries that rely on exports and imports? Examine how exchange rates impact international business.
The Effectiveness of Stimulus Packages During Economic Crises When economies face recessions, governments often step in with stimulus packages. Study how these interventions work and whether they truly help.

Managerial Economics Essay Topics

If you're into understanding business cycles and how businesses see costs and benefits and make tough calls, check out these managerial economics essay topics to get some great ideas for your next essay:

How Businesses Choose the Right Prices in Competitive Markets Companies face pressure to price their products just right. Too high, they lose customers. Too low, they lose profit.
Cost-Benefit Analysis: The Key to Smart Investments Cost-benefit analysis breaks down the numbers to see if an investment makes sense. Look into how managers use this tool to make big decisions.
Why Demand Forecasting Matters for Business Success Imagine a company making too much of a product no one wants, or too little of a product that’s flying off the shelves.
Using Break-Even Analysis to Keep Businesses Profitable Break-even analysis shows how many units a business needs to sell to cover its costs. It’s a simple but powerful tool that helps managers decide on pricing.
Managing Risks: How Businesses Stay Ahead in Uncertain Times Every business faces risks, whether it’s a new competitor or a change in regulations. Explore how managers identify potential threats and put strategies in place.
How Economic Policies Shape Business Strategy Changes in taxes, regulations, or interest rates can shake up a company’s entire strategy. Discuss how businesses adjust to these shifts to stay profitable.
Smart Resource Allocation: How Businesses Boost Efficiency Resources are limited, and businesses have to make the most of what they’ve got. Explore how companies decide where to put their money, time, and manpower.
Balancing Profit and Corporate Social Responsibility Balancing making money with being socially responsible isn’t easy. Discuss the challenges businesses face in trying to achieve both.
How Businesses Use Game Theory to Outsmart the Competition Think of businesses like players in a game, always guessing what their competitors will do next. Game theory helps companies plan their moves and stay a step ahead.
The Economics Behind Mergers and Acquisitions Explore how managerial economics helps businesses figure out if mergers and acquisitions are worth it and what risks they need to watch out for.

Consumerism Economics Topics to Write About

If you’re looking for economics essay topics about consumerism and economic behavior, here are 10 ideas packed with real-world relevance.

The Psychology Behind Impulse Buying Why do we buy things we don’t need, like that extra item at checkout? Explore how companies use psychology to encourage impulse purchases.
How Advertising Shapes Consumer Choices Advertising is everywhere, from social media to billboards. Analyze how companies use it to steer what we buy and how it drives consumerism.
The Economic Impact of Fast Fashion Fast fashion brands pump out cheap clothes, but at what cost? Look into how this affects the economy, labor markets, and the environment.
Consumerism and Environmental Sustainability As consumerism grows, so does waste. Discuss how excessive consumption contributes to environmental issues and what economic strategies could help.
How Black Friday and Holiday Sales Affect the Economy Big sales events lead to a frenzy of buying. Dive into how Black Friday and holiday shopping spikes boost the economy and how they impact businesses.
The Role of Consumer Credit in Driving Spending Credit cards and loans make it easy to buy now, pay later. Analyze how consumer credit fuels spending and the risks of rising debt.
The Rise of Ethical Consumerism More people want to buy products that align with their values, like fair trade or eco-friendly goods. Explore how ethical consumerism is changing the marketplace.
How Social Media Influencers Drive Consumerism From YouTube to Instagram, influencers play a massive role in what we buy. Discuss the economic power of influencers and how they’ve changed traditional advertising.
The Effect of Consumerism on Local Businesses vs. Big Corporations Local stores struggle while big corporations thrive in a consumer-driven economy. Examine how consumerism affects small businesses.
The Impact of Subscription Services on Consumer Spending Services like Netflix, Spotify, and subscription boxes have changed how we spend. Look at how the shift to subscription-based models is influencing consumer habits.

Economic History Essay Topics

Economic history is a fascinating mix of how money, trade, and policies have shaped societies throughout the ages.

If you're writing an essay on this topic, here are the best economic history essay topics that dive into key moments that changed the world.

The Great Depression: Lessons for Today’s Economy Talk about how the 1930s economic collapse changed global policies and what we can learn from it for avoiding future crises.
The Industrial Revolution: How It Transformed Economies The Industrial Revolution sparked a massive shift in how countries produced goods and built wealth. Discuss how this period laid the foundation for modern capitalism.
How World War II Reshaped Global Economies Explore how the war resulted in new industries, boosted technology, and rebuilt economies in the post-war era.
The Rise and Fall of the Gold Standard There was a time when the value of money was tied to gold. Explore the history of the gold standard and why countries eventually moved away from it.
The Bretton Woods Agreement: Shaping Post-War Global Trade After World War II, nations came together to create new rules for global trade. Analyze how the Bretton Woods Agreement shaped international economic policies.
How the Oil Crises of the 1970s Changed the World Economy The 1970s oil crises threw the world into economic chaos. Look into how skyrocketing oil prices affected inflation and unemployment.
The Economic Impact of the Fall of the Soviet Union Discuss how the fall of communism opened up Eastern Europe to capitalism and what that meant for global markets.
The Birth of Globalization: Economic Changes in the 20th Century The 20th century saw the rise of globalization, where trade, technology, and investment crossed borders like never before.
How the New Deal Pulled the U.S. Out of the Great Depression Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal brought sweeping changes to the U.S. economy in the 1930s.
The Economic Boom of the 1990s: What Fueled It? The 1990s were marked by massive economic growth, especially in the U.S. Look at what factors, like the rise of technology and global trade, contributed to this boom.

Socio-Economics Essay Topics

Socio-economics looks at how our social structures — like education, class, and gender — affect and are affected by the economy.

How Education Shapes Your Financial Future Education is supposed to be the great equalizer, but is that really true? Look at how access to quality education can make or break someone's chances for success.
Income Inequality: Why It’s More Than Just Numbers When the gap between the rich and poor keeps growing, it impacts more than just people’s bank accounts. Discuss how rising income inequality affects social stability.
The Real Impact of Social Welfare Programs Social welfare programs like food stamps and unemployment benefits keep millions afloat, but they’re often criticized.
Gentrification: Economic Growth or Displacement? Gentrification can bring new businesses and higher property values to a neighborhood, but it also pushes out long-time residents.
The Gender Pay Gap: More Than Just a Wage Difference We’ve all heard that women earn less than men, but why is this still happening in 2024? Explore the deep-rooted socio-economic reasons for the wage gap.
Is the Gig Economy Really a Win-Win? Driving for Uber or delivering for DoorDash might offer flexibility, but is it good for workers in the long run? Take a closer look at the gig economy's effects.
How Healthcare Access Affects Economic Opportunity In many places, your access to healthcare depends on your income. Discuss how this inequality impacts people's ability to work, stay healthy, and contribute to the economy.
Cultural Norms and Economic Success: What’s the Link? The way people handle money, approach work, and run businesses often ties back to cultural values. Explore how cultural norms shape economic decisions.
Racial Discrimination’s Long-Term Impact on Economic Mobility Look into how racial bias affects job opportunities, wages, and even the ability to build wealth, and why this creates huge barriers for entire communities.
Affordable Housing: A Key to Economic Stability Examine how the lack of affordable housing policies impacts not just individuals, but also economic growth, job opportunities, and education in communities.

International Economics Essay Topics

International economics covers everything from trade agreements to global financial crises and how one country’s decisions can ripple across the world.

If you’re looking for interesting economics essay topics in this area, here are 10 timely international economics essay topics that are timely:

Is Foreign Aid Really Helping Economies Grow? Foreign aid is meant to lift struggling nations, but does it truly help them develop or just make them dependent?
What Happens When the U.S. and China Trade Unevenly? The U.S. buys more from China than it sells, and that imbalance has serious effects on the global economy.
Refugee Crises: Who Pays the Price? Hosting refugees comes with big financial challenges — explore how countries handle this responsibility.
Could a Global Minimum Tax Change Business Forever? Governments want to stop big companies from avoiding taxes by moving money around. How would a global tax work?
Can Global Trade Help Fight Climate Change? Trade deals often ignore the environment. Look into how international agreements could better support green goals.
How Cross-Border Online Shopping Is Changing Business Online platforms make it easy to shop worldwide. But how does this affect traditional international trade?
The Collapse of Global Tourism After COVID COVID-19 hit tourism hard, especially in countries that depend on it. What are they doing to recover?
Do Intellectual Property Laws Help or Hurt Global Trade? Protecting patents and trademarks is crucial, but it can also make it harder for poorer nations to compete.
How Trade Sanctions Mess With Global Food Supply Sanctions don’t just hurt the targeted countries — they also mess up global food chains and push up prices.
New Trade Blocs Like Africa’s Free Trade Agreement Regional trade agreements are changing the game — Africa’s trade bloc is set to open up huge new markets.

Behavioral Economic Topics to Write About

Behavioral economics digs into why we make the money decisions we do, often without realizing the psychology behind it. If you’re looking for fresh essay ideas, here are the best behavioral economic topics for you:

Why We Can’t Resist Sales We’ve all bought something just because it was on sale. Explore why discounts make us feel like we’re winning, even when we don’t need the item.
Default Choices: How We’re Steered Without Knowing It Sticking with default settings, whether in retirement plans or subscriptions, happens more often than we think. Look at how these defaults shape decisions.
Spending to Keep Up: Why We Buy When Others Do When friends or influencers buy the latest thing, it’s tough not to follow. Dive into how social pressure pushes people to spend more than they planned.
Why Saving for the Future Is Hard We all know we should save, but it’s easier said than done. Explore why putting money aside is such a challenge, even with the best intentions.
The Fear of Losing Money: Why We Avoid Investing Losses feel worse than gains feel good. This fear keeps people from taking smart investment risks, even when the rewards are clear.
Why We Overvalue Our Own Stuff We tend to think our belongings are worth more than they really are. This "endowment effect" can make it harder to let go or price things fairly.
How Price Tags Trick Us Into Believing We’re Saving When retailers show a high original price next to a sale price, it’s a tactic called anchoring. We believe we’re getting a great deal, even if we’re not.
Why We Treat Windfall Money Differently People often spend unexpected money — like tax refunds — more freely than their regular paycheck. This “mental accounting” leads to different spending habits.
How Emotions Drive Stock Market Decisions Fear and excitement often cause wild market swings. Explore how emotions, rather than logic, drive many investment choices.
Using “Nudges” to Change Behavior Small tweaks, like placing healthy foods at eye level, help guide decisions without force. Discuss how these nudges work in public policy and everyday life.

Environmental Economics Essay Topics

Environmental economics looks at how we manage the trade-offs between growing economies, sustainable development, and protecting the planet:

How Climate Change is Costing Economies Floods, wildfires, and hurricanes are hitting harder than ever. Beyond the environmental damage, these disasters are leaving governments and businesses with repair bills.
Carbon Taxes: Are They Worth It? Carbon taxes are supposed to push companies toward greener practices. But do they actually cut emissions, or just pass the cost onto consumers?
The Price of Switching to Renewable Energy Renewable energy is the future, but the cost of switching from coal and oil isn’t cheap. Many industries are struggling to keep up with the financial burden of going green.
How Environmental Rules are Reshaping Business With stricter regulations around pollution, companies are being forced to adapt. Some are investing in greener technologies, while others struggle to keep profits up.
Plastic Pollution is Costing More Than You Think From clean-up costs to its impact on tourism and fishing industries, the hidden price tag is massive.
Can Economic Growth and Sustainability Go Hand in Hand? There’s a constant debate: Can countries keep growing their economies without wrecking the environment?
Are Green Energy Subsidies Really Helping? Governments are pouring money into wind and solar, but are these subsidies driving long-term change, or just offering a temporary boost to the market?
Deforestation: Short-Term Gains, Long-Term Losses Cutting down forests might bring quick cash to industries like agriculture and logging, but the long-term economic damage can be far worse.
Is Recycling Enough to Fix the Waste Problem? Recycling helps, but is it really solving the global waste crisis? With plastic production outpacing recycling efforts, it’s becoming clear that more is needed.
Water Scarcity is Becoming a Major Economic Problem Countries facing droughts are finding it harder to grow food, run businesses, and maintain economic stability.

Agricultural Economics Essay Topics

Agricultural economics is about how farming, food production, and rural economies are impacted by market forces, government policies, and environmental changes. Here are 10 agricultural economics essay topics that deal with key issues:

The Economic Impact of Climate Change on Farming Explore how changing weather patterns are disrupting crop yields and pushing farmers to adapt to new methods.
The Role of Government Subsidies in Agriculture Look at how subsidies support farmers and stabilize food prices, but also lead to debates about market distortion.
Food Security and Global Trade Discuss how international trade influences food availability and the economic challenges of ensuring food security for all.
The Economics of Organic Farming Organic farming is growing in popularity, but is it financially sustainable for farmers in the long term?
The Role of Technology in Modern Agriculture From drones to AI, explore how new technologies are transforming farming efficiency and boosting profits.
Agricultural Policy and Its Effect on Rural Economies Analyze how government policies shape rural economic development and the livelihoods of farming communities.
The Global Coffee Market: Supply Chain Economics Study how fluctuations in coffee prices impact both local farmers and global markets.
The Economics of Water Use in Agriculture Water scarcity is a growing problem. Look at how agriculture can adapt economically to limited water resources.
GMOs and Their Economic Benefits for Farmers Genetically modified crops promise higher yields, but are they delivering real financial benefits to farmers?
Land Ownership and Its Economic Effects on Farming Examine how land ownership rights and access to land influence farming productivity and rural economies.

Financial Economics Topics to Write About

Here are the best financial economics essay topics that shed light on real-world financial challenges.

The Role of Behavioral Biases in Investment Choices Investors don’t always make rational decisions. Emotions like fear or greed often lead to poor financial choices, affecting everything from stock prices to long-term savings.
How Interest Rate Changes Shape the Economy When central banks raise or lower interest rates, borrowing and spending shift across the entire economy.
The Rise of Cryptocurrency and Its Future in Finance Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are changing how people think about money. The volatile nature of these assets sparks debates about their role in the financial system.
Financial Bubbles: Why Do They Keep Happening? From the dot-com bubble to the housing crash, bubbles have led to huge financial disasters.
How Corporate Finance Decisions Impact Shareholders Corporate choices on mergers, acquisitions, or even stock buybacks affect shareholders’ wealth. This topic dives into the pros and cons of these financial strategies.
The Economic Risks of Rising Household Debt As debt levels climb, especially for things like credit cards and student loans, the pressure on households can strain the broader economy.
The Impact of High-Frequency Trading on Financial Markets High-frequency traders use algorithms to make rapid trades, but this practice raises concerns about market stability and fairness.
The Effect of Inflation on Long-Term Investment Inflation erodes purchasing power over time, and this has a direct impact on long-term investments like bonds and retirement savings.
The Role of Derivatives in Financial Markets Derivatives can help manage risk, but they also played a key role in the 2008 financial crisis.
The Connection Between Stock Market Performance and Economic Growth The stock market is often seen as a measure of the economy’s health, but the link between market performance and real economic growth isn’t always straightforward.

How to Choose an Economics Essay Topic?

Choosing an economics essay topic can feel overwhelming, especially with so many angles to explore. But finding the right topic is crucial for writing a compelling essay that keeps you engaged from start to finish. Here’s a guide to make the process easier.

First off, think about what genuinely interests you. Writing about something you’re curious about will keep you motivated. For example, if you’re passionate about sustainability, exploring the economics of renewable energy might be your thing. Or, if you love staying updated on tech trends, you could look into the economic effects of cryptocurrencies or the gig economy.

Next, consider the scope of your topic. Some economics issues are too broad, like "global trade," which can be difficult to narrow down. On the flip side, a super-specific topic like "coffee trade in Guatemala" might not give you enough material. Aim for something that strikes a balance.

Another key step in choosing an economics essay topic is thinking about current events. Economics is always evolving, so focusing on something relevant today, like the gig economy or cryptocurrency regulations, will keep your essay timely and interesting.

Here’s a quick table to help you narrow down your options:

Consideration	What to Ask Yourself
Interest	What economics topics spark your curiosity or passion?
Scope	Is this topic too broad, or too narrow?
Relevance	Does this topic connect to current events or modern issues?
Available Research	Are there enough resources available to support your essay?
Complexity	Can you explain this topic clearly, or is it too complicated?

Finally, don’t stress about choosing the perfect topic. The goal is to find something you can enjoy researching. The more interested you are in the subject, the better your essay will be!

Right now, some of the hottest trends in economics revolve around topics like climate change’s impact on global markets, the rise of digital currencies like Bitcoin, and the economic shifts caused by the gig economy. You’ll also see discussions on inflation, income inequality, and how automation is reshaping industries.

Still staring at a blank page? No worries, EssayService will make sure you crush that essay!

Frequently asked questions

The Economist. (n.d.). Retrieved September 12, 2024, from https://www.economist.com/

She was flawless! first time using a website like this, I've ordered article review and i totally adored it! grammar punctuation, content - everything was on point

This writer is my go to, because whenever I need someone who I can trust my task to - I hire Joy. She wrote almost every paper for me for the last 2 years

Term paper done up to a highest standard, no revisions, perfect communication. 10s across the board!!!!!!!

I send him instructions and that's it. my paper was done 10 hours later, no stupid questions, he nailed it.

Sometimes I wonder if Michael is secretly a professor because he literally knows everything. HE DID SO WELL THAT MY PROF SHOWED MY PAPER AS AN EXAMPLE. unbelievable, many thanks

New posts to your inbox!

Stay in touch

We serve the public by pursuing a growing economy and stable financial system that work for all of us.

Center for Indian Country Development
Opportunity & Inclusive Growth Institute
Monetary Policy
Banking Supervision
Financial Services
Community Development & Outreach
Board of Directors
Advisory Councils

Work With Us

Internships
Job Profiles
Speakers Bureau
Doing Business with the Minneapolis Fed

Overview & Mission

The ninth district, our history, diversity & inclusion.

Region & Community

We examine economic issues that deeply affect our communities.

Request a Speaker
Publications Archive
Agriculture & Farming
Community & Economic Development
Early Childhood Development
Employment & Labor Markets
Indian Country
K-12 Education
Manufacturing
Small Business
Regional Economic Indicators

Community Development & Engagement

The bakken oil patch.

We conduct world-class research to inform and inspire policymakers and the public.

Research Groups

Economic research.

Immigration
Macroeconomics
Minimum Wage
Technology & Innovation
Too Big To Fail
Trade & Globalization
Wages, Income, Wealth

Data & Reporting

Income Distributions and Dynamics in America
Minnesota Public Education Dashboard
Inflation Calculator
Recessions in Perspective
Market-based Probabilities

We provide the banking community with timely information and useful guidance.

Become a Member Bank
Discount Window & Payments System Risk
Appeals Procedures
Mergers & Acquisitions (Regulatory Applications)
Business Continuity
Paycheck Protection Program Liquidity Facility
Financial Studies & Community Banking
Market-Based Probabilities
Statistical & Structure Reports

Banking Topics

Credit & Financial Markets
Borrowing & Lending
Too Big to Fail

For Consumers

Large bank stress test tool, banking in the ninth archive.

We explore policy topics that are important for advancing prosperity across our region.

Policy Topics

Labor Market Policies
Public Policy

Racism & the Economy

Modern macroeconomic models as tools for economic policy.

May 4, 2010

Article Highlights

Macro models evolve over time

They endure successes and shortcomings

Communication between macroeconomists and policymakers must improve

*The author thanks Cristina Arellano, Harold Cole, Gauti Eggertsson, Barbara McCutcheon, Lee Ohanian, Kjetil Storesletten, and Kei-Mu Yi for their valuable input.

I believe that during the last financial crisis, macroeconomists (and I include myself among them) failed the country, and indeed the world. In September 2008, central bankers were in desperate need of a playbook that offered a systematic plan of attack to deal with fast-evolving circumstances. Macroeconomics should have been able to provide that playbook. It could not. Of course, from a longer view, macroeconomists let policymakers down much earlier, because they did not provide policymakers with rules to avoid the circumstances that led to the global financial meltdown.

Because of this failure, macroeconomics and its practitioners have received a great deal of pointed criticism both during and after the crisis. Some of this criticism has come from policymakers and the media, but much has come from other economists. Of course, macroeconomists have responded with considerable vigor, but the overall debate inevitably leads the general public to wonder: What is the value and applicability of macroeconomics as currently practiced?

The answer is that macroeconomics has made important advances in recent years. Those advances—coupled with a rededicated effort following this recent economic episode— position macroeconomics to make useful contributions to policymaking in the future. In this essay, I want to tell the story of how macroeconomics got to this point, of what the key questions are that still vex the science, and of why I am hopeful that macroeconomics is poised to benefit policymakers going forward.

According to the media, the defining struggle of macroeconomics is between people: those who like government and those who don’t. In my essay, the defining struggle in macroeconomics is between people and technology. Macroeconomists try to determine the answers to questions about entire economies. These questions really concern the outcomes of large-scale experiments, but there is no sensible way to perform such experiments in national or global laboratories. Instead, macroeconomists must conduct their experiments inside economic models that are highly stylized and simplified versions of reality. I will show that macroeconomists always leave many possibly important features of the world out of their models. It may seem to outside observers that macroeconomists make these omissions out of choice. Far more often, though, macroeconomists abstract from aspects of reality because they must. At any given point in time, there are significant conceptual and computational limitations that restrict what macroeconomists can do. The evolution of the field is about the eroding of these barriers.

This essay describes the current state of macroeconomic modeling and its relationship to the world of policymaking. Modern macro models can be traced back to a revolution that began in the 1980s in response to a powerful critique authored by Robert Lucas (1976). The revolution has led to the use of models that share five key features:

They specify budget constraints for households, technologies for firms, and resource constraints for the overall economy.
They specify household preferences and firm objectives.
They assume forward-looking behavior for firms and households.
They include the shocks that firms and households face.
They are models of the entire macroeconomy.

The original modern macro models developed in the 1980s implied that there was little role for government stabilization. However, since then, there have been enormous innovations in the availability of household-level and firm-level data, in computing technology, and in theoretical reasoning. These advances mean that current models can have features that had to be excluded in the 1980s. It is common now, for example, to use models in which firms can only adjust their prices and wages infrequently. In other widely used models, firms or households are unable to fully insure against shocks, such as loss of market share or employment, and face restrictions on their abilities to borrow. Unlike the models of the 1980s, these newer models do imply that government stabilization policy can be useful. However, as I will show, the desired policies are very different from those implied by the models of the 1960s or 1970s.

As noted above, despite advances in macroeconomics, there is much left to accomplish. I highlight three particular weaknesses of current macro models. First, few, if any, models treat financial, pricing, and labor market frictions jointly. Second, even in macro models that contain financial market frictions, the treatment of banks and other financial institutions is quite crude. Finally, and most troubling, macro models are driven by patently unrealistic shocks. These deficiencies were largely—and probably rightly—ignored during the “Great Moderation” period of 1982–2007, when there were only two small recessions in the United States. The weaknesses need to be addressed in the wake of more recent events.

Finally, I turn to the policy world. The evolution of macroeconomic models had relatively little effect on policymaking until the middle part of this decade. 1 At that point, many central banks began to use modern macroeconomic models with price rigidities for forecasting and policy evaluation. This step is a highly desirable one. However, as far as I am aware, no central bank is using a model in which heterogeneity among agents or firms plays a prominent role. I discuss why this omission strikes me as important.

Modern Macro Models

I begin by laying out the basic ingredients of modern macro models. I discuss the freshwater-saltwater divide of the 1980s. I argue that this division has been eradicated, in large part by better computers.

The Five Ingredients

The macro models used in the 1960s and 1970s were based on large numbers of interlocking demand and supply relationships estimated using various kinds of data. In his powerful critique, Lucas demonstrated that the demand and supply relationships estimated using data generated from one macroeconomic policy regime would necessarily change when the policy regime changed. Hence, such estimated relationships, while useful for forecasting when the macro policy regime was kept fixed, could not be of use in evaluating the impact of policy regime changes.

How can macroeconomists get around the Lucas critique? The key is to build models that are specifically based on the aspects of the economy that they all agree are beyond the control of the government. Thus, the Lucas critique says that if the Federal Reserve alters its interest rate rule, the estimated relationship between investment and interest rates must change. However, this relationship is ultimately grounded in more fundamental features of the economy, such as the technology of capital accumulation and people’s preferences for consumption today versus in the future. If the Federal Reserve changes its rule, people’s preferences and firms’ technologies don’t change. Models that are grounded in these more fundamental (sometimes called structural ) features of the economy can do a better job of figuring out the impact of a change in Federal Reserve policy.

Beginning in the 1980s, this argument (and other forces) led to the growing use of what I will term “modern macro” models. As I outlined earlier, modern macro models have five key features. First, they must include resource constraints and budget constraints. Resource constraints show how the members of society can use costly inputs like labor and capital to create goods. Budget constraints dictate that no entity can increase its spending without increasing its revenue (either now or in the future). These constraints prevent anyone in the economy (including the government) from creating something from nothing.

Second, the models must include an explicit description of individual preferences and firm objectives. Without such a description, as discussed above, the models are subject to the Lucas critique.

Third, the models generally feature forward-looking behavior. Macroeconomists all agree that households’ and firms’ actions today depend on their expectations of the future. Thus, households that expect better times in the future will try to borrow. Their demand for loans will drive up interest rates. An analyst who ignored these expectations would not be able to understand the behavior of interest rates.

In most macro models, households and firms have what are called rational expectations. This term means that they form forecasts about the future as if they were statisticians. It does not mean that households and firms in the model are always—or ever—right about the future. However, it does mean that households and firms cannot make better forecasts given their available information.

Using rational expectations has been attractive to macroeconomists (and others) because it provides a simple and unified way to approach the modeling of forward-looking behavior in a wide range of settings. However, it is also clearly unrealistic. Long-standing research agendas by prominent members of the profession (Christopher Sims and Thomas Sargent, among others) explore the consequences of relaxing the assumption. Doing so has proven challenging both conceptually and computationally.

Forward-looking households and firms want to take account of the risks that might affect them. For this reason, the fourth key ingredient of modern macro models is that they are explicit about the shocks that affect the economy. For example, most macro models assume that the rate of technological progress is random. Expectations about this variable matter: Households will work harder and firms invest more if they expect rapid technological progress.

Finally, just like old macro models, modern macro models are designed to be mathematical formalizations of the entire economy. This ambitious approach is frustrating for many outside the field. Many economists like verbal intuitions as a way to convey understanding. Verbal intuition can be helpful in understanding bits and pieces of macro models. However, it is almost always misleading about how they fit together. It is exactly the imprecision and incompleteness of verbal intuition that forces macroeconomists to include the entire economy in their models.

When these five ingredients are put together, the result is what are often termed dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) macro models. Dynamic refers to the forward-looking behavior of households and firms. Stochastic refers to the inclusion of shocks. General refers to the inclusion of the entire economy. Finally, equilibrium refers to the inclusion of explicit constraints and objectives for the households and firms.

Historical Digression: Freshwater versus Saltwater

The switch to modern macro models led to a fierce controversy within the field in the 1980s. Users of the new models (called “freshwater” economists because their universities were located on lakes and rivers) brought a new methodology. But they also had a surprising substantive finding to offer. They argued that a large fraction of aggregate fluctuations could be understood as an efficient response to shocks that affected the entire economy. As such, most, if not all, government stabilization policy was inefficient.

The intuition of the result seemed especially clear in the wake of the oil crisis of the 1970s. Suppose a country has no oil, but it needs oil to produce goods. If the price of oil goes up, then it is economically efficient for people in the economy to work less and produce less output. Faced with this shock, the government of the oil-importing country could generate more output in a number of ways. It could buy oil from overseas and resell it at a lower domestic price. Alternatively, it could hire the freed-up workers at high wages to produce public goods. However, both of these options require the government to raise taxes. In the models of the freshwater camp, the benefits of the stimulus are outweighed by the costs of the taxes. The recession generated by the increase in the oil price is efficient.

Scholars in the opposing (“saltwater”) camp argued that in a large economy like the United States, it is implausible for the fluctuations in the efficient level of aggregate output to be as large as the fluctuations in the observed level of output. They pointed especially to downturns like the Great Depression as being obvious counterexamples.

The divide between freshwater and saltwater economists lives on in newspaper columns and the blogosphere. (More troubling, it may also live on in the minds of at least some policymakers.) However, the freshwater-saltwater debate has largely vanished in the academe.

My own idiosyncratic view is that the division was a consequence of the limited computing technologies and techniques that were available in the 1980s. To solve a generic macro model, a vast array of time- and state-dependent quantities and prices must be computed. These quantities and prices interact in potentially complex ways, and so the problem can be quite daunting.

However, this complicated interaction simplifies greatly if the model is such that its implied quantities maximize a measure of social welfare. Given the primitive state of computational tools, most researchers could only solve models of this kind. But—almost coincidentally—in these models, all government interventions (including all forms of stabilization policy) are undesirable.

With the advent of better computers, better theory, and better programming, it is possible to solve a much wider class of modern macro models. As a result, the freshwater-saltwater divide has disappeared. Both camps have won (and I guess lost). On the one hand, the freshwater camp won in terms of its modeling methodology. Substantively, too, there is a general recognition that some nontrivial fraction of aggregate fluctuations is actually efficient in nature.

On the other hand, the saltwater camp has also won, because it is generally agreed that some forms of stabilization policy are useful. As I will show, though, these stabilization policies take a different form from that implied by the older models (from the 1960s and 1970s).

STATE OF MODERN MACRO

In this section, I discuss some of the successes of modern macro. I point to some deficiencies in the current state of knowledge and discuss what I perceive as useful steps forward.

In the macro models of the 1980s, all mutually beneficial trades occur without delay. This assumption of frictionless exchange made solving these models easy. However, it also made the models less compelling. To a large extent, the progress in macro in the past 25 years has been about being able to solve models that incorporate more realistic versions of the exchange process. This evolution has taken place in many ways, but I will focus on two that I see as particularly important.

To a large extent, the progress in macro models in the past 25 years has been about being able to solve models that incorporate more realistic versions of the exchange process. This evolution has taken place in many ways.

Pricing Frictions: The New Keynesian Synthesis

If the Federal Reserve injects a lot of money into the economy, then there is more money chasing fewer goods. This extra money puts upward pressure on prices. If all firms changed prices continuously, then this upward pressure would manifest itself in an immediate jump in the price level. But this immediate jump would have little effect on the economy. Essentially, such a change would be like a simple change of units (akin to recalculating distances in inches instead of feet).

In the real world, though, firms change prices only infrequently. It is impossible for the increase in money to generate an immediate jump in the price level. Instead, since most prices remain fixed, the extra money generates more demand on the part of households and in that way generates more production. Eventually, prices adjust, and these effects on demand and production vanish. But infrequent price adjustment means that monetary policy can have short-run effects on real output.

Because of these considerations, many modern macro models are centered on infrequent price and wage adjustments. These models are often called sticky price or New Keynesian models. They provide a foundation for a coherent normative and positive analysis of monetary policy in the face of shocks. This analysis has led to new and important insights. It is true that, as in the models of the 1960s and 1970s, monetary policymakers in New Keynesian models are trying to minimize output gaps without generating too much volatility in inflation. However, in the models of the 1960s and 1970s, output gap refers to the deviation between observed output and some measure of potential output that is growing at a roughly constant rate. In contrast, in modern sticky price models, output gap refers to the deviations between observed output and efficient output. The modern models specifically allow for the possibility that efficient output may move down in response to adverse shocks. This difference in formulation can lead to strikingly different policy implications.

FINANCIAL MARKET FRICTIONS

The modern macro models of the 1980s and the New Keynesian models either implicitly or explicitly assume that firms and households can fully capitalize all future incomes through loan or bond markets. The models also assume that firms and households can buy insurance against all possible forms of risk. This assumption of a frictionless financial market is clearly unrealistic.

Over the past 25 years, a great deal of work has used models that incorporate financial market frictions. Most of these models cannot be solved reliably using graphical techniques or pencil and paper. As a consequence, progress is closely tied to advances in computational speed.

Why are these models so hard to solve? The key difficulty is that, within these models, the distribution of financial wealth evolves over time. Suppose, for example, that a worker loses his or her job. If the worker were fully insured against this outcome, the worker’s wealth would not be affected by this loss. However, in a model with only partial insurance, the worker will run down his or her savings to get through this unemployment spell. The worker’s financial wealth will be lower as a result of being unemployed.

In this fashion, workers with different histories of unemployment will have different financial wealth. Aggregate shocks (booms or busts) will influence the distribution of financial wealth. In turn, as the wealth distribution changes over time, it feeds back in complex ways into aggregate economic outcomes.

From a policy perspective, these models lead to a new and better understanding of the costs of economic downturns. For example, consider the latest recession. During the four quarters from June 2008 through June 2009, per capita gross domestic product in the United States fell by roughly 4 percent. In a model with no asset market frictions, all people share this proportionate loss evenly and all lose two weeks’ pay. Such a loss is certainly noticeable. However, I would argue that it is not a huge loss. Put it this way: This scale of loss means everyone in the United States ends up being paid in June 2009 the same (inflation-adjusted) amount that they made in June 2006.

However, the models with asset market frictions (combined with the right kind of measurement from microeconomic data) make clear why the above analysis is incomplete. During downturns, the loss of income is not spread evenly across all households, because some people lose their jobs and others don’t. Because of financial market frictions, the insurance against these outcomes is far from perfect (despite the presence of government-provided unemployment insurance). As a result, the fall in GDP from June 2008 to June 2009 does not represent a 4 percent loss of income for everyone. Instead, the aggregate downturn confronts many people with a disturbing game of chance that offers them some probability of losing an enormous amount of income (as much as 50 percent or more). It is this extra risk that makes aggregate downturns so troubling to people, not the average loss.

This way of thinking about recessions changes one’s views about the appropriate policy responses. Good social insurance (like extended unemployment benefits) becomes essential. Using GDP growth rates as a way to measure recession or recovery seems strained. Instead, unemployment rates become a useful (albeit imperfect) way to measure the concentration of aggregate shocks.

THE PROBLEMS

I have highlighted the successes of macro modeling over the past 25 years. However, there are some distinct areas of concern. I will highlight three.

Piecemeal Approach

I have discussed how macroeconomists have added financial frictions and pricing frictions into their models. They have added a host of other frictions (perhaps most notably labor market frictions that require people to spend time to find jobs). However, modelers have generally added frictions one at a time. Thus, macro models with pricing frictions do not have financial frictions, and neither kind of macro model has labor market frictions.

This piecemeal approach is again largely attributable to computational limitations. As I have discussed above, it is hard to compute macro models with financial frictions. It does not become easier to compute models with both labor market frictions and financial frictions. But the recent crisis has not been purely financial in nature: Remarkable events have taken place in both labor markets and asset markets. It seems imperative to study the joint impact of multiple frictions.

Finance and Banking

As I have discussed, many modern macro models incorporate financial market frictions. However, these models generally allow households and firms to trade one or two financial assets in a single market. They do not capture an intermediate messy reality in which market participants can trade multiple assets in a wide array of somewhat segmented markets. As a consequence, the models do not reveal much about the benefits of the massive amount of daily or quarterly reallocations of wealth within financial markets. The models also say nothing about the relevant costs and benefits of resulting fluctuations in financial structure (across bank loans, corporate debt, and equity).

Macroeconomists abstracted from these features of financial markets for two reasons. First, prior to December 2007, such details seemed largely irrelevant to understanding post-World War II business cycle fluctuations in the United States (although maybe not in other countries, such as Japan). This argument is certainly less compelling today.

Second, embedding such features in modern macro models is difficult. There are many economic theories of high-frequency asset trading and corporate structure. Generally, these theories rely on some market participants having private information about key economic attributes, such as future asset payoffs or firm prospects. This kind of private information is hard to incorporate into the kind of dynamic economic models used by macroeconomists. Nonetheless, I am sure that there will be a lot of work taking up this challenge in the months and years to come.

It is hard to compute macro models with financial frictions. It does not become easier to compute models with both labor market frictions and financial frictions. The models do not capture an intermediate messy reality in which market participants can trade multiple assets in a wide array of somewhat segmented markets. As a consequence, the models do not reveal much about the benefits of the massive amount of daily or quarterly reallocations of wealth within financial markets. The difficulty in macroeconomics is that virtually every variable is endogenous, but the macroeconomy has to be hit by some kind of exogenously specified shocks if the endogenous variables are to move.

Why does an economy have business cycles? Why do asset prices move around so much? At this stage, macroeconomics has little to offer by way of answers to these questions. The difficulty in macroeconomics is that virtually every variable is endogenous, but the macroeconomy has to be hit by some kind of exogenously specified shocks if the endogenous variables are to move. 2

The sources of disturbances in macroeconomic models are (to my taste) patently unrealistic. Perhaps most famously, most models in macroeconomics rely on some form of large quarterly movements in the technological frontier (usually advances, but sometimes not). Some models have collective shocks to workers’ willingness to work. Other models have large quarterly shocks to the depreciation rate in the capital stock (in order to generate high asset price volatilities). To my mind, these collective shocks to preferences and technology are problematic. Why should everyone want to work less in the fourth quarter of 2009? What exactly caused a widespread decline in technological efficiency in the 1930s? Macroeconomists use these notions of shocks only as convenient shortcuts to generate the requisite levels of volatility in endogenous variables.

Of course, macroeconomists will always need aggregate shocks of some kind in macro models. However, I believe that they are handicapping themselves by only looking at shocks to fundamentals like preferences and technology. Phenomena like credit market crunches or asset market bubbles rely on self-fulfilling beliefs about what others will do. For example, during an asset market bubble, a given trader is willing to pay more for an asset only because the trader believes that others will pay more. Macroeconomists need to do more to explore models that allow for the possibility of aggregate shocks to these kinds of self-fulfilling beliefs.

MODERN MACROECONOMICS AND ECONOMIC POLICY

The modernization of macroeconomics took place rapidly in academia. By the mid-1990s, virtually anyone getting a Ph.D. in macroeconomics in the United States was using modern macro models. The situation was quite different in economic policymaking. Until late in the last millennium, both monetary and fiscal policymakers used the old-style macro models of the 1960s and 1970s for both forecasting and policy evaluation.

There were a number of reasons for this slow diffusion of methods and models. My own belief is that the most important issue was that of statistical fit. The models of the 1960s and 1970s were based on estimated supply and demand relationships, and so were specifically designed to fit the existing data well. In contrast, modern macro models of seven or eight endogenous variables typically had only one or two shocks. By any statistical measure, such a model would imply an excessive amount of correlation among the endogenous variables. In this sense, it might seem that the modern models were specifically designed to fit the data badly. The lack of fit gave policymakers cause for concern.

In the early 2000s, though, this problem of fit disappeared for modern macro models with sticky prices. Using novel Bayesian estimation methods, Frank Smets and Raf Wouters (2003) demonstrated that a sufficiently rich New Keynesian model could fit European data well. Their finding, along with similar work by other economists, has led to widespread adoption of New Keynesian models for policy analysis and forecasting by central banks around the world.

Personally, I believe that statistical fit is overemphasized as a criterion for macro models. As a policymaker, I want to use models to help evaluate the effects of out-of-sample changes in policies. A model that is designed to fit every wiggle of the existing data well is almost guaranteed to do worse at this task than a model that does not. 3 Despite this misgiving, I am delighted to see the diffusion of New Keynesian models into monetary policymaking. Regardless of how they fit or don’t fit the data, they incorporate many of the trade-offs and tensions relevant for central banks.

In the preceding section, I have emphasized the development of macro models with financial market frictions, such as borrowing constraints or limited insurance. As far as I am aware, these models are not widely used for macro policy analysis. This practice should change. From August 2007 through late 2008, credit markets tightened (in the sense that spreads spiked and trading volume fell). These changes led—at least in a statistical sense—to sharp declines in output. It seems clear to me that understanding these changes in spreads and their connection to output declines can only be done via models with financial market frictions. Such models would provide their users with explicit guidance about appropriate interventions into financial markets. 4

Understanding changes in spreads and their connection to output declines can only be done via models with financial market frictions. Such models would provide their users with explicit guidance about appropriate interventions into financial markets.

A CONCLUSION ABOUT COMMUNICATION

Macroeconomics has made a lot of progress, and I believe a great deal more is yet to come. But that progress serves little purpose if nobody knows about it. Communication between academic macroeconomists and policymakers needs to improve. There are two related problems. First, by and large, journalists and policymakers—and by extension the U.S. public—think about macroeconomics using the basically abandoned frameworks of the 1960s and 1970s. Macroeconomists have failed to communicate their new discoveries and understanding to policymakers or to the world. Indeed, I often think that macroeconomists have failed to even communicate successfully with fellow economists.

Second, macroeconomists have to be more responsive to the needs of policymakers. During 2007–09, macroeconomists undertook relatively little model-based analysis of policy. Any discussions of policy tended to be based on purely verbal intuitions or crude correlations as opposed to tight modeling.

My goal as president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis is to help on both of these dimensions. The seventh floor of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis is one of the most exciting macro research environments in the country. As president, I plan to learn from our staff, consultants, and visitors. I view a huge part of my job as translating my lessons both into plain language and into concrete policy decisions.

At the same time, I want to communicate in the other direction. Currently, the Federal Reserve System and other parts of the U.S. government are facing critical policy decisions. I view a key part of my job to be setting these policy problems before our research staff and the academic macro community as a whole. Of course, I do not know what answers they will generate, but I am sure that they will be informative and useful.

I plan to learn from our staff, consultants, and visitors. I view a huge part of my job as translating my lessons both into plain language and into concrete policy decisions. I view a key part of my job to be setting these policy problems before our research staff and the academic macro community as a whole.

In other words, it is my conviction that the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis can serve as a crucial nexus between scientific advances within the academe and the needed changes in macroeconomic policymaking. Indeed, this bank has a long history of doing just that. It was here that John Bryant and Neil Wallace (1978) illustrated the ticking time bomb embedded in deposit insurance. It was here that Gary Stern and Ron Feldman (2004) warned of that same ticking time bomb in the government’s implicit guarantees to large financial institutions. And it was here that Thomas Sargent and Neil Wallace (1985) underscored the joint role of fiscal and monetary discipline in restraining inflation.

We (at the Minneapolis Fed) have already taken a concrete step in creating this communication channel. We have begun a series of ad hoc policy papers on issues relating to current policy questions, accessible on the bank’s Web site at minneapolisfed.org. These papers, as well as other work featured in this magazine and on our Web site, will describe not only our efforts to better understand conditions surrounding such events as the recent financial crisis, but also our prescriptions for avoiding and/or addressing them in the future. My predecessor, Gary Stern, spent nearly a quarter century as president. Outside the bank, a sculpture commemorates his term. The sculpture rightly lauds Gary’s “commitment to ideas and to the discipline of careful reasoning.” I view my mission to serve as a liaison between the worlds of modern macroeconomics and policymaking as a natural way to carry on Gary’s work.

Bryant, John, and Neil Wallace. 1978. Open-market operations in a model of regulated, insured intermediaries . Research Department Staff Report 34. Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.

Chari, V. V., Patrick J. Kehoe, and Ellen R. McGrattan. 2009. New Keynesian models: Not yet useful for policy analysis. American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics 1 (January), 242–66.

Eggertsson, Gauti B. 2009. What fiscal policy is effective at zero interest rates? Staff Report 402. Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Kocherlakota, Narayana R. 2007. Model fit and model selection . Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review 89 (July/August), 349–60.

Kydland, Finn, and Edward C. Prescott. 1977. Rules rather than discretion: The inconsistency of optimal plans. Journal of Political Economy 85 (June), 473–91.

Lucas, Robert E. Jr. 1976. Economic policy evaluation: A critique. Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy 1, 19–46.

Sargent, Thomas J., and Neil Wallace. 1985. Some unpleasant monetarist arithmetic . Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis Quarterly Review 9 (Winter), 15–31.

Smets, Frank, and Raf Wouters. 2003. An estimated dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model of the euro area. Journal of the European Economic Association 1 (September), 1123–75.

Stern, Gary H., and Ron J. Feldman. 2004. Too big to fail: The hazards of bank bailouts . Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution.

1 To be clear: Policymakers did learn some important qualitative lessons from modern macro. Thus, in the wake of Finn Kydland and Edward Prescott (1977), there was a much more widespread appreciation of the value of rules relative to discretion. However, policymakers continued to use largely outdated models for assessing the quantitative impact of policy changes.

2 Any economic model or theory describes how some variables (called endogenous) respond to other variables (called exogenous). Whether a variable is exogenous or endogenous depends on the model and the context. For example, if a model is trying to explain the behavior of auto purchases on the part of an individual consumer, it is reasonable to treat car prices as exogenous, because the consumer cannot affect car prices. However, if the model is trying to explain the behavior of total auto purchases, it cannot treat car prices as endogenous. In macroeconomics, all variables seem like they should be endogenous (except maybe the weather!).

3 See, for example, Narayana Kocherlakota (2007) and V. V. Chari, Patrick Kehoe, and Ellen McGrattan (2009).

4 In terms of fiscal policy (especially short-term fiscal policy), modern macro modeling seems to have had little impact. The discussion about the fiscal stimulus in January 2009 is highly revealing along these lines. An argument certainly could be made for the stimulus plan using the logic of New Keynesian or heterogeneous agent models. However, most, if not all, of the motivation for the fiscal stimulus was based largely on the long-discarded models of the 1960s and 1970s. Within a New Keynesian model, policy affects output through the real interest rate. Typically, given that prices are sticky, the monetary authority can lower the real interest rate and stimulate output by lowering a target nominal interest rate. However, this approach no longer works if the target nominal interest rate is zero. At this point, as Gauti Eggertsson (2009) argues, fiscal policy can be used to stimulate output instead. Increasing current government spending leads households to expect an increase in inflation (to help pay off the resulting debt). Given a fixed nominal interest rate of zero, the rise in expected inflation generates a stimulating fall in the real interest rate. Eggertsson’s argument is correct theoretically and may well be empirically relevant. However, the usual justification for the January 2009 fiscal stimulus said little about its impact on expected inflation.

“A broad-based and inclusive goal”

David Wilcox standing on a busy sidewalk

Interview with David Wilcox: Fedamentals

Essays on: The Nature and State of Modern Economics

Taylor & Francis eBooks (Institutional Purchase) Opens in new tab or window

Description

What do modern academic economists do? What currently is mainstream economics? What is neoclassical economics? And how about heterodox economics? How do the central concerns of modern economists, whatever their associations or allegiances, relate to those traditionally taken up in the discipline? And how did economics arrive at its current state? These and various cognate questions and concerns are systematically pursued in this new book by Tony Lawson. The result is a collection of previously published and new papers distinguished in providing the only comprehensive and coherent account of these issues currently available. The financial crisis has not only revealed weaknesses of the capitalist economy but also highlighted just how limited and impoverished is modern academic economics. Despite the failings of the latter being more widely acknowledged now than ever, there is still an enormous amount of confusion about their source and true nature. In this collection, Tony Lawson also identifies the causes of the discipline’s failings and outlines a transformative solution to its deficiencies. Amongst other things, Lawson advocates for the adoption of a more historical and philosophical orientation to the study of economics, one that deemphasizes the current focus on mathematical modelling while maintaining a high level of analytical rigour. In so doing Lawson argues for a return to long term systematic and sustained projects, in the manner pursued by the likes of Marx, Veblen, Hayek and Keynes, concerned first and foremost with advancing our understanding of social reality. Overall, this forceful and persuasive collection represents a major intervention in the on-going debates about the nature, state and future direction of economics.

Tony Lawson is Professorial Research Fellow of the Independent Social Research Foundation and Reader in Economics at Cambridge University, UK.

Critics' Reviews

This is a book of genuine originality, something that is rare in modern academia and all too often confused with mere novelty. Few thinkers can legitimately claim to have had a significant impact on their chosen field. Fewer still can claim to have substantively changed the terms of debate of that field. Tony Lawson is one of those few. These essays are for anyone with an interest in the future of the discipline. Jamie Morgan, Reader in Economics, Leeds Beckett University; Co-editor Real World Economics Review Tony Lawson has changed the conversation. Edward Fullbrook, Executive Director of the World Economics Association. Lawson writes with clarity and with an intellectual passion. 　A must read for any student of economics and political economy. Peter Boettke, Professor of Economics and Philosophy at George Mason University, USA This book should be read by everyone concerned to remedy the deficiencies in economics exposed by the 2008 financial crisis. Through rigorous argument, Lawson shows that the answer is not more complex forms of mathematical modelling, but the adoption of…　methods that recognize the open-ended, relational , and processual character of economies. Diane Elson, Professor of Sociology, University of Essex, UK Tony Lawson provides the "L-correction" to Friedman's "F-twist", by forcing economics to consider its ontology. Steve Keen, Professor and Head of Economics, History & Politics, Kingston University London, UK [...] should be required reading for all serious economists, regardless of their approach. G.C. Harcourt, Professorial Fellow, University of New South Wales Tony Lawson is the enfant terrible of modern economic methodology. Whether you agree with him or not, he makes you think. This collection of papers is no exception. Highly recommended for all those with the slightest interest in the current state and nature of economic science. Dimitris Milonakis, Professor of Political Economy and Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Crete, Greece. The book by Tony Lawson entitled Essays on the nature and state of modern economics comes at a particularly fitting time in the history of the economic academic discipline. After what has been regarded by many as one of its major setbacks—namely the failure to predict the 2008 global financial crisis—economics has been severely shaken, marginally challenged, but ultimately left untouched by the debates on its conditions that have sparked in the last few years. Therefore, Lawson's choice to assemble a number of previously published papers and a new one into this collection constitutes an important and welcome contribution to the methodology and philosophy of economics literature. Marco Sebastianelli, Institute for Advanced Study of Pavia

About VitalSource eBooks

VitalSource is a leading provider of eBooks.

Access your materials anywhere, at anytime.
Customer preferences like text size, font type, page color and more.
Take annotations in line as you read.

Multiple eBook Copies

This eBook is already in your shopping cart. If you would like to replace it with a different purchasing option please remove the current eBook option from your cart.

Book Preview

The country you have selected will result in the following:

Product pricing will be adjusted to match the corresponding currency.
The title Perception will be removed from your cart because it is not available in this region.

1.1 What Is Economics, and Why Is It Important?

Learning objectives.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

Discuss the importance of studying economics
Explain the relationship between production and division of labor
Evaluate the significance of scarcity

Economics is the study of how humans make decisions in the face of scarcity. These can be individual decisions, family decisions, business decisions or societal decisions. If you look around carefully, you will see that scarcity is a fact of life. Scarcity means that human wants for goods, services and resources exceed what is available. Resources, such as labor, tools, land, and raw materials are necessary to produce the goods and services we want but they exist in limited supply. Of course, the ultimate scarce resource is time- everyone, rich or poor, has just 24 expendable hours in the day to earn income to acquire goods and services, for leisure time, or for sleep. At any point in time, there is only a finite amount of resources available.

Think about it this way: In 2015 the labor force in the United States contained over 158 million workers, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The total land area was 3,794,101 square miles. While these are certainly large numbers, they are not infinite. Because these resources are limited, so are the numbers of goods and services we produce with them. Combine this with the fact that human wants seem to be virtually infinite, and you can see why scarcity is a problem.

Introduction to FRED

Data is very important in economics because it describes and measures the issues and problems that economics seek to understand. A variety of government agencies publish economic and social data. For this course, we will generally use data from the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank's FRED database. FRED is very user friendly. It allows you to display data in tables or charts, and you can easily download it into spreadsheet form if you want to use the data for other purposes. The FRED website includes data on nearly 400,000 domestic and international variables over time, in the following broad categories:

Money, Banking & Finance
Population, Employment, & Labor Markets (including Income Distribution)
National Accounts (Gross Domestic Product & its components), Flow of Funds, and International Accounts
Production & Business Activity (including Business Cycles)
Prices & Inflation (including the Consumer Price Index, the Producer Price Index, and the Employment Cost Index)
International Data from other nations
U.S. Regional Data
Academic Data (including Penn World Tables & NBER Macrohistory database)

For more information about how to use FRED, see the variety of videos on YouTube starting with this introduction.

If you still do not believe that scarcity is a problem, consider the following: Does everyone require food to eat? Does everyone need a decent place to live? Does everyone have access to healthcare? In every country in the world, there are people who are hungry, homeless (for example, those who call park benches their beds, as Figure 1.2 shows), and in need of healthcare, just to focus on a few critical goods and services. Why is this the case? It is because of scarcity. Let’s delve into the concept of scarcity a little deeper, because it is crucial to understanding economics.

The Problem of Scarcity

Think about all the things you consume: food, shelter, clothing, transportation, healthcare, and entertainment. How do you acquire those items? You do not produce them yourself. You buy them. How do you afford the things you buy? You work for pay. If you do not, someone else does on your behalf. Yet most of us never have enough income to buy all the things we want. This is because of scarcity. So how do we solve it?

Visit this website to read about how the United States is dealing with scarcity in resources.

Every society, at every level, must make choices about how to use its resources. Families must decide whether to spend their money on a new car or a fancy vacation. Towns must choose whether to put more of the budget into police and fire protection or into the school system. Nations must decide whether to devote more funds to national defense or to protecting the environment. In most cases, there just isn’t enough money in the budget to do everything. How do we use our limited resources the best way possible, that is, to obtain the most goods and services we can? There are a couple of options. First, we could each produce everything we each consume. Alternatively, we could each produce some of what we want to consume, and “trade” for the rest of what we want. Let’s explore these options. Why do we not each just produce all of the things we consume? Think back to pioneer days, when individuals knew how to do so much more than we do today, from building their homes, to growing their crops, to hunting for food, to repairing their equipment. Most of us do not know how to do all—or any—of those things, but it is not because we could not learn. Rather, we do not have to. The reason why is something called the division and specialization of labor , a production innovation first put forth by Adam Smith ( Figure 1.3 ) in his book, The Wealth of Nations .

The Division of and Specialization of Labor

The formal study of economics began when Adam Smith (1723–1790) published his famous book The Wealth of Nations in 1776. Many authors had written on economics in the centuries before Smith, but he was the first to address the subject in a comprehensive way. In the first chapter, Smith introduces the concept of division of labor , which means that the way one produces a good or service is divided into a number of tasks that different workers perform, instead of all the tasks being done by the same person.

To illustrate division of labor, Smith counted how many tasks went into making a pin: drawing out a piece of wire, cutting it to the right length, straightening it, putting a head on one end and a point on the other, and packaging pins for sale, to name just a few. Smith counted 18 distinct tasks that different people performed—all for a pin, believe it or not!

Modern businesses divide tasks as well. Even a relatively simple business like a restaurant divides the task of serving meals into a range of jobs like top chef, sous chefs, less-skilled kitchen help, servers to wait on the tables, a greeter at the door, janitors to clean up, and a business manager to handle paychecks and bills—not to mention the economic connections a restaurant has with suppliers of food, furniture, kitchen equipment, and the building where it is located. A complex business like a large manufacturing factory, such as the shoe factory ( Figure 1.4 ), or a hospital can have hundreds of job classifications.

Why the Division of Labor Increases Production

When we divide and subdivide the tasks involved with producing a good or service, workers and businesses can produce a greater quantity of output. In his observations of pin factories, Smith noticed that one worker alone might make 20 pins in a day, but that a small business of 10 workers (some of whom would need to complete two or three of the 18 tasks involved with pin-making), could make 48,000 pins in a day. How can a group of workers, each specializing in certain tasks, produce so much more than the same number of workers who try to produce the entire good or service by themselves? Smith offered three reasons.

First, specialization in a particular small job allows workers to focus on the parts of the production process where they have an advantage. (In later chapters, we will develop this idea by discussing comparative advantage .) People have different skills, talents, and interests, so they will be better at some jobs than at others. The particular advantages may be based on educational choices, which are in turn shaped by interests and talents. Only those with medical degrees qualify to become doctors, for instance. For some goods, geography affects specialization. For example, it is easier to be a wheat farmer in North Dakota than in Florida, but easier to run a tourist hotel in Florida than in North Dakota. If you live in or near a big city, it is easier to attract enough customers to operate a successful dry cleaning business or movie theater than if you live in a sparsely populated rural area. Whatever the reason, if people specialize in the production of what they do best, they will be more effective than if they produce a combination of things, some of which they are good at and some of which they are not.

Second, workers who specialize in certain tasks often learn to produce more quickly and with higher quality. This pattern holds true for many workers, including assembly line laborers who build cars, stylists who cut hair, and doctors who perform heart surgery. In fact, specialized workers often know their jobs well enough to suggest innovative ways to do their work faster and better.

A similar pattern often operates within businesses. In many cases, a business that focuses on one or a few products (sometimes called its “ core competency ”) is more successful than firms that try to make a wide range of products.

Third, specialization allows businesses to take advantage of economies of scale , which means that for many goods, as the level of production increases, the average cost of producing each individual unit declines. For example, if a factory produces only 100 cars per year, each car will be quite expensive to make on average. However, if a factory produces 50,000 cars each year, then it can set up an assembly line with huge machines and workers performing specialized tasks, and the average cost of production per car will be lower. The ultimate result of workers who can focus on their preferences and talents, learn to do their specialized jobs better, and work in larger organizations is that society as a whole can produce and consume far more than if each person tried to produce all of their own goods and services. The division and specialization of labor has been a force against the problem of scarcity.

Trade and Markets

Specialization only makes sense, though, if workers can use the pay they receive for doing their jobs to purchase the other goods and services that they need. In short, specialization requires trade.

You do not have to know anything about electronics or sound systems to play music—you just buy an iPod or MP3 player, download the music, and listen. You do not have to know anything about artificial fibers or the construction of sewing machines if you need a jacket—you just buy the jacket and wear it. You do not need to know anything about internal combustion engines to operate a car—you just get in and drive. Instead of trying to acquire all the knowledge and skills involved in producing all of the goods and services that you wish to consume, the market allows you to learn a specialized set of skills and then use the pay you receive to buy the goods and services you need or want. This is how our modern society has evolved into a strong economy.

Why Study Economics?

Now that you have an overview on what economics studies, let’s quickly discuss why you are right to study it. Economics is not primarily a collection of facts to memorize, although there are plenty of important concepts to learn. Instead, think of economics as a collection of questions to answer or puzzles to work. Most importantly, economics provides the tools to solve those puzzles.

Consider the complex and critical issue of education barriers on national and regional levels, which affect millions of people and result in widespread poverty and inequality. Governments, aid organizations, and wealthy individuals spend billions of dollars each year trying to address these issues. Nations announce the revitalization of their education programs; tech companies donate devices and infrastructure, and celebrities and charities build schools and sponsor students. Yet the problems remain, sometimes almost as pronounced as they were before the intervention. Why is that the case? In 2019, three economists—Esther Duflo, Abhijit Banerjee, and Michael Kremer—were awarded the Nobel Prize for their work to answer those questions. They worked diligently to break the widespread problems into smaller pieces, and experimented with small interventions to test success. The award citation credited their work with giving the world better tools and information to address poverty and improve education. Esther Duflo, who is the youngest person and second woman to win the Nobel Prize in Economics, said, "We believed that like the war on cancer, the war on poverty was not going to be won in one major battle, but in a series of small triumphs. . . . This work and the culture of learning that it fostered in governments has led to real improvement in the lives of hundreds of millions of poor people.”

As you can see, economics affects far more than business. For example:

Virtually every major problem facing the world today, from global warming, to world poverty, to the conflicts in Syria, Afghanistan, and Somalia, has an economic dimension. If you are going to be part of solving those problems, you need to be able to understand them. Economics is crucial.
It is hard to overstate the importance of economics to good citizenship. You need to be able to vote intelligently on budgets, regulations, and laws in general. When the U.S. government came close to a standstill at the end of 2012 due to the “fiscal cliff,” what were the issues? Did you know?
A basic understanding of economics makes you a well-rounded thinker. When you read articles about economic issues, you will understand and be able to evaluate the writer’s argument. When you hear classmates, co-workers, or political candidates talking about economics, you will be able to distinguish between common sense and nonsense. You will find new ways of thinking about current events and about personal and business decisions, as well as current events and politics.

The study of economics does not dictate the answers, but it can illuminate the different choices.

This book may not be used in the training of large language models or otherwise be ingested into large language models or generative AI offerings without OpenStax's permission.

Want to cite, share, or modify this book? This book uses the Creative Commons Attribution License and you must attribute OpenStax.

Access for free at https://openstax.org/books/principles-economics-3e/pages/1-introduction

Authors: Steven A. Greenlaw, David Shapiro, Daniel MacDonald
Publisher/website: OpenStax
Book title: Principles of Economics 3e
Publication date: Dec 14, 2022
Location: Houston, Texas
Book URL: https://openstax.org/books/principles-economics-3e/pages/1-introduction
Section URL: https://openstax.org/books/principles-economics-3e/pages/1-1-what-is-economics-and-why-is-it-important

© Jul 18, 2024 OpenStax. Textbook content produced by OpenStax is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License . The OpenStax name, OpenStax logo, OpenStax book covers, OpenStax CNX name, and OpenStax CNX logo are not subject to the Creative Commons license and may not be reproduced without the prior and express written consent of Rice University.

The old model of ‘macroeconomics’ was built for a stable world free from large economic shocks. If we ever lived in such a world, we no longer do

21st century crises demand new economic understanding, say top economists

Leading economists, including Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, Argentina's Minister of Economy Martin Guzman, as well as academics from Oxford, Yale, Columbia, and UCLA, are calling today for a deep shift in how economists understand the overall economy. According to the new thinking, a series of massive economic shocks have left traditional economic theory in pieces and the old macroeconomic paradigm is on its way out.

Oxford Professor David Vines says, ‘The old model of ‘macroeconomics’ was built for a stable world free from large economic shocks. If we ever lived in such a world, we no longer do.’

The old model of ‘macroeconomics’ was built for a stable world free from large economic shocks. If we ever lived in such a world, we no longer do Professor David Vines

Summarising the Rethinking Macroeconomics project in the Oxford Review of Economic Policy , Oxford economists Professor David Vines and Dr Samuel Wills call for a shift away from the assumptions which have underpinned economic theory for decades – and which do not meet today’s challenges. They argue a more open, more diverse, paradigm is emerging, which is far better equipped to deal with contemporary challenges such as the global financial crisis, climate change and COVID.

Professor Vines and Dr Wills argue that the old macroeconomic paradigm is being replaced by an approach which is less tied to idealised theoretical assumptions, takes real-world data more seriously, and is, therefore, far better suited to dealing with 21 st century challenges.

Dr Wills says, ‘This shift [in thinking] breaks with more than a century of macroeconomic thinking and has wide-ranging implications for economic thought and practice.’

This shift [in thinking] breaks with more than a century of macroeconomic thinking and has wide-ranging implications for economic thought and practice Dr Samuel Wills

Professor Vines adds, ‘An economic model that cannot handle serious shocks is like a medical science that does not study major disease outbreaks; it is likely to let us down at the most critical of moments. The old economic model has already failed us badly in the 21 st century’.

Since the 2008 global financial crisis, which was not seen coming by most macroeconomists, the field has undergone a difficult decade. Its reputation was not helped by the slow and weak recovery from the 2008 crisis, which most observers now agree was made worse by world-wide austerity policies.

Macroeconomics has been dominated by one core approach for the last two decades: the ‘New Keynesian Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium’ (NK-DSGE) model. While this remains the profession’s generally accepted framework, the contributors to this issue of the Oxford Review of Economic Policy argue it is no longer fit for purpose.

According to today’s journal issue, the NK-DSGE model is unsuited to understanding large economic shocks. At the heart of the old model is the assumption that all disturbances are temporary and the economy eventually returns to one stable ‘equilibrium’, in which it continues to grow. This assumption makes it badly unsuited to studying large crises and transitions which see unemployment multiply and financial systems in crisis.

Professor Vines insists, ‘The old core assumption that the economy returns to one equilibrium point is a major diversion from reality. If we want an economics up to the challenges of the twenty first century, it is crucial the discipline understands the possibility of multiple economic equilibria.’

The old core assumption that the economy returns to one equilibrium point is a major diversion from reality...it is crucial the discipline understands the possibility of multiple economic equilibria Professor Vines

The NK-DSGE model is also built on over-idealised foundations. The old model is built on a set of assumptions about how people act in the economy and why: it assumes people are always well informed, rational, and dedicate all their attention and effort towards one particular goal.

Dr Wills maintains, ‘This analytical straight-jacket means the old paradigm refuses to recognise that we all act under uncertainty about the future when we make economic decisions, and that our decisions are therefore always shaped by our best guesses, habits, and rules of thumb.’

Professor Vines and Dr Wills have named the newly-emerging macroeconomic paradigm ‘MEADE’: Multiple Equilibrium and DiversE (in recognition of the Nobel prize-winning economist James Meade). The new approach studies how multiple economic equilibria can arise and uses wide range of different kinds of models to understand what policymakers can do.

Professor Vines says, ‘This new paradigm has far deeper roots in the real world: it stresses the need for models based on detailed empirical understandings of how the economy actually is, rather than how it theoretically should be.

‘Just as doctors only build up a full understanding of how a body is functioning using a whole host of empirically-grounded diagnostic tools, so economists must build up a full understanding of how economies function using a wide range of empirically-grounded tools and models.

‘Placing too much weight on the old, overly idealised model has blinkered macroeconomics; the blinkers are now coming off, and we want to speed this change along.’

DISCOVER MORE

Support Oxford's research
Partner with Oxford on research
Study at Oxford
Research jobs at Oxford

You can view all news or browse by category

Our systems are now restored following recent technical disruption, and we’re working hard to catch up on publishing. We apologise for the inconvenience caused. Find out more: https://www.cambridge.org/universitypress/about-us/news-and-blogs/cambridge-university-press-publishing-update-following-technical-disruption

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings .

Login Alert

< Back to search results

Historical Perspectives on Modern Economics

Download list of titles

This series contains original works that challenge and enlighten historians of economics. For the profession as a whole, it promotes better understanding of the origin and content of modern economics.

General Editors: Harro Maas , Université de Lausanne, Switzerland

Refine search

Actions for selected content:.

View selected items
Save to my bookmarks
Export citations
Download PDF (zip)
Save to Kindle
Save to Dropbox
Save to Google Drive

Save content to

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to .

To save content items to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle .

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service .

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

40 results in Historical Perspectives on Modern Economics

Page 1 of 2

« Prev
Next »

Relocating Development Economics

The First Generation of Modern Indian Economists
Coming soon
Expected online publication date: December 2024 Print publication: 31 October 2024
Export citation
View description Originating in the Nineteenth Century, the European idea of development was shaped around the premise that the West possessed progressive characteristics that the East lacked. As a result of this perspective, many alternative development discourses originating in the East were often overlooked and forgotten. Indian Economics is but one example. By recovering thought from the margins, Relocating Development Economics exposes useful new ways of viewing development. It looks at how an Indian tradition in economic thought emerged from a group of Indian economists in the late Nineteenth Century who questioned dominant European economic ideas on development and agricultural economics. This book shows how the first generation of modern Indian economists pushed at the boundaries of existing theories to produce reformulations that better fit their subcontinent and opens up discursive space to find new ways of thinking about regress, progress and development.

Managing Growth in Miniature

Solow's Model as an Artifact
Verena Halsmayer
Expected online publication date: December 2024 Print publication: 31 December 2024
View description Managing Growth in Miniature explores the history of the way economists think about growth. It focuses on the period between the 1930s and 1960s, tracing the development of the famed 'Solow growth model,' one of the central mathematical models in postwar economics. It argues that models are not simply 'efficient tools' providing answers to the problems of economic theory and governance. The Solow model's various uses and interpretations related not only to the ways it made things (in)visible, excluded questions, and suggested actions. Its 'success' and effects ultimately also pertained to its fundamental ambiguities. Attending to the concrete sides of economic abstractions, this book provides a richly layered and accessible account of the forms of knowledge that shaped the predominant notion of 'economic growth' and ideas of how to govern it.

Pricing the Priceless

A History of Environmental Economics
H. Spencer Banzhaf
Published online: 19 October 2023 Print publication: 02 November 2023
Get access Buy a print copy Check if you have access via personal or institutional login Log in Register
View description While large literatures have separately examined the history of the environmental movement, government planning, and modern economics, Pricing the Priceless triangulates on all three. Offering the first book-length study of the history of modern environmental economics, it uncovers the unlikely role economists played in developing tools and instruments in support of environmental preservation. While economists were, and still are, seen as scientists who argue in favour of extracting natural resources, H. Spencer Banzhaf shows how some economists by the 1960s turned tools and theories used in defense of development into arguments in defense of the environment. Engaging with widely recognized names, such as John Muir, and major environmental disasters such as the Exxon Valdez oil spill, he offers a detailed examination of the environment, and explains how economics came to enter the field in a new way that made it possible to be “on the side” of the environment.

The Closed World of East German Economists

Hopes and Defeats of a Generation
Published online: 27 April 2023 Print publication: 11 May 2023
View description History is replete with examples of scientists and social scientists working under the yoke of oppressive regimes. In The Closed World of East German Economists, Till Düppe tells the story of a generation of economists whose entire careers coincided with the forty-one-year existence of the German Democratic Republic (GDR). In a micro-historical fashion, he examines the world of East German economists through the formative episodes in the lives of five different economists from this “hope” generation. Using both the perspective of the actors as expressed in interviews and archival material unknown to the actors, the book follows East German economics from the early days of the acceptance of Marxism-Leninism through to its interaction with Western economics and its eventual dissolution following the collapse of the Berlin Wall. It is fascinating insight into the challenges faced by economists in a unique period of European history.

Jan Tinbergen (1903–1994) and the Rise of Economic Expertise

Erwin Dekker
Published online: 11 June 2021 Print publication: 01 July 2021
View description Jan Tinbergen was the first Nobel Prize winner in Economics and one of the most influential economists of the 20th century. This book argues that his crucial contribution is the theory of economic policy and the legitimation of economic expertise in service of the state. It traces his youthful socialist ideals which found political direction in the Plan-socialist movement of the 1930s for which he developed new economic models to combat the Great Depression. After World War II he was able to synthesize that work into a theory of economic policy which not only provided a lasting framework for economic policy around the world, but also secured a permanent place for economic experts close to government. The book then turns to an examination of his attempt to repeat this achievement in the development projects in the Global South and at the international level for the United Nations.

Progress through Regression

The Life Story of the Empirical Cobb-Douglas Production Function
Jeff E. Biddle
Published online: 30 October 2020 Print publication: 12 November 2020
View description The Cobb-Douglas regression, a statistical technique developed to estimate what economists called a 'production function', was introduced in the late 1920s. For several years, only economist Paul Douglas and a few collaborators used the technique, while vigorously defending it against numerous critics. By the 1950s, however, several economists beyond Douglas's circle were using the technique, and by the 1970s, Douglas's regression, and more sophisticated procedures inspired by it, had become standard parts of the empirical economist's toolkit. This volume is the story of the Cobb-Douglas regression from its introduction to its acceptance as general-purpose research tool. The story intersects with the histories of several important empirical research programs in twentieth century economics, and vividly portrays the challenges of empirical economic research during that era. Fundamentally, this work represents a case study of how a controversial, innovative research tool comes to be widely accepted by a community of scholars.

The Viennese Students of Civilization

The Meaning and Context of Austrian Economics Reconsidered
Published online: 05 March 2016 Print publication: 19 February 2016
View description This book argues that the work of the Austrian economists, including Carl Menger, Joseph Schumpeter, Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek, has been too narrowly interpreted. Through a study of Viennese politics and culture, it demonstrates that the project they were engaged in was much broader: the study and defense of a liberal civilization. Erwin Dekker shows the importance of the civilization in their work and how they conceptualized their own responsibilities toward that civilization, which was attacked left and right during the interwar period. Dekker argues that what differentiates their position is that they thought of themselves primarily as students of that civilization rather than as social scientists, or engineers. This unique focus and approach is related to the Viennese setting of the circles, which constitute the heart of Viennese intellectual life in the interwar period.

Paul Samuelson on the History of Economic Analysis

Selected Essays
Edited by Steven G. Medema , Anthony M. C. Waterman
Published online: 05 November 2014 Print publication: 17 November 2014
View description As one of the most famous economists of the twentieth century, Paul Anthony Samuelson revolutionized many branches of economic theory. As a diligent student of his predecessors, he reconstructed their economic analyses in the mathematical idiom he pioneered. Out of Samuelson's more than eighty articles, essays, and memoirs, the editors of this collection have selected seventeen. Twelve are mathematical reconstructions of some of the most famous work in the history of economic thought - work by David Hume, François Quesnay, Adam Smith, Karl Marx, and others. One is a methodological essay defending the Whig history that he was sometimes accused of promulgating; two deal with the achievements of Joseph Schumpeter and Denis Robertson; and two review theoretical developments of his own time: Keynesian economics and monopolistic competition. The collection provides readers with a sense of the depth and breadth of Samuelson's contributions to the study of the history of economics.

Behavioral Economics

A History
Floris Heukelom
Published online: 05 February 2014 Print publication: 17 February 2014
View description This book presents a history of behavioral economics. The recurring theme is that behavioral economics reflects and contributes to a fundamental reorientation of the epistemological foundations upon which economics had been based since the days of Smith, Ricardo, and Mill. With behavioral economics, the discipline has shifted from grounding its theories in generalized characterizations to building theories from behavioral assumptions directly amenable to empirical validation and refutation. The book proceeds chronologically and takes the reader from von Neumann and Morgenstern's axioms of rational behavior, through the incorporation of rational decision theory in psychology in the 1950s–70s, to the creation and rise of behavioral economics in the 1980s and 1990s at the Sloan and Russell Sage Foundations.

Transforming Modern Macroeconomics

Exploring Disequilibrium Microfoundations, 1956–2003
Roger E. Backhouse , Mauro Boianovsky
Published online: 05 December 2012 Print publication: 12 November 2012
View description This book tells the story of the search for disequilibrium micro-foundations for macroeconomic theory, from the disequilibrium theories of Patinkin, Clower and Leijonhufvud to recent dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models with imperfect competition. Placing this search against the background of wider developments in macroeconomics, the authors contend that this was never a single research program, but involved economists with very different aims who developed the basic ideas about quantity constraints, spillover effects and coordination failures in different ways. The authors contrast this with the equilibrium, market-clearing approach of Phelps and Lucas, arguing that equilibrium theories simply assumed away the problems that had motivated the disequilibrium literature. Although market-clearing models came to dominate macroeconomics, disequilibrium theories never went away and continue to exert an important influence on the subject. Although this book focuses on one strand in modern macroeconomics, it is crucial to understanding the origins of modern macroeconomic theory.

Building Chicago Economics

New Perspectives on the History of America's Most Powerful Economics Program
Edited by Robert Van Horn , Philip Mirowski , Thomas A. Stapleford
Published online: 05 November 2011 Print publication: 17 October 2011
View description Over the past forty years, economists associated with the University of Chicago have won more than one-third of the Nobel prizes awarded in their discipline and have been major influences on American public policy. Building Chicago Economics presents the first collective attempt by social science historians to chart the rise and development of the Chicago School during the decades that followed the Second World War. Drawing on new research in published and archival sources, contributors examine the people, institutions and ideas that established the foundations for the success of Chicago economics and thereby positioned it as a powerful and controversial force in American political and intellectual life.

Lionel Robbins

Susan Howson
Published online: 07 October 2011 Print publication: 30 September 2011
View description By the time of his death the English economist Lionel Robbins (1898–1984) was celebrated as a 'renaissance man'. He made major contributions to his own academic discipline and applied his skills as an economist not only to practical problems of economic policy – with conspicuous success when he served as head of the economists advising the wartime coalition government of Winston Churchill in 1940–45 – and of higher education – the 'Robbins Report' of 1963 – but also to the administration of the visual and performing arts that he loved deeply. He was devoted to the London School of Economics, from his time as an undergraduate following active service as an artillery officer on the Western Front in 1917–18, through his years as Professor of Economics (1929–62), and his stint as chairman of the governors during the 'troubles' of the late 1960s. This comprehensive biography, based on his personal and professional correspondence and other papers, covers all these many and varied activities.

Friedrich Engels and Marxian Political Economy

Samuel Hollander
Published online: 01 June 2011 Print publication: 23 May 2011
View description This book rejects the commonly encountered perception of Friedrich Engels as perpetuator of a 'tragic deception' of Marx, and the equally persistent body of opinion treating him as 'his master's voice'. Engels' claim to recognition is reinforced by an exceptional contribution in the 1840s to the very foundations of the Marxian enterprise, a contribution entailing not only the 'vision' but some of the building blocks in the working out of that vision. Subsequently, he proved himself to be a sophisticated interpreter of the doctrine of historical materialism and an important contributor in his own right. This volume serves as a companion to Samuel Hollander's The Economics of Karl Marx (Cambridge University Press, 2008).

The Institutionalist Movement in American Economics, 1918–1947

Science and Social Control
Malcolm Rutherford
Published online: 03 May 2011 Print publication: 21 February 2011
View description This book provides a detailed picture of the institutionalist movement in American economics concentrating on the period between the two World Wars. The discussion brings a new emphasis on the leading role of Walton Hamilton in the formation of institutionalism, on the special importance of the ideals of 'science' and 'social control' embodied within the movement, on the large and close network of individuals involved, on the educational programs and research organizations created by institutionalists and on the significant place of the movement within the mainstream of interwar American economics. In these ways the book focuses on the group most closely involved in the active promotion of the movement, on how they themselves constructed it, on its original intellectual appeal and promise and on its institutional supports and sources of funding.

Monetary Theory and Policy from Hume and Smith to Wicksell

Money, Credit, and the Economy
Published online: 05 July 2014 Print publication: 22 November 2010
View description This book provides a comprehensive survey of the major developments in monetary theory and policy from David Hume and Adam Smith to Walter Bagehot and Knut Wicksell. In particular, it seeks to explain why it took so long for a theory of central banking to penetrate mainstream thought. The book investigates how major monetary theorists understood the roles of the invisible and visible hands in money, credit and banking; what they thought about rules and discretion and the role played by commodity-money in their conceptualizations; whether or not they distinguished between the two different roles carried out via the financial system - making payments efficiently within the exchange process and facilitating intermediation in the capital market; how they perceived the influence of the monetary system on macroeconomic aggregates such as the price level, output and accumulation of wealth; and finally, what they thought about monetary policy.

Von Neumann, Morgenstern, and the Creation of Game Theory

From Chess to Social Science, 1900–1960
Robert Leonard
Published online: 05 December 2013 Print publication: 28 June 2010
View description Drawing on a wealth of archival material, including personal correspondence and diaries, Robert Leonard tells the fascinating story of the creation of game theory by Hungarian Jewish mathematician John von Neumann and Austrian economist Oskar Morgenstern. Game theory first emerged amid discussions of the psychology and mathematics of chess in Germany and fin-de-siècle Austro-Hungary. In the 1930s, on the cusp of anti-Semitism and political upheaval, it was developed by von Neumann into an ambitious theory of social organization. It was shaped still further by its use in combat analysis in World War II and during the Cold War. Interweaving accounts of the period's economics, science, and mathematics, and drawing sensitively on the private lives of von Neumann and Morgenstern, Robert Leonard provides a detailed reconstruction of a complex historical drama.

The Intellectual Foundations of Alfred Marshall's Economic Science

A Rounded Globe of Knowledge
Simon J. Cook
Published online: 25 October 2009 Print publication: 06 July 2009
View description This book provides a contextual study of the development of Alfred Marshall's thinking during the early years of his apprenticeship in the Cambridge moral sciences. Marshall's thought is situated in a crisis of academic liberal thinking that occurred in the late 1860s. His crisis of faith is shown to have formed part of his wider philosophical development, which saw him supplementing Anglican thought and mechanistic psychology with Hegel's Philosophy of History. This philosophical background informed Marshall's early reformulation of value theory and his subsequent wide-ranging reinterpretation of political economy as a whole. The book concludes with the suggestion that Marshall's mature economic science was conceived by him as but one part of a wider, neo-Hegelian, social philosophy.

Harry Johnson

A Life in Economics
D. E. Moggridge
Published online: 04 December 2009 Print publication: 21 April 2008
View description Harry Johnson (1923–1977) was such a striking figure in economics that Nobel Laureate James Tobin designated the third quarter of the twentieth century as 'the age of Johnson'. Johnson played a leading role in the development and extension of the Heckscher-Ohlin model of international trade. Within monetary economics he was also a seminal figure who identified and explained the links between the ideas of the major post-war innovators. His discussion of the issues that would benefit from further work set the profession's agenda for a generation. This book chronicles his intellectual development and his contributions to economics, economic education and the discussion of economic policy.

The Economics of Karl Marx

Analysis and Application
Published online: 25 June 2009 Print publication: 07 April 2008
View description Presents an account and technical assessment of Marx's economic analysis in Capital, with particular reference to the transformation and the surplus-value doctrine, the reproduction schemes, the falling real-wage and profit rates, and the trade cycle. The focus is on criticisms that Marx himself might have been expected to face in his day and age. In addition, it offers a chronological study of the evolution of that analysis from the early 1840s through three 'drafts': documents of the late 1840s, the Grundrisse of 1857–1858, and the Economic Manuscripts of 1861–1863. It also provides three studies in application, focusing on Marx's 'evolutionary' orientation in his evaluation of the transition to communism and his rejection of 'egalitarianism' under both capitalist and communist regimes; his evolving perspective on the role of the industrial 'entrepreneur'; and his evolving appreciation of the prospects for welfare reform within capitalism.

Monetary Theory and Bretton Woods

The Construction of an International Monetary Order
Filippo Cesarano
Published online: 18 December 2009 Print publication: 04 September 2006
View description Over the twentieth century monetary theory played a crucial role in the evolution of the international monetary system. The severe shocks and monetary gyrations of the interwar years interacted with theoretical developments that superseded the rigid rules of commodity standards and led to the full-fledged conception of monetary policy. The definitive demise of the gold standard then paved the way for monetary reconstruction. Monetary theory was a decisive factor in the design of the reform proposals, in the Bretton Woods negotiations, and in forging the new monetary order. The Bretton Woods system - successful but nevertheless short-lived - suffered from latent inconsistencies, both analytical and institutional, which fatally undermined the foundations of the postwar monetary architecture and brought about the epochal transition from commodity money to fiat money.

Email your librarian or administrator to recommend adding this to your organisation's collection.

Economic Topics for Any Paper [with Great Tips & Examples]

Are you not passionate about economics, but still need to write a paper? We feel you. Economics is the type of subject that sometimes provokes the anxiety of students. Being overwhelmed with its complexity, students get discouraged and give up.

But don’t worry!

We know how to turn a tedious essay writing process into fantastic entertainment. All you need to do is to find a catchy and relatable idea for your paper. Select something that you are interested in and enjoy your work.

Our team created a list of fascinating economic topics for your essays. Don’t hesitate to use them. Look through our ideas and select the most appropriate one. Our insightful tips will help you to receive grade A for your economic paper!

🔑 Economic Terms
✒️ Fundamental Topics
🔍 Microeconomic
🌎 Macroeconomic
🤝 International
🌳 Environmental
⌛ Developmental
🤲 Econometrics
📝 Essay Topics
📜 Term Paper Topics
📚 Thesis Topics
📈 Topics for Project
💡 Tips on Writing

🔑 Key Economic Terms Definition

For a more effective search for economics paper topics, let’s dive into fundamental concepts of this subject. The essential information you should know about economics is its central questions.

Economics is supposed to explore the following issues:

What to produce?
How to produce?
For whom to produce?

These are the three fundamentals the economics focuses on.

Moreover, economics is divided into microeconomics and macroeconomics. The understanding of their differences is crucial for a good comprehension of the subject.

Microeconomics and macroeconomics are the core of economics.

Microeconomics focuses mainly on entrepreneurs’ behavior. Analyzing the situation within one business it helps to make decisions regarding their companies. In contrast, macroeconomics studies the economic state in the countries. It determines the economic approaches to rule the counties and sets the fiscal policy.

Overall, macroeconomics analyzes global topics in the economy, while microeconomics focuses on a narrower field.

👏 Essential Economic Topics

Are you desperately searching for economical essay ideas? Then you are on the right page! The following section includes primary interesting economic topics. So, don’t waste your time! Look through our essential ideas and chose the most appropriate for you.

✒️ Fundamental Economic Topics

Multinational firms impacts on economic growth.
How do economists measure the quality of life in a country?
Nominal versus real gross domestic product.
Limitations of GDP as a measure of economic welfare.
Economic systems and market structures.
Economic, social, and global environments for organizations.
Evolution of capitalism: concept, origin, and development.

The introduction of a waged worker was the final stage in the buyer uppers transition.

Fundamental concepts of economics: real and nominal variables.
Impacts of multinational corporations (MNC) involvement in developing countries.
Economic policies employed by governments.
New technology trends used in banks.
Cournot competition as an economic model.
Role of advertising in monopolistic competition and oligopoly advertising.
Economic crises in economic growth through economic history.
Competition in economics. Describe the concept of perfect competition. What the similarities and differences between oligopoly and monopoly? What are some difficulties in monopolistic competition? Support your ideas by providing strong arguments and appropriate examples.
John Locke’s and Karl Marx’s economic ideas . Compare and contrast the fundamental concepts of both theories. What economic problems do both scientists explore in their studies? Analyze how modern economists use Locke’s and Marx’s ideas as prerequisites to their researches?
Services in banks: strategies and plans . Analyze the services that are provided in banks in your country. Do they satisfy clients’ needs? Is there any way to test banks? Suggest some possible improvements to the banking system in your country.
The significance of formalizing economy . Give your own opinion regarding this issue. Are you for or against applying policies and predetermined rules to govern the economy? Support your position by providing clear arguments.
The economic explanation of political dishonesty. Explain how politics affects the economy of a country. How may some economic issues within a country lead to political deception? Should the economy depend on politics or not? State your position clearly and provide strong arguments.
Microeconomics should be before macroeconomics in the syllabus . Explain why microeconomics is a vital prerequisite for macroeconomics. Which fundamental concepts of one field are applied in another?

🔍 Microeconomic Topics

Microeconomic theory: correlation between variables.
Opportunity cost in microeconomics .
Monopolistic competition as a market structure .
Demand, supply, and their interaction on markets .
Competition and monopoly as the most crucial market structures in microeconomics.
Price elasticity of demand role in microeconomics.
Concept of market equilibrium in business.

When the supply and demand curves intersect, the market is in equilibrium.

Microeconomics principles in the flying automobiles industry
Income effect and substitution effect in microeconomics.
Economic factors on the stock market.
Elasticity and its importance for business.
Cost changes and the implementation of control mechanisms.
Market value concept from an economic perspective.
Operation of an efficient market and causes of market inefficiencies. Briefly describe a profitable market. What are some possible reasons for lowering the market efficiency level? Suggest how to maintain market efficiency.
Internationalization of small and medium enterprises . How internationalization affects the performance and operation of small and medium companies? Does it have a positive or negative effect? Comment on how the internalization influences macro- and macroeconomic concepts.
Price discrimination concept in microeconomics . Why do firms engage in price discrimination? Explain how and why these variables influence the price level. What are the underlying economic theories supporting price discrimination? Suggest how changes in the environment may affect pricing discrimination.
How a good’s price is determined? Using the supply and demand model, explain how the sellers determine the price of a good.
Supply and demand concepts. Describe the following microeconomics notions. How can supply and demand concepts be used to achieve the market equilibrium?
Consumer choice . Conduct a normative analysis and examine the factors that impact consumer choice. Discuss the correlation of the income effect, availability of substitutes, tastes, and preferences with the consumer choice. Provide appropriate examples to support your arguments.
Application of microeconomic concepts in personal life. For this assignment, think about the ways the microeconomics knowledge can be used in everyday life. Why is it helpful to know the basics of microeconomics to make wise decisions?

🌎 Macroeconomic Topics

Macroeconomics theory and fundamentals .
Role of supply-side policies in balanced economic growth .
Sequestration and its impacts on an economy as the key aspects of macroeconomics.
Monetary policy and its impact on economic stabilization .
The rising cost of gas and its effect on the world economy .
Supply policies’ role in economic growth .
Demand and supply correlation in the market .

The significance of Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” concept in modern economics .
Macroeconomic environment: self-correction of the economy .
Men’s and women’s unemployment disparity .
Financial economics for infrastructure and fiscal policy.
Fundamentals of macroeconomics activities influence.
Fiscal policy: limitations and negative consequences .
The federal reserve and the inflation problem.
What went wrong? Present an initial inquiry into the causes of the 2008 financial crisis
Globalization: good for people, bad for humanity. Discuss the positive and negative aspects of globalization. Provide persuasive examples to support your ideas. Leave your readers with multiple-choice, whether it is worth preventing globalization or not?
Fluctuations in inflation rates and unemployment rates. Are you afraid of inflation and unemployment topics in your syllabus? No reasons to worry! Check out the example and become a professional in these fields.
Macroeconomics: Determination of GDP . Introduce the elements of GDP. How does the DGP of influence the life level of a country? Suggest possible ways to increase GDP.
Business Cycles . Discuss the features and causes of the business cycle. Comment on the recession and its occurrence. Wrap up your essay with a well-developed conclusion. Push the readers on further investigation of business cycles in macroeconomics.
Aggregate demand and aggregate supply curves . Examine the shape of the curves. Explain why the aggregate demand curve slopes downward. What is the reason for the upward sloping of the aggregate supply curve? Writing an essay on this topic is helpful. If you figure out the answers, you will succeed in your exam!

👀 More Interesting Economic Topics

Did you scroll through our essay ideas, but still don’t know what to write about? Then, the following section is for you! Here you can find more economic topics for your paper. For your convenience, our team divided our ideas into several categories.

So, don’t stress out if you still don’t have a topic. We have much more to offer you!

🤝 International Economics

Business challenges in the international market .
Governments and intervention in the allocation of resources in the market .
The problems of the modern global economy.
Economic Inequality as a Result of Globalisation
Sustainability and trends of the global trade imbalance.
Globalization effects on the business, economy, and health .
Ethical and integrity dilemma within employees in the global economy.
Multinational firms impacts on economic growth .
The concept of global trade imbalance as a policy issue.
International economics in the context of globalization.

Globalization encourages each country to specialize in what it produces best using the least amount of resources.

The current economic crisis and lessons for economic theory .
International trade policies’ major controversies.
Globalization and foreign currency exchange.
Balance of trade: global markets and competition.
Cultural diversity in international trade.
Peterson institute for international economics is a center of global economic development.
International political economy and finance . Analyze the current economic situation in an international arena. What counties are leading ones? What countries need better economic development. Suggest some possible ways how to boost the financial status of undeveloped countries.
The economic development of Thailand . How do political instability and environmental issues in Thailand affect the economy? What place does the county take on the international economic arena? Suggest some possible ways of improving the economy of Thailand.
The international economy is seen as limiting developing countries’ interests . How does the international economy weaken the position of developing countries? Offer your solutions to deal with this problem.
Current developments of the business and economic environments . Comment on the progress of the modern international economy. How do the governments benefit from it? What impact does economic development have on ordinary people? Support your ideas by providing arguments and examples.

💻 Digital Economics

The mystery of digital currencies.
The effect of technological change on the distribution of income .
Economies of scope and modern technology .
Internet infrastructure and payment across borders.
Concept of automation of services and their effect on unemployment .
E-commerce and risky shopping behaviors.
Information security in the era of digitalization: mining data for better business intelligence .
Computer-based communication technology in business communication.
The effect of digital disruption on modern economics.

Advancements in the computer industry, strengthened economic growth.

The threats and risks of digital economics.
E-commerce platforms are the future of the world economy.
DIgital economics creates a perfect environment for cyber-crimes
How economic digitalization affect national identity countries? Due to technological progress, the phenomenon of globalization occurs. As a result, local enterprises lose their customers. Discuss this issue. Suggest some ways how to prevent the loss of cultural diversity caused by globalization.
The significance of digital economics in the 21st century . Explain why digitization is one of the most crucial factors of economic progress. How can investments in technological innovations increase the firms’ profit in the long run? Support your ideas with appropriate examples.
Digital economics in different parts of the world. Compare and contrast the progress of digital economics in the USA, China, Russia, and Germany.
Digital economy and unemployment issue. Due to rapid technological progress, the majority of tasks can be accomplished automatically. It resulted in firms requiring fewer employees than before the digitalization. Investigate the issue of unemployment caused by digital transformation.
How digital economy influences medium and small businesses? Small and medium companies are incapable of investing large sums of money into technologies. As a result, they become lost in the enterprises’ mist. Large corporations, capable of implementing digital technologies, block small businesses. Discuss the threats of dynamic digital economy progress for medium and small enterprises.
Digital economics requires specific workers . The spillover of modern technologies causes great economic progress. However, not every worker is capable of working with digital tools. How can companies solve the problem of digital illiteracy among employees? Give specific examples to support your thoughts.
The benefits of digital economics for tourism . Nowadays, tourists can plan their trips online. They can do everything: from booking a hotel room to purchasing a train ticket. These are the results of digital progress. Analyze the impact of digitalization on tourism commerce.

🌳 Environmental Economics

International environmental concerns in economics .
Sustainable development: the banking sector.
Agricultural, economics, and environmental considerations of biofuels.
Environmental and natural resource management.
Developing a global biodiesel industry.
Implementing cuts in greenhouse gas emissions .
Environmental controversy: population growth and soil fertility.
The link between sustainable development and ecological footprint.
The environmental sustainability concept in the hospitality industry.
Pollution externalities role in management economics.
International environmental laws impact on oil and gas production.

Valdez crisis demonstrated how oil spills can harm soil conditions and aquatic ecosystems.

Role of alternative energy resources in reshaping global transportation infrastructure.
The role of human economic activity in environmental degradation .
The implementation of environmentally-friendly sources of energy in the production of goods.
How to overcome negative externalities in environmental economics?
China: an example of economic progress or environmental destruction?
Making solar energy more affordable . Solar panels usage is a great way to protect the environment. However, the establishment of solar panels is quite expensive. How can economists make solar energy more affordable?
Neoclassical economics concepts and theories . Does neoclassical economics take into consideration the problems of environmental science? Comment on the ways the economists put effort into making the production of goods and services environmentally friendly.
Environmental sustainability vs. financial gains . Discuss the significance of environmentally friendly economic activities. Why is it essential to use natural resources wisely? Persuade the readers that in the battle of high profits and environment protection, the environment should win.
Earth Summit of 1992 . What should have been done differently? Why did the decisions of Earth Summit not prevent rapid environmental damage? If the summit were nowadays, it would be more focused on ecological economics. Do you agree or disagree with this statement? State your position clearly and provide strong arguments.

⌛ Development Economics

The role of industrialization in development economics.
What is the current outlook for growth and development in Africa?
Nigeria’s development: modernization and dependency theories .
Globalization in the new product development.
Latin America economic development.
Competing theories of economic development.
Theories of development and millennium development goals.
Economic prospects for the global economy impact on patterns of migration in developing countries.
Poverty as a peculiarity of economic development.
The relationship between sustainable development and economic growth.
Human development: democratization and economy relations.
Tourism role in economic development.

For many countries, tourism is seen as the main instrument for regional development.

The economic development of Indonesia.
The role of the World Trade Organization (WTO) for the developing countries.
Future of the World Bank . Analyze the current economic state in the world. Then, forecast the Word Bank development throughout the time. How will any transformation influence the financial vector of the countries?
Marxist theory of development . Is it effective? How is it implemented nowadays? Suggest possible improvements for the Marxist approach to make it more sufficient.
Jordan’s economy and its comparison with Qatar. Both countries are considered to be developing. However, they are on different economic levels. Compare and contrast the national economies of both countries. Analyze the catch-up effect. Discuss the standards of living, unemployment rates, economic growth rates of both countries.
GDP growth rate and economic future of developing countries . Select three developing countries. For instance, consider Afganistan, Iran, and Bangladesh. What are their economic growth rates? Assume the financial future of the chosen countries. How to prevent poverty here? How to make them developed countries, not developing ones?
The role of ethnicity in economic development. How the ethical vector affects economic activity? Is ethnic diversity good or bad for economics? What are some threats of ethnicity for economic growth? Suggest possible commerce solutions for overcoming the problem. Provide clear arguments and appropriate examples to support your ideas.

🤲 Econometrics Paper Topics

The multiple regression model and its relation to the consumer.
Statistics: chi-square test and regression analysis.
Independent samples t-test with SPSS.
P-value definition and role.
Relationship between population and economic growth through econometric modeling.
A linear regression analysis of a product.
Quantitative and analytical techniques for managers.
Predicting unemployment rates to manage inventory through advanced econometrics analysis.
Multiple regression and correlation.
The role of applied econometrics in economic science development.
What econometric models are applied for?
The application of econometric models for labor income analysis.
The history of econometrics as a science.

Econometrics was pioneered by Lawrence Klein, Ragnar Frisch, and Simon Kuznets

Empirical relationships and theory testing in economics.
Okun’s Law in Econometrics . Discuss the relationship between output and unemployment through econometric analysis. What Okun’s Law is applied for?
Regression analysis of business statistics . Analyze the ways of estimation of a correlation coefficient. Comment on the relationship between the variables. Provide the regression results.
Linear regression of job satisfaction . Using econometric modeling, analyze three concepts: – Association of benefits and intrinsic job satisfaction – Association of benefits and extrinsic job benefits – Association of benefits and overall job benefits Compare and contrast the results and make the corresponding conclusions.
Implementation of econometrics in everyday life . From first sight, econometrics seems to be too complicated. However, knowledge of this subject can be helpful in everyday life situations. Think about the field where econometrics might be useful for ordinary people. Provide appropriate examples to support your ideas.
The rules of data search for econometric analysis . Explain how to select and analyze data for further analysis. What are the credible sources? How to prevent possible difficulties of data examination?
Topics in Structural VAR Econometrics by Gianni Amisano. Provide a brief overview of the book. What key econometric issues does the book cover? Emphasize on the crucial role of the book while studying econometrics.

👨‍🏫 Great Economic Topics: Assignment

Are you excited about the diversity of interesting economic topics we can offer you? Have you chosen some ideas already?

Don’t leave our page yet! We have more topics to share with you.

The following section includes a variety of ideas divided by the type of assignment you need to complete. We did it for your convenience. A thesis topic should be more complex and developed than an essay topic, right? So, here you can find outstanding ideas for all kinds of economic assignments.

📝 Economics Essay Topics

Rethinking microeconomics competitiveness .
Government regulation of market economics .
Monetary policy management and its effects on the economy .
Effects of hedge funds on the global financial crisis .
Banks, bank firms, and financial intermediaries .
Managerial economic opportunity cost .
The link between borrowers’ risk and mortgage lending .
Problems in banking regulation .
Financial markets and liquidity .
The contribution of the luxury fashion industry in the economic development of the world .
How has the role of the IMF changed since it was established in 1945?

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is an organization of 189 countries.

The international monetary fund and the World Bank.
Bank of America: managerial economics and analysis.
Foreign direct investment benefits for Asian countries.
Global financial crisis problems. Analyze the issues caused by the financial crisis. Suggest some action plans to tackle the effects of the crisis. A small hint: as an example, you can use the world economic crisis of 2008. Also, consider discussing the financial crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020.
Tax cuts in Keynesian economics . Briefly introduce the economist John Maynard Keynes and his economics theory. Analyze his approaches to aggregate demand, multiplier effect, and fiscal policy. What was his tax cuts method? Do you consider it sufficient? State your position clearly and provide strong evidence to support your opinion.
Difference between microeconomics and macroeconomics. Need to write a compare and contrast essay? Use this topic. Analyze the similarities and differences between microeconomics and macroeconomics. How do they influence each other? Structure your paper correctly, so the readers can quickly get your ideas.
The relationship between money supply and inflation. Briefly introduce the notions of money supply and inflation. How are they connected? For better understanding, provide appropriate examples of the relationship between money supply and inflation.
Globalization, urban political economy, and economic restructuring. Comment on the globalization impact on world economics. Examine the positive and negative sides of globalization. How can financial restructuring improve the economic situation in the world? State your arguments clearly and support them with examples.
The issue of global trade imbalances in the US and China. What are trade imbalances? Comment on the world policymakers’ reaction to growing inequalities. Do global trade imbalances threaten free trade? Is it possible that global trade imbalances be sustained? Suggest some ways to reduce global imbalances.

📜 Economics Term Paper Topics

Factors that influence international business.
The modern global economic problems.
Poverty as the deprivation of capabilities.
Globalization and the economics of child labor.
Sharing economy: benefits and difficulties.
Behavioral economics and finance.
Trade liberalization in international trade.
The banking industry and interest rates .
Public debt in managing macroeconomics.
The significance of Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” concept in modern economics.
Microeconomics principles in the flying automobiles industry.
The convergence of world economies .
Causes and consequences of the 2008 financial crisis.

The 2008 crash was the greatest jolt to the global financial system in almost a century.

Federal reserve’s influence on interest rates.
Managerial economics and demand. Examine the theory in managerial economics. What are the types of demand? Compare and contrast them. Analyze the factors that affect the demand for goods and services.
Marxism perspective in production . Provide a brief overview of Max’s approach to production. Analyze the means, relations, and modes of production. Was Marx’s position regarding production effective? How could it be improved?
Private and public finance initiative. This topic is beneficial if you are searching for a compare and contrast essay idea. Examine the advantages and disadvantages of both finance initiatives. Moreover, consider the risks of private and public finance initiatives. Which one is more effective, in your opinion?
David Ricardo’s model of international free trade. Write a well-structured position paper regarding David Ricardo’s model. What are the positive and negative sides of the model? To make your essay persuasive, discuss David Ricardo’s model of international free trade with the other students. Considering all the opinions you have heard, state your position.
Adam Smith’s understanding of capitalism. Explore Adam Smith’s perception of the capitalistic approach. Briefly introduce the Keynes’ and Marx’s economic theories. Compare and contrast Smith’s understanding of capitalism to Keynes’ and Marx’s perceptions. Whose arguments are the most widely used in international economics nowadays?
Catch-up effect . Explore the catch-up growth phenomenon. How to explain the hypothesis that developing countries usually develop with faster rates than wealthy counties? To support your ideas, provide an example of developing countries that are experiencing the catch-up effect. An appropriate statistical data would be helpful for this assignment.

📚 Economics Thesis Topics

The difference between the surplus and the neoclassical theories of general equilibrium .
Post-Keynesian and Austrian criticisms of the standard neoclassical view of competition .
The impact of premature finance liberalization on macroeconomic and financial stability .
Strategic cost and managerial accounting in the UAE.
International wage differential and migration between Germany and Turkey .
The current impact of inflation and unemployment on Germany’s political and economic system.
Understanding of the contemporary labor market by the Marxist concept of exploitation .
A critical assessment of the pros and cons of selected financial derivatives .
Corporate governance and informational disclosure on Internet financial reporting: the Saudi Arabia evidence.
Role of international financial institutions in the 2008 financial crisis .
The different roles played by the central bank, depository institutions, and depositors determine the money supply .

Like any bank, the central bank’s balance sheet is composed of assets and liabilities.

Remittances role in spurring global economic growth.
Cultural diversity in international trade and international business management through globalization . This topic will perfectly suit and undergraduate majoring in the MBA program. Investigate the cultural diversity in international trade. Does it have a positive or negative influence on world economics? Suggest some ways on how to promote diversity and equity in international trade.
Interest rate disparity between RBA and major Australian banks . If you are looking for a master’s thesis idea, consider this topic. People who are interested in finances and banking will like it. Compare and contrast RBA and major Australian banks. State your position regarding the given financial institutions clearly.
International microeconomics trade dispute case: US-China dispute on the exportation of raw materials . Provide the historical background of the US-China dispute on the exportation of raw materials. What was the government’s’ response to the debate? What regulations should have been changed to prevent the conflict? Suggest some ways how to improve international trade to minimize the risks of disputes.
The Globalization Paradox: Democracy and the Future of the World Economy by Rodrik . Your bachelor thesis may look include a book or an article analysis. Investigate the work The Globalization Paradox: Democracy and the Future of the World Economy By Rodrik. State your position regarding the given book. How can the knowledge from this book be implemented in economic science?
Effect of a permanent increase in oil price on inflation and output. What threats growth as a result of the rising cost of oil? Discuss the effects of a rise in oil prices on inflation and output. Also, analyze the effects of the response of the Reserve Bank to the oil price increase. To make your arguments persuasive, illustrate your findings on the demand-aggregate supply model.
Economic growth in Kenya: past and future challenges. Conduct research on the economic development of Kenia. Using economic theories and hypotheses, predict the future of economics of Kenia. What challenges should the government and citizens be ready for? Note: any other county of your interest can replace Kenia here.
The domination of financial accounting on managerial accounting information. This topic is suitable for both: master’s thesis and the bachelor’s thesis. Develop the idea by providing strong arguments and appropriate examples.

📈 Economic Topics for Project

Direct sales approach for selling crude oil in Nigeria .
John Locke’s and Karl Marx’s economic ideas.
International financial markets and institutions .
Banker to the poor: micro-lending and the battle against world poverty.
European macroeconomic policies and risks .
China’s banking sector analysis .
Keynesian explanation of recession .
The analysis of buying behavior simulation.
The US unemployment benefits evaluation.
Economic analysis of the Etihad airways company.
Finance issues in the book The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine by Michael Lewis .
Economic impacts on talent management in the UK vs. China .
Instruments to encourage or discourage FDI and their implications for international business.

There are three forms of Foreign Direct Investment.

The impact of algorithmic trading on mutual funds performance.
Economic principles and theories of Adam Smith: a case for free markets and capitalism .
Keynesianism vs. Neorealism. Explore both economic theories. Create a list of the advantages and disadvantages of Keynesianism and Neorealism. From your perspective, which approach is more effective? To make your project more professional, include appropriate statistics, charts, diagrams, etc.
Globalization: a blessing or a curse to US middle-class workers? It is a perfect idea for the capstone project in the final year of your university studies. Investigate the issue of globalization from an economic perspective. In your opinion, does it have more benefits or drawbacks? Support each of your arguments with clear evidence or an example.
Developing economic stimulus packages . Imagine yourself as a leader of a guided project to create economic stimulus packages. What would you include to prevent a financial crisis in a country?
Sustainable development of economics. Analyze the environmental harm caused by rapid economic progress. Develop a project focused on the protection of the environment under the current production conditions. Suggest more environmentally-friendly ways to produce goods and services.
A company’s financial analysis . Choose any business pf your interest. It can be Apple, Dior, Samsung, Nestle, etc. Analyze the income statement of a chosen company. Does its budget operate efficiently? What financial threats (if any) does the enterprise face? Suggest possible improvements to increase the gains from sales and the gains from trade.

💡 Tips on Writing an Economic Paper

Have you finally chosen a topic for your economic essay? Are you excited to start working on your paper? Then, the following section is for you. Read it carefully and know the essential tips on writing.

First and foremost, economic papers differ from regular ones. Such written works requite research. Otherwise, there is no opportunity for you to get a high grade.

You can still express your personal opinion in an economic essay.

In case you might be wondering how to write a well-developed research paper, we know how to help you. Our team collected the most useful prompts. So read carefully and implement them in your writing process.

Select a compelling topic. An appropriate idea is a key to success. So, make sure yours fits the requirements of your professor. Moreover, among a wide variety of economic topics, select the one you are passionate about. Then, you will be able to make your writing process more accessible and pleasurable.
Find credible sources. No doubts, credible sources paly a crucial role in composing a research paper. Therefore, take time to find appropriate sources. They have to fit your topic and assignment criteria. Make sure you use academic sources for your research. Well-selected credible sources will make your paper more professional.
Outline your future paper. With an outline, you will be able to keep track of your ideas. Also, it ensures the quality of your paper. Defining your paper structure before writing makes it well-organized and highly-developed.
Review the literature. No matter what kind of paper you write: theoretical or empirical, the literature will always help you. So, don’t underestimate the power of books. Refer to them, if you need to revise a theory, some economic concepts, notions, etc.
Formulate a hypothesis. A well-formulated hypothesis plays an essential role in writing a research paper. It helps the readers to understand what you are focusing on. Moreover, it navigates you throughout your research process and makes it more structured.
Describe your results. After conducting economic analysis, describe your results. What did you find out? What results did you expect to see? Explain how your results can be used in further research.
Elaborate on your findings. Your findings are the central part of your research paper. So, make sure you state them clearly. Make appropriate conclusions based on your results and adequately summarize them.
Reference the sources you used . Finding credible sources is crucial, of course. Nevertheless, you also need to cite them properly. Making reference lists is not pure science. So, put enough effort to figure out all the details of references and in-text citations. Also, don’t mess up writing styles. The most popular ones are APA, MLA, ASA, Chicago style, etc. Thus, if you are unsure about something, double-check the formatting requirements.

Your economic paper should fit all the required criteria of your institution.

Thank you for visiting our page! Don’t hesitate to use our essay ideas and tips. And don’t forget to share the article with your friends.

🔗 References

High School Economics Topics: Econlib
Writing in Economics: Writing Studio, Thompson Writing Program, Duke University
All Topics, Economics: tutor2u
How to Write the Introduction of Your Development Economics Paper: David Evans, Center For Global Development
Areas of research: Economic Policy Institute
Organizing an Essay: Jerry Plotnick, University College Writing Centre, Writing Advice, University of Toronto
Economics: Economist, World News, Politics, Economics, Business & Finance
How To Write An Economics Paper: Elmer Sterken, Athens University of Economics and Business
Academic Essay Writing, Some Guidelines: Department of Economics, Carleton University
Ideas about Economics: TED Talks, Ideas Worth Spreading
Microeconomics vs. Macroeconomics, What’s the Difference: Investopedia
International Economics: Journal, Elsevier
What Are the Various Subfields of Economics: Mike Moffatt, ThoughtCo
Economics: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Generate Topic Ideas Quickly and Easily: Online Research Library, Questia
The Basics of Essay Writing: UNSW Current Students
Basic Guide to Essay Writing: Kathy Livingston
Writing Essays: Learning Development: Plymouth University
Economic Growth Research Ideas
Acquisition Essay Ideas
Trade Questions
Monopoly Essay Topics
Procurement Research Ideas
World Trade Organization Questions
Banking Research Ideas
Cost Accounting Essay Topics
Chicago (A-D)
Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2024, July 7). Economic Topics for Any Paper [with Great Tips & Examples]. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/economic-essay-topics/

"Economic Topics for Any Paper [with Great Tips & Examples]." IvyPanda , 7 July 2024, ivypanda.com/essays/topic/economic-essay-topics/.

IvyPanda . (2024) 'Economic Topics for Any Paper [with Great Tips & Examples]'. 7 July.

IvyPanda . 2024. "Economic Topics for Any Paper [with Great Tips & Examples]." July 7, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/economic-essay-topics/.

1. IvyPanda . "Economic Topics for Any Paper [with Great Tips & Examples]." July 7, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/economic-essay-topics/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Economic Topics for Any Paper [with Great Tips & Examples]." July 7, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/economic-essay-topics/.

IvyPanda uses cookies and similar technologies to enhance your experience, enabling functionalities such as:

Basic site functions
Ensuring secure, safe transactions
Secure account login
Remembering account, browser, and regional preferences
Remembering privacy and security settings
Analyzing site traffic and usage
Personalized search, content, and recommendations
Displaying relevant, targeted ads on and off IvyPanda

Please refer to IvyPanda's Cookies Policy and Privacy Policy for detailed information.

Certain technologies we use are essential for critical functions such as security and site integrity, account authentication, security and privacy preferences, internal site usage and maintenance data, and ensuring the site operates correctly for browsing and transactions.

Cookies and similar technologies are used to enhance your experience by:

Remembering general and regional preferences
Personalizing content, search, recommendations, and offers

Some functions, such as personalized recommendations, account preferences, or localization, may not work correctly without these technologies. For more details, please refer to IvyPanda's Cookies Policy .

To enable personalized advertising (such as interest-based ads), we may share your data with our marketing and advertising partners using cookies and other technologies. These partners may have their own information collected about you. Turning off the personalized advertising setting won't stop you from seeing IvyPanda ads, but it may make the ads you see less relevant or more repetitive.

Personalized advertising may be considered a "sale" or "sharing" of the information under California and other state privacy laws, and you may have the right to opt out. Turning off personalized advertising allows you to exercise your right to opt out. Learn more in IvyPanda's Cookies Policy and Privacy Policy .

Search Search Please fill out this field.

Economics in the Ancient World

Smith: The Father of Economics
Dismal Science: Marx and Malthus

The Marginal Revolution

Speaking in numbers, keynes and macroeconomics, the neoclassical synthesis, behavioral economics, factoring in social benefit, the bottom line, a brief history of economics.

Economics Defined with Types, Indicators, and Systems
Economy Definition
History of Economics CURRENT ARTICLE
Is Economics a Science?
Understanding Finance vs. Economics
Macroeconomics
Microeconomics
Four Economic Concepts
Law of Supply and Demand
Demand-Side Economics
Supply-Side Economics
Market Economy
Command Economy
Economic Value
Keynesian Economics
Social Economics
Economic Indicator
Top 10 US Economic Indicators
Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
What Is GDP and Why Is It So Important?
Consumer Spending
Retail Sales
The Top 25 Economies in the World
Examples of Free Market Economies
Is the US a Market Economy or a Mixed Economy?
Primary Drivers of the Chinese Economy
How India Makes Its Money
European Union (EU)
The German Economic Miracle
The Economy of the United Kingdom
How the North Korean Economy Works

Economics is the science that studies how societies produce goods and services and how they consume them. Economic theory has influenced global finance at many important junctures throughout history and is an integral factor in our everyday lives. However, the assumptions that guide the study of economics have changed dramatically throughout history. Here is a brief look at the history of economic thought.

Key Takeaways

Civilizations in the Middle East, China, and elsewhere employed sophisticated financial concepts and produced written guides of best economic practices and norms in the first millennium BCE.
Tunisian philosopher Ibn Khaldun, writing in the 14th century, was among the first theorists to examine the division of labor, profit motive, and international trade.
In the 18th century, Scottish economist Adam Smith used the ideas of French Enlightenment writers to develop a thesis on how economies should work. In the 19th century, Karl Marx and Thomas Malthus expanded on their work.
Late-19th century economists Léon Walras and Alfred Marshall used statistics and mathematics to express economic concepts, such as economies of scale.
John Maynard Keynes developed theories in the early 20th century that the Federal Reserve still uses to manage monetary policy today.
Most modern economic theories are based on the work of Keynes and the free-market theories of Milton Friedman, which suggest more capital in the system lessens the need for government involvement.
More recent theories, such as those of Harvard University economist Amartya Sen, argue for factoring ethics into social welfare calculations of economic efficiency.

Economics in its basic form began during the Bronze Age (4000-2500 BCE) with written documents in four areas of the world: Sumer and Babylonia (3500-2500 BCE); the Indus River Valley Civilization (3300-1030 BCE), in what is today’s Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India; along the Yangtze River in China; and Egypt’s Nile Valley, beginning around 3500 BCE. Societies in these areas developed notation systems using markings on clay tablets, papyrus, and other materials to account for crops, livestock, and land.

These accounting systems, arising in tandem with written language, eventually included methods for tracking property transfers, recording debts and interest payments, calculating compound interest, and other economic tools still used today.

From the third millennium BCE onward, Egyptian scribes recorded the collection and redistribution of land and goods. Sumerian traders developed methods to calculate compound interest. The Code of Hammurabi (circa 1810–1750 BCE), the earliest work of economic synthesis, specifies norms for economic activity and provides a detailed framework for commerce, including business ethics for merchants and tradespeople.

Economics is not the result of one person's ideas and theories. Instead, the field has been developed over centuries of experience, thought, and discussion.

The first millennium BCE saw the emergence of more detailed written treatises on economic thought and practice. The Greek philosopher and poet Hesiod, writing in the eighth century BCE, laid out precepts for managing a farm in his "Works and Days."

Athenian military leader, philosopher, and historian Xenophon built on this in "Oikonomikon," a treatise on the economic management of an estate. In "Politics," Aristotle (circa 350 BCE) took these ideas further, concluding that while private property ownership was preferred, the accumulation of wealth for its own sake was “dishonorable.”

The Guanzi essays from China (circa the fourth century BCE) laid out one of the first explanations of supply and demand pricing; the crucial roles of a well-managed money supply and a stable currency. Among key insights was the notion that money, not armies, ultimately won wars.

In Western Europe during the Middle Ages, economic theory was often blended with ethics, as seen in the work of Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) and others.

Few of those writers went into the amount of detail that Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406), a Tunisian historian and philosopher, did. In "Al-Muqaddimah," Ibn Khaldun analyzes economic issues such as the perils of monopolies, the benefits of division of labor and the profit motive, and the rise and fall of economic empires. The importance of his work was recognized by Machiavelli and Hegel, and many of his ideas prefigured those of Adam Smith and those who followed him centuries later.

The Father of Modern Economics

Today, Scottish thinker Adam Smith is widely credited with creating the field of modern economics. However, Smith was inspired by French writers publishing in the mid-18th century, who shared his hatred of mercantilism .

In fact, the first methodical study of how economies work was undertaken by the French physiocrats, notably Quesnay and Mirabeau. Smith took many of their ideas and expanded them into a thesis about how economies should work, as opposed to how they do work.

Smith believed that competition was self-regulating and governments should take no part in business through tariffs , taxes, or other means unless it were to protect free-market competition.

Many economic theories today are, at least in part, a reaction to Smith's pivotal work in the field, namely his 1776 masterpiece " The Wealth of Nations ." In this treatise, Smith laid out several mechanisms of capitalist production, free markets, and value. Smith showed that individuals acting in their own self-interest could as if guided by an " invisible hand ," create social and economic stability and prosperity for all.

Even devout followers of Smith’s ideas recognize that some of his theories were either flawed or have not aged well. Smith distinguishes between “productive labor,” such as manufacturing products that can be accumulated, and “unproductive labor,” such as tasks performed by a “menial servant,” the value of which “perish[es] in the very instant of their performance.”

One could argue that in today’s service-dominant economy, the excellent execution of services creates value by strengthening a brand through goodwill and in numerous other ways. His assertion that “equal quantities of labour, at all times and places, may be said to be of equal value to the labourer” ignores the psychological cost of working in hostile or exploitative environments.

As an extension of this, Smith’s labor theory of value —that the value of a good can be measured by the hours of labor needed to produce it—has also largely been abandoned.

The Dismal Science: Marx and Malthus

Thomas Malthus and Karl Marx had decidedly poor reactions to Smith's treatise. Malthus was one of a group of economic thinkers of the late 18th and early 19th centuries who were grappling with the challenges of emergent capitalism following the French Revolution and the rising demands of a burgeoning middle class. Among his peers were three of the greatest economic thinkers of the age, Jean-Baptiste Say , David Ricardo , and John Stuart Mill .

Malthus predicted that growing populations would outstrip the food supply. He was proved wrong, however, because he didn't foresee technological innovations that would allow production to keep pace with a growing population. Nonetheless, his work shifted the focus of economics to the scarcity of goods rather than the demand for them.

This increased focus on scarcity led Marx to declare that the means of production were the most important components of any economy. Marx took his ideas further and became convinced a class war would be sparked by the inherent instabilities he saw in capitalism .

However, Marx underestimated the flexibility of capitalism. Instead of creating a clear division between two classes—owners and workers—the market economy created a mixed class wherein owners and workers held the interests of both parties. Despite his overly rigid theory, Marx accurately predicted one trend: businesses grow larger and more powerful to the degree that free-market capitalism allows.

As the ideas of wealth and scarcity developed in economics, economists turned their attention to more specific questions about how markets operate and how prices are determined. English economist William Stanley Jevons (1835-1882), Austrian economist Carl Menger (1840-1921), and French economist Léon Walras (1834-1910) independently developed a new perspective in economics known as marginalism .

Their key insight was that, in practice, people aren't actually faced with big-picture decisions over entire general classes of economic goods. Instead, they make decisions around specific units of an economic good as they choose to buy, sell, or produce each additional (or marginal) unit. In doing so, people balance the scarcity of each good against the value of the use of the good at the margin.

These decisions explain, for example, why the price of an individual diamond is relatively higher than the price of an individual unit of water. Though water is a basic need to live, it is often plentiful, and though diamonds are often purely decorative, they are scarce. Marginalism quickly became, and remains, a central concept in economics.

Walras went on to mathematize his theory of marginal analysis and made models and theories that reflected what he found. General equilibrium theory came from his work, as did the practice of expressing economic concepts statistically and mathematically instead of just prose. Alfred Marshall took the mathematical modeling of economies to new heights, introducing many concepts that are still not widely understood, such as economies of scale, marginal utility , and the real-cost paradigm.

It is nearly impossible to expose an economy to experimental rigor; therefore, economics is on the edge of science. Through mathematical modeling, however, some economic theories have been rendered testable.

The theories developed by Walras, Marshall, and their successors would develop in the 20th century into the neoclassical school of economics—defined by mathematical modeling and assumptions of rational actors and efficient markets. Later, statistical methods were applied to economic data in the form of econometrics , allowing economists to propose and test hypotheses empirically and in a methodologically rigorous manner.

John Maynard Keynes developed a new branch of economics known as Keynesian economics or macroeconomics. Keynes styled the economists who had come before him as "classical" economists. He believed that while their theories might apply to individual choices and goods markets, they did not adequately describe the operation of the economy as a whole.

Instead of marginal units or even specific goods markets and prices, Keynesian macroeconomics presents the economy in terms of large-scale aggregates that represent the rate of unemployment, aggregate demand, or average price-level inflation for all goods. Moreover, Keynes's theory says that governments can be influential players in the economy—saving it from recession by implementing expansionary fiscal and monetary policy to increase economic output and stability.

By the mid-20th century, these two strands of thought—mathematical, marginalist microeconomics, and Keynesian macroeconomics—would rise to near-complete dominance in the field of economics throughout the Western world.

This became known as the neoclassical synthesis, which has since represented mainstream economic thought. It is taught in universities and practiced by researchers and policymakers, with other perspectives labeled as heterodox economics .

Within the neoclassical synthesis, various streams of economic thought have developed, sometimes in opposition to one another. The inherent tension between neoclassical microeconomics (which portrays free markets as efficient and beneficial) and Keynesian macroeconomics—which views markets as inherently prone to catastrophic failure—has led to persistent academic and public policy disagreements, with different theories ascendant at different times.

Various economists and schools of thought have sought to refine, reinterpret, redact, and redefine neoclassic and Keynesian macroeconomics.

Most prominent is monetarism and the Chicago School, developed by Milton Friedman , which retains neoclassical microeconomics and the Keynesian macroeconomic framework but shifts the emphasis of macroeconomics from fiscal policy (favored by Keynes) to monetary policy. Monetarism was widely espoused through the 1980s, '90s, and 2000s.

Several different streams of economic theory and research have been proposed to resolve the tension between micro- and macroeconomists. This attempt incorporates aspects or assumptions from microeconomics (such as rational expectations) into macroeconomics or further develops microeconomics to provide micro-foundations (such as price stickiness or psychological factors) for Keynesian macroeconomics.

In recent decades, this has led to new theories, such as behavioral economics, and to renewed interest in heterodox theories, such as Austrian-school economics, which were previously relegated to the economic backwaters.

Classical economic theory and theory of markets, from Smith through Friedman, have mainly rested on the assumption that consumers are rational actors who behave in their best interests.

However, current economists such as Richard Thaler and Daniel Kahneman , the late Gary Becker , and Amos Tversky have shown that people often do not act in their own best material interests but allow themselves to be swayed by non-material psychological factors and biases.

Behavioral economics has helped popularize several new concepts that make economic modeling and forecasting more difficult than ever. These concepts include:

The sunk cost fallacy : Continuing to invest in a failing project because of what has been invested so far.
Availability heuristics : Thinking a specific consequence of an action is more likely because it comes more easily to mind than other outcomes.
Bounded rationality : People acting without complete information when they know that more information is available.

A rising cohort of economists has emphasized the importance of factoring in inequalities in income distribution and social well-being when measuring the success of a given economic policy. Pre-eminent among them is Anthony Atkinson (1944-2017), who focused on income redistribution within a given country.

Also highly regarded and noteworthy is Amartya Sen , a professor of economics and philosophy at Harvard University, whose work on global inequality won him the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1998.

Sen’s work is also notable for reintroducing ethical behavior into his analysis. This concern ties Sen’s thinking back to the writing of the earliest economic thinkers, who saw the over-accumulation of wealth by individuals or groups as ultimately harmful to society.

What Is Economics and Its History?

Economics is the science and study of a society's ability to produce goods and services, buy and sell them, and consume them. Documentation, theories, and discussions go back thousands of years.

Who Invented Economics First?

There is no one person that "invented" economics. Instead, many notable thinkers and societies throughout history have contributed to the field of economics.

When Did Economic History Start?

Modern economics is attributed to Adam Smith, who published " The Wealth of Nations " in 1776 . However, the practices and ideas that led to Smith's paper were developed over centuries of discussions and ideas around the globe.

Economic theory grew out of societies’ need to account for resources, plan for the future, and exchange and allocate goods. Over time, these basic accounting tools grew into increasingly complex financial models, blending the mathematics required to calculate compound interest with ethics and moral philosophy.

Economics as a system to understand and control the material world and mitigate risk emerged and evolved across the globe in a staggered fashion—the Fertile Crescent and Egypt, China and India, ancient Greece, and the Arab world.

As societies grew wealthier and trade grew more complex, economic theory turned to the mathematics, statistics, and computational modeling that economists use to help guide policymakers. The business cycle, booms and busts, anti-inflation measures, and mortgage interest rates are outgrowths of economics.

Understanding them helps the market and government adjust for these variables. Balancing out the mathematical modeling approach is the study of factors that are more difficult to quantify but crucial to understand—most notably, the foibles and unpredictability of human psychology.

Princeton University Press. " Money Changes Everything: How Finance Made Civilization Possible ."

Cambridge University Press. " The Early Dynastic Period (c. 3000–2686 BCE) ."

Britannica. " Code of Hammurab i."

Theoi. " Hesiod, Works and Days ."

Walter de Gruyter GmbH. " The Economics Book: From Xenophon to Cryptocurrency ."

Online Library of Liberty. " Aristotle's Politics ."

Britannica. " St. Thomas Aquinas ."

Britannica. " Ibn Khaldun ."

Ibn Khaldun. " The Muqaddimah ."

Cairn Info. " The Political Failure of an Economic Theory: Physiocracy ."

Adam Smith. "The Wealth of Nations," Sterling Publishing Company Inc., 2022 Edition.

Online Library of Liberty. " Capital: A Critique of Political Economy. 3 vols. [1909] ."

Britannica. " Léon Walras ."

Britannica. " Carl Menger ."

Britannica. " William Stanley Jevons ."

Online Library of Liberty. " Principles of Economics [1871] ."

International Relations and Security Network. " The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money By John Maynard Keynes ," Pages 8-1 and 125-151.

International Monetary Fund. " The IMF and the Silent Revolution ."

Online Library of Liberty. " The Intellectual Portrait Series: A Conversation with Milton Friedman [2003] ."

Tony Atkinson. " The Personal Website of Professor Sir Tony Atkinson ."

The Nobel Prize. " Amartya Sen Facts ."

Harvard University. " Amartya Sen ."

Econlib. " An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations ."

Terms of Service
Editorial Policy
Privacy Policy

Submit content
Subscribe to content
Orientation
Participate

Essays on the Nature and State of Modern Economics

Perspective:
Topic:	Reflection of Economics
page count:	261 pages
ISBN:	9781138851023

Historical development of economics

Methodological considerations in contemporary economics
Fields of contemporary economics

economics , social science that seeks to analyze and describe the production, distribution, and consumption of wealth. In the 19th century economics was the hobby of gentlemen of leisure and the vocation of a few academics; economists wrote about economic policy but were rarely consulted by legislators before decisions were made. Today there is hardly a government, international agency, or large commercial bank that does not have its own staff of economists. Many of the world’s economists devote their time to teaching economics in colleges and universities around the world, but most work in various research or advisory capacities, either for themselves (in economics consulting firms), in industry, or in government. Still others are employed in accounting , commerce, marketing , and business administration; although they are trained as economists, their occupational expertise falls within other fields. Indeed, this can be considered “the age of economists,” and the demand for their services seems insatiable. Supply responds to that demand, and in the United States alone some 400 institutions of higher learning grant about 900 new Ph.D.’s in economics each year.

(Read Milton Friedman’s Britannica entry on money.)

No one has ever succeeded in neatly defining the scope of economics. Many have agreed with Alfred Marshall , a leading 19th-century English economist, that economics is “a study of mankind in the ordinary business of life; it examines that part of individual and social action which is most closely connected with the attainment, and with the use of the material requisites of wellbeing”—ignoring the fact that sociologists, psychologists, and anthropologists frequently study exactly the same phenomena. In the 20th century, English economist Lionel Robbins defined economics as “the science which studies human behaviour as a relationship between (given) ends and scarce means which have alternative uses.” In other words, Robbins said that economics is the science of economizing. While his definition captures one of the striking characteristics of the economist’s way of thinking, it is at once too wide (because it would include in economics the game of chess) and too narrow (because it would exclude the study of the national income or the price level). Perhaps the only foolproof definition is that attributed to Canadian-born economist Jacob Viner : economics is what economists do.

green and blue stock market ticker stock ticker. Hompepage blog 2009, history and society, financial crisis wall street markets finance stock exchange

Difficult as it may be to define economics, it is not difficult to indicate the sorts of questions that concern economists. Among other things, they seek to analyze the forces determining prices —not only the prices of goods and services but the prices of the resources used to produce them. This involves the discovery of two key elements: what governs the way in which human labour , machines, and land are combined in production and how buyers and sellers are brought together in a functioning market . Because prices of the various things must be interrelated, economists therefore ask how such a “price system” or “market mechanism” hangs together and what conditions are necessary for its survival.

These questions are representative of microeconomics , the part of economics that deals with the behaviour of individual entities such as consumers, business firms, traders, and farmers. The other major branch of economics is macroeconomics , which focuses attention on aggregates such as the level of income in the whole economy, the volume of total employment, the flow of total investment , and so forth. Here economists are concerned with the forces determining the income of a country or the level of total investment, and they seek to learn why full employment is so rarely attained and what public policies might help a country achieve higher employment or greater price stability.

But these examples still do not exhaust the range of problems that economists consider. There is also the important field of development economics , which examines the attitudes and institutions supporting the process of economic development in poor countries as well as those capable of self-sustained economic growth (for example, development economics was at the heart of the Marshall Plan ). In this field the economist is concerned with the extent to which the factors affecting economic development can be manipulated by public policy.

Cutting across these major divisions in economics are the specialized fields of public finance , money and banking , international trade , labour economics , agricultural economics , industrial organization, and others. Economists are frequently consulted to assess the effects of governmental measures such as taxation , minimum-wage laws, rent controls, tariffs , changes in interest rates, changes in government budgets , and so on.

The effective birth of economics as a separate discipline may be traced to the year 1776, when the Scottish philosopher Adam Smith published An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations . There was, of course, economics before Smith: the Greeks made significant contributions, as did the medieval scholastics, and from the 15th to the 18th century an enormous amount of pamphlet literature discussed and developed the implications of economic nationalism (a body of thought now known as mercantilism ). It was Smith, however, who wrote the first full-scale treatise on economics and, by his magisterial influence, founded what later generations were to call the “English school of classical political economy,” known today as classical economics .

Dynamic scoring: A progress report on why, when, and how

Download the conference draft

Subscribe to the Economic Studies Bulletin

Douglas elmendorf , douglas elmendorf harvard university distinguished service professor - harvard kennedy school glenn hubbard , and glenn hubbard dean emeritus; russell l. carson professor of finance and economics - columbia business school heidi williams heidi williams nonresident senior fellow - economic studies , the hutchins center on fiscal and monetary policy.

September 25, 2024

The paper summarized here is part of the fall 2024 edition of the Brookings Papers on Economic Activity , the leading conference series and journal in economics for timely, cutting-edge research about real-world policy issues. Research findings are presented in a clear and accessible style to maximize their impact on economic understanding and policymaking. The editors are Brookings Nonresident Senior Fellows Janice Eberly and Jón Steinsson .

See the spring 2024 BPEA event page to watch paper presentations and read summaries of all the papers from this edition. Submit a proposal to present at a future BPEA conference here .

Information provided to Congress about the economic and budgetary effects of proposed legislation could be expanded and improved if further investments were made in modeling and experience at Congress’ nonpartisan agencies, according to a paper to be discussed at the Brookings Papers on Economic Activity (BPEA) conference on September 26.

The paper discusses dynamic scoring—the inclusion of additional economic feedback effects when estimating the budgetary impact of legislative proposals. It examines the trade-offs that arise when considering why, when, and how dynamic scoring could be used more extensively, and how those trade-offs differ across policy areas.

The authors—Douglas Elmendorf of Harvard University, Glenn Hubbard of Columbia University, and Heidi Williams of Dartmouth College—note that Congress in recent years has asked the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) to provide more dynamic analyses that incorporate additional economic feedback effects.

“The agencies have responded by drawing on an expanding body of research to produce innovative analyses, improve their modeling tools, gain experience, and publish reports regarding their methodologies and results,” they write “This work has reinforced the value of the agencies providing unbiased and evidence-based analyses of the effects of potential policies on labor, capital, productivity, and other economic outcomes.” However, estimates of these additional economic feedback effects are very rarely included in the formal cost estimates provided to Congress for specific pieces of legislation, the authors note.

In “Dynamic Scoring: A Progress Report on Why, When, and How,” the authors explain that dynamic estimates are often asserted to take more time and work than is feasible given the deadlines required by Congress. But, they write, “CBO and JCT have invested—to their credit—in the tools and experience needed to produce dynamic estimates, and those investments have reduced to some extent the additional time and work needed to generate such estimates.” The authors add that “further targeted investments could make more progress along these lines.”

Dynamic scoring also involves confronting uncertainties inherent in estimating additional economic effects. For at least some important effects that are excluded from non-dynamic estimates, CBO and JCT can draw on substantial bodies of evidence and receive professional feedback on their use of the evidence, according to the paper. Moreover, including these additional economic effects could reduce the risk of bias in estimates.

The economic changes stemming from legislative proposals are often small relative to the size of the economy, the authors acknowledge. However, the budgetary effects of those changes can be large relative to other budgetary effects of legislative proposals, and understanding the magnitude of economic effects can be useful to policymakers regardless of whether the effects are large or small.

“If Congress has better information about the sign and magnitude of economic effects, that’s the win,” Hubbard, a past chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said in an interview with The Brookings Institution.

Elmendorf, a past CBO director, said in an interview that Republicans and Democrats have differed historically over when to use dynamic scoring, with Republicans favoring dynamic scoring of tax cuts and Democrats pushing for dynamic scoring of spending programs. But, given the advances in dynamic analysis in recent years, there is a chance now for movement toward its broader use, he said.

“Congress has to want this. It is not up to CBO and JCT,” he said.

The paper presents case studies of some areas where dynamic scoring could provide more information at this time and other areas where it cannot yet provide more information, given the state of modeling and the research literature. The case studies cover immigration policy, research and development spending, and federal permitting of infrastructure investments. For example, the difference between conventional and dynamic estimates of changing the authorized number of high-skilled immigrants is “especially stark,” they write, because conventional estimates do not include the effects on federal revenue of the change in population or other economic effects.

Elmendorf, Douglas, Glenn Hubbard, and Heidi Williams. 2024. “Dynamic Scoring: A Progress Report on Why, When, and How.” BPEA Conference Draft, Fall.

Williams is a visiting scholar at the Congressional Budget Office. The authors did not receive financial support from any firm or person for this article or, other than the aforementioned, from any firm or person with a financial or political interest in this article. The authors are not currently an officer, director, or board member of any organization with a financial or political interest in this article.

David Skidmore authored the summary language for this paper. Chris Miller assisted with data visualization.

Federal Fiscal Policy

Economic Studies

Brookings Papers on Economic Activity

Alan J. Auerbach, Danny Yagan

Miles Johnson, Sophia Yan, Chye-Ching Huang, Grace Henley

Robert Greenstein

September 3, 2024

Academia.edu no longer supports Internet Explorer.

To browse Academia.edu and the wider internet faster and more securely, please take a few seconds to upgrade your browser .

Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link.

We're Hiring!
Help Center

Download Free PDF

Modern economic theory and development

… of Development Economics: The Future in …

Modern Economic Theory and Development Karla Hoff Joseph E. Stiglitz THE PAST 50 YEARS have seen marked changes in our understanding of development. We know that development is possible, but not inevi- table. We have had a wealth of experiments. There are clearly ...

Related papers

The past 50 years have seen marked changes in our understanding of development. We know that development is possible, but not inevitable. We have had a wealth of experiments. There are clearly no sure-fire formulas for success; if there were, there would be more successes. Some strategies seem to work for a while and then stall; some strategies seem to work in some countries and not in others. 1 Economic theory has evolved to account for the successes and failures. This chapter attempts to describe these changes in economic theory-both in the kinds of models used and in the factors that are identified as playing key roles. It focuses on two pivotal questions: What forces can explain the divergence in incomes across countries? What implications can we draw for the nature of the interventions most likely to promote development? A basic theme of this chapter is that industrial countries differ from developing countries by much more than their level of capital-or even their human capital. More capital may be helpful, but, remarkably, even a transfer of funds may not have a large effect on economic growth (see World Bank 1999a). Eliminating government-imposed distortions is also obviously desirable but seems neither necessary nor sufficient for sustained growth. 2 A view shared by all the perspectives on development that we explore in this chapter is that industrial and developing countries are on different production functions and are organized in different ways. Development is no longer seen primarily as a process of capital accumulation but rather as a process of organizational change. We discuss work done in three broad, interrelated research programs the economics of information, the theory of coordination problems , and institutional economics. These research programs depart from the strong assumptions of neoclassical theory. In that theory, every equi

The text is devoted to new trends and changes emerging in the economic sciences, focused on growth, socio-economic development and income inequalities in the context of the idea of global rationality, understood as the ability to sustain the long-term existence of civilization on the entire planet. The thematic scope of this problem is broad; thus it is impossible to cover all its complexity in one study. Hence, attention is focused on selected aspects of the issues raised: on issues related to growth and development as well as economic inequalities, the economic foundations of growth, and the issue of substituting natural capital by human capital. A critical diagnosis and postulates for the future, with regard to measures of well-being in the context of the idea of sustainable development, are also considered as well as including the issue of sustainable development in development economics. The article ends with concluding remarks highlighting the thesis that economic growth should now be acceptable only when it does not excessively exploit natural capital and does contribute to deteriorating the quality of life. As for the methodological side of the text, it was created mainly through analysing the literature on the subject, but attention should be paid to the original nature of some predictions and recommendations, which were made as a result of the assumptions of the so-called diagnostic and prognostic analysis.

World Development, 1983

Faith in endless progress and prosperity fueled economic growth during the 20 century. Today that faith has been undermined, even in technologically-sophisticated citadels of capitalism. Doubts about a better future have spurred fear of immigration and a retreat from globalization and free trade in Europe and North America. Awareness of ecological constraints supports the notion of limits flagged by Malthus around 1800 and revived in the 1970s by Club of Rome. Yet, the remarkable economic achievements of the past two centuries have cast an illusion of omniscience on the discipline of Economics, which even repeated catastrophic policy failures have still not entirely banished. The gap and disjuncture between prevailing economic wisdom and its effective application to promote human welfare and well-being is enormous and widening rapidly. The gap between current economic performance and the economic potential of global society has never been greater. Both have been aggravated by the ra...

Journal of Economic Theory, 2020

Loading Preview

Sorry, preview is currently unavailable. You can download the paper by clicking the button above.

THE LAHORE JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS

The American Economist, 2000

Assignment, 2019

D. Bernard,2018, 2019

21st Century Economics: A Reference Handbook

EHU Proceedings of the International Student Scientific Conference, 2013

Journal of Development Economics, 1992

THE TRUE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, 2009

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2007

Sorry, there was a problem.

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required .

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

Image Unavailable

Essays on: The Nature and State of Modern Economics (Economics as Social Theory)

To view this video download Flash Player

Follow the author

Essays on: The Nature and State of Modern Economics (Economics as Social Theory) 1st Edition

The financial crisis has not only revealed weaknesses of the capitalist economy but also highlighted just how limited and impoverished is modern academic economics. Despite the failings of the latter being more widely acknowledged now than ever, there is still an enormous amount of confusion about their source and true nature. In this collection, Tony Lawson also identifies the causes of the discipline’s failings and outlines a transformative solution to its deficiencies.

Overall, this forceful and persuasive collection represents a major intervention in the on-going debates about the nature, state and future direction of economics.

ISBN-10 1138851027
ISBN-13 978-1138851023
Edition 1st
Publication date April 22, 2015
Part of series Economics as Social Theory
Language English
Dimensions 6.14 x 0.63 x 9.21 inches
Print length 276 pages
See all details

Editorial Reviews

This is a book of genuine originality, something that is rare in modern academia and all too often confused with mere novelty. Few thinkers can legitimately claim to have had a significant impact on their chosen field. Fewer still can claim to have substantively changed the terms of debate of that field. Tony Lawson is one of those few. These essays are for anyone with an interest in the future of the discipline.

Jamie Morgan, Reader in Economics, Leeds Beckett University; Co-editor Real World Economics Review

Tony Lawson has changed the conversation.

Edward Fullbrook, Executive Director of the World Economics Association.

Lawson writes with clarity and with an intellectual passion. A must read for any student of economics and political economy.

Peter Boettke, Professor of Economics and Philosophy at George Mason University, USA

This book should be read by everyone concerned to remedy the deficiencies in economics exposed by the 2008 financial crisis. Through rigorous argument, Lawson shows that the answer is not more complex forms of mathematical modelling, but the adoption of… methods that recognize the open-ended, relational , and processual character of economies.

Diane Elson, Professor of Sociology, University of Essex, UK

Tony Lawson provides the "L-correction" to Friedman's "F-twist", by forcing economics to consider its ontology.

Steve Keen, Professor and Head of Economics, History & Politics, Kingston University London, UK

[...] should be required reading for all serious economists, regardless of their approach.

G.C. Harcourt, Professorial Fellow, University of New South Wales

Tony Lawson is the enfant terrible of modern economic methodology. Whether you agree with him or not, he makes you think. This collection of papers is no exception. Highly recommended for all those with the slightest interest in the current state and nature of economic science.

Dimitris Milonakis, Professor of Political Economy and Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Crete, Greece.

The book by Tony Lawson entitled Essays on the nature and state of modern economics comes at a particularly fitting time in the history of the economic academic discipline. After what has been regarded by many as one of its major setbacks―namely the failure to predict the 2008 global financial crisis―economics has been severely shaken, marginally challenged, but ultimately left untouched by the debates on its conditions that have sparked in the last few years. Therefore, Lawson's choice to assemble a number of previously published papers and a new one into this collection constitutes an important and welcome contribution to the methodology and philosophy of economics literature.

Marco Sebastianelli, Institute for Advanced Study of Pavia

About the Author

Product details.

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Routledge; 1st edition (April 22, 2015)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 276 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1138851027
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1138851023
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 15.2 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.14 x 0.63 x 9.21 inches
#1,830 in Economic Theory (Books)
#6,856 in Theory of Economics
#89,684 in Specific Topics in Politics & Government

About the author

Tony lawson.

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read book recommendations and more.

Customer reviews

5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 5 star 0% 100% 0% 0% 0% 0%
5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 4 star 0% 100% 0% 0% 0% 100%
5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 3 star 0% 100% 0% 0% 0% 0%
5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 2 star 0% 100% 0% 0% 0% 0%
5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 1 star 0% 100% 0% 0% 0% 0%

Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.

To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.

No customer reviews

About Amazon
Investor Relations
Amazon Devices
Amazon Science
Sell products on Amazon
Sell on Amazon Business
Sell apps on Amazon
Become an Affiliate
Advertise Your Products
Self-Publish with Us
Host an Amazon Hub
› See More Make Money with Us
Amazon Business Card
Shop with Points
Reload Your Balance
Amazon Currency Converter
Amazon and COVID-19
Your Account
Your Orders
Shipping Rates & Policies
Returns & Replacements
Manage Your Content and Devices

Conditions of Use
Privacy Notice
Consumer Health Data Privacy Disclosure
Your Ads Privacy Choices

Classroom Programme
Interview Guidance
Online Programme
Drishti Store
My Bookmarks
My Progress
Change Password
From The Editor's Desk
How To Use The New Website
Help Centre

Achievers Corner

Topper's Interview
About Civil Services
UPSC Prelims Syllabus
GS Prelims Strategy
Prelims Analysis
GS Paper-I (Year Wise)
GS Paper-I (Subject Wise)
CSAT Strategy
Previous Years Papers
Practice Quiz
Weekly Revision MCQs
60 Steps To Prelims
Prelims Refresher Programme 2020

Mains & Interview

Mains GS Syllabus
Mains GS Strategy
Mains Answer Writing Practice
Essay Strategy
Fodder For Essay
Model Essays
Drishti Essay Competition
Ethics Strategy
Ethics Case Studies
Ethics Discussion
Ethics Previous Years Q&As
Papers By Years
Papers By Subject
Be MAINS Ready
Awake Mains Examination 2020
Interview Strategy
Interview Guidance Programme

Current Affairs

Daily News & Editorial
Daily CA MCQs
Sansad TV Discussions
Monthly CA Consolidation
Monthly Editorial Consolidation
Monthly MCQ Consolidation

Drishti Specials

To The Point
Important Institutions
Learning Through Maps
PRS Capsule
Summary Of Reports
Gist Of Economic Survey

Study Material

NCERT Books
NIOS Study Material
IGNOU Study Material
Yojana & Kurukshetra
Chhatisgarh
Uttar Pradesh
Madhya Pradesh

Test Series

UPSC Prelims Test Series
UPSC Mains Test Series
UPPCS Prelims Test Series
UPPCS Mains Test Series
BPSC Prelims Test Series
RAS/RTS Prelims Test Series
Daily Editorial Analysis
YouTube PDF Downloads
Strategy By Toppers
Ethics - Definition & Concepts
Mastering Mains Answer Writing
Places in News
UPSC Mock Interview
PCS Mock Interview
Interview Insights
Prelims 2019
Product Promos

Make Your Note

Digital Economy: A Leveller or A Source of Economic Inequality

26 Sep 2024

India will be a Global Player in The Digital Economy.

— Sunder Pichai

The digital economy , defined by the pervasive use of digital technologies to deliver goods and services, has revolutionised the global economic landscape. It offers transformative potential for innovation, productivity, and inclusivity. On one hand, it provides new opportunities for wealth creation and democratises access to information and markets. On the other hand, concerns have emerged about its role in exacerbating economic inequality. Whether the digital economy acts as a leveller or as a source of economic inequality depends on several factors, including access to technology, skills, policy interventions, and market dynamics.

The digital economy, in many ways, has the potential to act as a powerful equaliser. It reduces the significance of geographic location and physical infrastructure, allowing businesses and individuals to engage in the global marketplace from virtually anywhere. This democratisation of access to markets and information enables small businesses and entrepreneurs in developing regions to compete with larger, more established companies, thereby levelling the playing field. For example, e-commerce platforms such as Amazon, Alibaba, and Etsy have allowed small businesses to access global customers, bypassing traditional market barriers.

India’s digital identity program, Aadhaar , and the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) have revolutionised access to financial services. Aadhaar has enabled millions of Indians to open bank accounts and access government services, while UPI has made digital payments seamless and accessible, even in rural areas. Indian e-commerce giants like Flipkart and Snapdeal have empowered small businesses to reach a national audience. These platforms provide sellers with the tools and infrastructure needed to compete with larger companies.

Digital Education Platforms like digital websites and learning apps have transformed the education sector and made education affordable and accessible for the students who live in remote areas. Digital education industry has made quality education accessible to students across the country, regardless of their location.

Several companies are leveraging digital technologies to connect farmers directly with markets, reducing intermediaries and ensuring better prices for their produce . Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) is the government initiative aimed to democratise digital commerce by providing an open network for all stakeholders, including small retailers, to participate in the digital economy.

Digital platforms also foster inclusivity in the labour market. Several freelancing platforms have made it easier for individuals with digital skills to find work, regardless of their location. This phenomenon has particularly benefited people in developing countries, where high unemployment rates and limited local opportunities exist. By enabling people to participate in the global economy from their own homes, the digital economy creates new opportunities for economic mobility.

Despite its potential as a leveller, the digital economy can also exacerbate economic inequality, especially when access to digital resources is unevenly distributed. The "digital divide" , the gap between those who have access to the internet and digital technologies and those who do not, is a significant driver of inequality in the digital economy. In many parts of the world, particularly in rural and low-income areas, access to high-speed internet remains limited. This lack of access prevents individuals and businesses from taking full advantage of digital opportunities , thus reinforcing existing economic disparities.

Furthermore, the digital economy has given rise to a winner-takes-all dynamic in certain industries. Tech giants like Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple dominate their respective markets, amassing vast amounts of wealth and power. This concentration of wealth among a few major players contributes to the widening gap between the rich and the poor. Smaller companies and startups find it challenging to compete with these digital giants, leading to reduced competition and fewer opportunities for smaller players to thrive.

Another factor exacerbating inequality is the polarisation of the labour market. While the digital economy creates high-paying jobs for highly skilled workers in technology and data science , it often leaves low-skilled workers behind. Automation and artificial intelligence (AI) are replacing many low- and medium-skilled jobs, particularly in manufacturing, retail, and transportation. Workers without the skills to transition into the digital economy face unemployment or underemployment, exacerbating economic inequality.

Moreover, the gig economy, a prominent feature of the digital economy, presents mixed outcomes for workers. While gig platforms like Uber, and DoorDash etc. offer flexible work opportunities, they often come with low wages, job insecurity, and a lack of benefits. Workers in these sectors, particularly in developing economies, are vulnerable to exploitation and economic instability, further entrenching inequality.

To ensure that the digital economy acts as a leveller rather than a source of inequality, governments and institutions must implement targeted policy interventions. Bridging the digital divide is essential. Investments in digital infrastructure , particularly in underserved regions, are crucial to ensuring that everyone can participate in the digital economy. This includes expanding access to affordable high-speed internet, providing digital literacy training , and ensuring that marginalised communities have the necessary tools to benefit from digital opportunities.

Moreover, policies aimed at regulating the dominance of tech giants are necessary to foster a competitive digital economy. Regulations that promote fair competition can help create a more level playing field for smaller businesses and startups . Additionally, labour laws that protect gig economy workers and ensure fair wages, job security , and access to benefits are crucial to preventing exploitation and reducing economic inequality.

Educational reforms are also needed to equip workers with the skills required to succeed in the digital economy. Governments should prioritise STEM education and v ocational training, particularly in areas related to technology and data science, to prepare the workforce for the jobs of the future. Lifelong learning programs and reskilling initiatives are also essential for helping workers adapt to the rapidly changing economic landscape.

The digital economy holds immense potential to act as a leveller by democratising access to information, markets, and opportunities. However, without proactive measures to address the digital divide, market concentration, and labour market polarisation, it risks exacerbating economic inequality. The challenge for policymakers, businesses, and societies is to ensure that the benefits of the digital economy are broadly shared, and that no one is left behind in this digital transformation. Through targeted interventions and inclusive policies, the digital economy can become a force for equality, rather than a source of division.

Digital Transformation is a Fundamental Reality for Businesses Today.

— Warren Buffett

Cultural Remittances and Modern Fertility

We argue that migrants played a significant role in the diffusion of the demographic transition from France to the rest of Europe in the late 19th century. Employing novel data on French immigration from other European regions from 1850 to 1930, we find that higher immigration to France translated into lower fertility in the region of origin after a few decades - both in cross-region regressions for various periods, and in a panel setting with region fixed effects. These results are robust to the inclusion of a variety of controls, and across multiple specifications. We also find that immigrants who themselves became French citizens achieved lower fertility, particularly those who moved to French regions with the lowest fertility levels. We interpret these findings in terms of cultural remittances, consistently with insights from a theoretical framework where migrants act as vectors of cultural diffusion, spreading new information, social norms and preferences pertaining to modern fertility to their regions of origin.

We thank Guillaume Blanc, Guillaume Daudin and Casper Worm Hansen for excellent conference discussions. We thank seminar and conference participants at Panthéon-Assas University, the Paris School of Economics, Uppsala University, the University of Manchester, Lund University, UC Riverside, the California Center for Population Research at UCLA, Duke University, San Diego State University, Brown University, PUC-Rio, EIEF, CRETE in Milos, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, University of Luxembourg, Barcelona Summer Forum, Tel-Aviv University, AMSE, Bocconi, IESEG and University of Milan. We also thank Anne-Sophie Bruno, David de la Croix, Petros Milionis, Martín Fernández-Sánchez, James Fenske, Martin Fiszbein, Tomás Guanziroli, Torsten Persson, Thomas Piketty, and Katia Zhuravskaya, for useful comments. We also thank Enjie Jack Ma, Maximilian Doerfler, and Mael Astruc-Le Souder for excellent research assistance. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

MARC RIS BibTeΧ

Download Citation Data

More from NBER

In addition to working papers , the NBER disseminates affiliates’ latest findings through a range of free periodicals — the NBER Reporter , the NBER Digest , the Bulletin on Retirement and Disability , the Bulletin on Health , and the Bulletin on Entrepreneurship — as well as online conference reports , video lectures , and interviews .

2024, 16th Annual Feldstein Lecture, Cecilia E. Rouse," Lessons for Economists from the Pandemic" cover slide

Feldstein Lecture
Presenter: Cecilia E. Rouse

2024 Methods Lecture, Susan Athey, "Analysis and Design of Multi-Armed Bandit Experiments and Policy Learning"

Methods Lectures
Presenter: Susan Athey

2024, Economics of Social Security Panel, "Earnings Inequality and Payroll Tax Revenues"

Panel Discussion
Presenters: Karen Dynan , Karen Glenn, Stephen Goss, Fatih Guvenen & James Pearce

Pardon Our Interruption

As you were browsing something about your browser made us think you were a bot. There are a few reasons this might happen:

You've disabled JavaScript in your web browser.
You're a power user moving through this website with super-human speed.
You've disabled cookies in your web browser.
A third-party browser plugin, such as Ghostery or NoScript, is preventing JavaScript from running. Additional information is available in this support article .

To regain access, please make sure that cookies and JavaScript are enabled before reloading the page.

IMAGES

How To Write A Good Economics Essay Writing Help
📚 Essay Example: Alfred Marshall's Contribution to Modern Economics
In Economics (600 Words)
How to write economics essay
Economics Essays Plans (Topic 1-4)
Master Your Economics Essay With Our Guide

VIDEO

#economics. #studytips
Calicut University 1st Sem Managerial Economics Previous Year Short Essay Questions With Explanation
1st Sem Managerial Economics Previous Year Essay questions
ECONOMICS: MONEY AND BANKING: PART- 7 , Importance of money
10 Problems of Brexit: Why The Economic COSTS Keep Growing
Exam Tip for Market Failure Essay Questions (A level Economics)

COMMENTS

8 Economics Essay Examples
Learn how to write economics essays with quality examples that bridge theory and real-world applications. Explore topics such as fiscal policy, globalization, and government intervention, and get tips for critical thinking and analysis.
The power of economics to explain and shape the world
Learn how economics can help solve major societal problems from Nobel laureates Banerjee and Duflo in 14.009, a first-year discovery subject. Explore topics such as climate change, trade, racism, justice, education, poverty, and more.
PDF Writing Economics
Learn how to write like an economist with this guide that covers the economic approach, language, methods, and topics. Find out how to outline, format, and document your term paper on economics.
100 Economics Essay Topics for Deeper Insight and Understanding
Find out 100 economics essay topics for deeper insight and understanding of different economic phenomena and problems. Explore topics from economic history, macro and microeconomics, healthcare economics, socio-economic analysis, consumerism, public economic development, finance, taxes, human development, labor, and more.
Economics Essay Topics: A Complete List for Deep Analysis
Economics stands as one of the most influential and essential social sciences, deeply intertwined with the functioning of modern society. By examining the flow of value, resources, and decision-making processes, economics impacts nearly every facet of our daily lives, from personal finances and business operations to governmental policies and global markets.
120 Engaging Essay Topics in Economics by GradesFixer
Thus, the study of economics is critical to understanding the complex dynamics of modern societies and economies. It is economics papers topics that provide individuals, businesses, and policymakers with valuable tools to make informed decisions, promote sustainable growth, and address pressing social and economic challenges locally, nationally ...
Economics Essay Topics: 162 Practical Ideas & Useful Tips
Writing an essay on economics? 🤔 Then you're likely in need of a relevant title and guidance. ★ We've got you! Look at our economic essay topics and tips. IvyPanda® Blog. Free Essays; Study Hub. ... Socio-economic status of Hong Kong in modern-day China.
140+ Interesting Economics Essay Topics: Find Perfect Idea
Explore a wide range of economics essay topics, from global markets to economic theories, perfect for students seeking relevant and insightful discussions. Our writers team How to order. ... Discuss how this period laid the foundation for modern capitalism. How World War II Reshaped Global Economies Explore how the war resulted in new ...
Modern Macroeconomic Models as Tools for Economic Policy
This essay describes the current state of macroeconomic modeling and its relationship to the world of policymaking. Modern macro models can be traced back to a revolution that began in the 1980s in response to a powerful critique authored by Robert Lucas (1976). The revolution has led to the use of models that share five key features:
The Making of Modern Economics
This book by Mark Skousen traces the development of economic theory and policy from Adam Smith to the present day. It covers the lives and ideas of the great thinkers, their contributions and challenges, and their impact on the social science of economics.
Essays on: The Nature and State of Modern Economics
These essays are for anyone with an interest in the future of the discipline. Jamie Morgan, Reader in Economics, Leeds Beckett University; Co-editor Real World Economics Review ... The book by Tony Lawson entitled Essays on the nature and state of modern economics comes at a particularly fitting time in the history of the economic academic ...
1.3 How Economists Use Theories and Models to Understand Economic
John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946), one of the greatest economists of the twentieth century, pointed out that economics is not just a subject area but also a way of thinking. Keynes famously wrote in the introduction to a fellow economist's book: "[Economics] is a method rather than a doctrine, an apparatus of the mind, a technique of thinking, which helps its possessor to draw correct ...
1.1 What Is Economics, and Why Is It Important?
The web page failed to load the content about what is economics and why it is important. It suggests restarting the browser or visiting the support center.
21st century crises demand new economic understanding, say top
Leading economists, including Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, Argentina's Minister of Economy Martin Guzman, as well as academics from Oxford, Yale, Columbia, and UCLA, are calling today for a deep shift in how economists understand the overall economy. According to the new thinking, a series of massive economic shocks have left traditional economic theory in pieces and the
Historical Perspectives on Modern Economics
Out of Samuelson's more than eighty articles, essays, and memoirs, the editors of this collection have selected seventeen. Twelve are mathematical reconstructions of some of the most famous work in the history of economic thought - work by David Hume, François Quesnay, Adam Smith, Karl Marx, and others.
Economic Topics for Any Paper [with Great Tips & Examples]
The significance of Adam Smith's "invisible hand" concept in modern economics. Macroeconomic environment: self-correction of the economy. ... First and foremost, economic papers differ from regular ones. Such written works requite research. Otherwise, there is no opportunity for you to get a high grade. ...
Adam Smith: Who He Was, Early Life, Accomplishments and Legacy
Learn about the life, achievements, and legacy of Adam Smith, the father of modern economics. Discover his ideas on free markets, self-interest, and the invisible hand, and how they influenced ...
A Brief History of Economics
Learn how economic theory has evolved from ancient civilizations to modern times, influenced by various factors such as trade, ethics, and statistics. Explore the key contributions of thinkers ...
Essays on the Nature and State of Modern Economics
The result is a collection of previously published and new papers distinguished in providing the only comprehensive and coherent account of these issues currently available. The financial crisis has not only revealed weaknesses of the capitalist economy but also highlighted just how limited and impoverished is modern academic economics.
Economics and the Modern Economic Historian
I reflect on the role of modern economic history in economics. I document a substantial increase in the percentage of papers devoted to economic history in the top-5 economic journals over the last few decades. I discuss how the study of the past has contributed to economics by providing ground to test economic theory, improve economic policy ...
Economics
Learn about various aspects of finance and economy, from household finance to investing, trading, and retirement. Find clear and reliable information, verified by Britannica standards, on topics such as mortgage prequalification, carry trade, artificial intelligence, and more.
Dynamic scoring: A progress report on why, when, and how
The paper summarized here is part of the fall 2024 edition of the Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, the leading conference series and journal in economics for timely, cutting-edge research ...
(PDF) Modern economic theory and development
Modern Economic Theory and Development Karla Hoff Joseph E. Stiglitz THE PAST 50 YEARS have seen marked changes in our understanding of development. ... American Economic Review, Papers and Proceedings, 83 (2): 409-414. Myers, S.C. and N. Majluf. 1984. "Corporate Financing and Investment Decisions When Firms Have Information that Investors Do ...
Essays on: The Nature and State of Modern Economics (Economics as
The book by Tony Lawson entitled Essays on the nature and state of modern economics comes at a particularly fitting time in the history of the economic academic discipline. After what has been regarded by many as one of its major setbacks―namely the failure to predict the 2008 global financial crisis―economics has been severely shaken ...
Digital Economy: A Leveller or A Source of Economic Inequality
Workers in these sectors, particularly in developing economies, are vulnerable to exploitation and economic instability, further entrenching inequality. To ensure that the digital economy acts as a leveller rather than a source of inequality, governments and institutions must implement targeted policy interventions.
Cultural Remittances and Modern Fertility
We argue that migrants played a significant role in the diffusion of the demographic transition from France to the rest of Europe in the late 19th century. Employing novel data on French immigration from other European regions from 1850 to 1930, we find that higher immigration to France translated ...
China essay (docx)
China: A Historical Tapestry of Civilization, Culture, and Modern Development China, the world's most populous country and a global economic powerhouse, boasts a history that spans over 5,000 years. This ancient civilization has undergone significant transformations, influencing not only its own development but also shaping the course of human history.

Economics Essay Examples

Ace Your Essay With Our Economics Essay Examples

What is an Economics Essay?

Why Write an Economics Essay?

A Level Economics Essay Examples

Band 6 Economics Essay Examples

Economics Extended Essay Examples

IB Economics Extended Essay Examples

Tips for Writing an Economics Essay

MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Departments

Centers, Labs, & Programs

The power of economics to explain and shape the world

Share this news article on:

Related Links

Related Topics

Related Articles

Popular new major blends technical skills and human-centered applications

Report: Economics drives migration from Central America to the U.S.

MIT economists Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee win Nobel Prize

How social structure influences the way people share money

New security protocol shields data from attackers during cloud-based computation

Mars’ missing atmosphere could be hiding in plain sight

Startup helps people fall asleep by aligning audio signals with brainwaves

Study evaluates impacts of summer heat in U.S. prison environments

Fifteen Lincoln Laboratory technologies receive 2024 R&D 100 Awards

Great Economics Essay Topics for Deeper Insight and Understanding

Economic History Topics

Macro and Microeconomics Essay Topics

Healthcare Economics Essay Topics

Socio-Economic Analysis Essay Topics

Consumerism-Related Topics for Research Papers

Public Economic Development Essay Topics

Topics for Finance Economic Paper

Essay Topics about Taxes

Economic Analysis on Human Development Paper Topic Ideas

Labor and Economic Growth Essay Topics

Essay Topics on the Economic Theory of Employment

Readers also enjoyed

WHY WAIT? PLACE AN ORDER RIGHT NOW!

Economics Essay Topics: A Complete List for Deep Analysis

Tips for Choosing Compelling Economics Topics

Prominent economics areas to explore

Economics Essay Topics

World Economics Essay Questions

Macroeconomics Essay Topics

Microeconomics Essay Topics

Save your time! We can take care of your essay

Healthcare Economics Essay Topics

Consumerism Essay Topics

Finance Paper Topics

Socio-Economic Essay Topics

Economic History Topics

Tax Topics for an Essay

Human Development Essay Topics

Final thoughts

Was this helpful?

Written by David Kidwell

Related Blog Posts

150+ Personal Essay Topics to Spark Your Creativity

100+ Engaging Evaluation Essay Topics: From Internet Trends to Cultural Identity

Join our 150K of happy users

120 Essay Topic in Economics: Useful Ideas and Tips

✨ Most Popular Economic Essay Topics

💡 Important Economic Essay Topics

Socio-Economic Essay Topics

International Economics Essay Topics

Labor Economics Essay Topic Ideas

Essay Topics in the Economics of Sports

Essay Topics on City Economics

Business Economics Essay Topics

💫 Tips on How to Write Your Essay in Economics

Economics Essay Topics You’ll Actually Want to Write About

Economics Essay Topics For Students

Economics Essay Topics For High School Students

Economics Essay Topics for College Students

Economics Essay Topics for University Students

Economics Essay Topics by Categories

Macroeconomics Essay Topics

Managerial Economics Essay Topics