Economics is all around us.  Economics is the social science that studies the behavior of individuals, groups, and organizations when the manage or use scarce resources, which have alternative uses, to acheive desired ends.  In other words, people make choices about how to use limited resources, decide the ownership of resources, and structure markets for the distrubution of goods and services.  

 

There are nine concepts needed to understand the basics of economics:  scarcity, resources, choice, opportunity cost, price, incentives, production, consumption, and supply & demand.  Each of these concepts are closely tied to the others, so much so, that it is hard to define them independently.