Economics is a social science that seeks to analyze and describe the production, distribution, and consumption of wealth. The word "economics" is from the Greek nomos" target="_blank" >^*, "custom, law," and hence means "household management." "management of the state." An economist is a person using economic concepts and data in the course of employment, or someone who has earned a university degree in the subject.

The classic brief definition of economics, set out by Lionel Robbins in 1932, is "the science which studies human behavior as a relation between scarce means having alternative uses." Briefer yet is "the study of how people seek to satisfy needs and wants." Absent scarcity and alternative uses, there is no economic problem.Economics can also be defined as the study of "The financial aspects of human behaviour."

The subject has two broad branches: microeconomics, where the unit of analysis is the individual agent, such as a household, firm (economics jargon for a "business"), or government department, and macroeconomics, where the unit of analysis is the nation state. Another division of the subject distinguishes positive economics, which seeks to predict and explain economic phenomena, from normative economics, which orders choices and actions by some criterion; such orderings necessarily involve subjective value judgments.

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UC Davis News: General Interest

Public Lecture: The Individual or the Group
Mon, 13 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700
Oct. 21, Tuesday -- Physicist, pacifist and independent thinker Freeman Dyson will give a free, public lecture, "The Individual or the Group?" at 7 p.m. in the AGR room of the Buehler Alumni and Visitors Center on the UC Davis campus. Dyson will discuss how his thinking on this basic question, which is at the root of our ethics, laws and politics, has been influenced by scholars in the humanities, law and evolutionary biology. Dyson has written several popular books about science and the future of mankind, including "Disturbing the Universe," "Weapons and Hope," "Origins of Life," "Infinite in All Directions," "Imagined Worlds," and "The Sun, the Genome and the Internet." He is currently professor emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University. He has received numerous awards, including the Lewis Thomas Prize in 1996, honoring the Scientist as Poet. In 2000, he received the $1 million Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion from the Templeton Foundation. Dyson's visit to UC Davis is part of the Department of Physics' Centennial Speaker Series, supported by contributions from members of the department, by the Office of the Chancellor and Provost and by the dean of Mathematical and Physical Sciences.
Risque Subjects and Risky Politics
Mon, 13 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700
Oct. 14, Tuesday -- Back before the Internet, how did an ordinary person learn about risque subjects and risky politics? Through "little blue books," published for a nickel apiece, which sold hundreds of thousands of copies a year through much of the 20th century. Essayist, critic and blogger Scott McLemee will talk about the blue books, how ideas get out and how idea-peddlers make money from people's desire to learn on Tuesday, Oct. 14, at Bistro 33, 226 F St., Davis. His talk, "Sex, Socialism and Self-Education," will begin at 5:30 p.m. followed by a reception at 7 p.m. The event is free and open to the public. McLemee has been a maverick voice on culture and politics for more than a decade. A former contributing editor for Lingua Franca and senior writer at the Chronicle of Higher Education, in 2005 he helped start the online news journal Inside Higher Ed, where he serves as essayist at large, writing a weekly column called Intellectual Affairs. He also blogs at the online arts journal Quick Study. He is a winner of the National Book Critics Circle award for excellence in reviewing. The talk is part of the Public Intellectuals Forum, a series of public lectures sponsored by the UC Davis Humanities Institute and UC Davis Center for History, Society and Culture. For more information, contact Jennifer Langdon at (530) 754-0331 or visit http://dhi.ucdavis.edu/?page_id=651.
Latino Spin: Public Image and the Whitewashing of Race
Mon, 13 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700
Nov. 6, Thursday -- Illegal immigrant, tax burden, job stealer. Patriot, family-oriented, hard worker, model consumer. Since becoming the largest minority group in the U.S., Latinos have been caught between these wildly contrasting images. Arlene Davila, a cultural anthropology professor at New York University, will explore what these caricatures suggest about Latinos' shifting place in the popular and political imagination in a free public lecture on Thursday, Nov. 6, at Bistro 33, 226 F St., Davis. Her talk, "Latino Spin: Public Image and the Whitewashing of Race," will begin at 5:30 p.m. followed by a reception at 7 p.m. The event is free and open to the public. Described by Dominican-American writer Junot Diaz as "the finest, fiercest and most piercing of our public intellectuals," Davila is a professor of anthropology and American studies at New York University and the author of "Barrio Dreams: Puerto Ricans, Latinos, and the Neoliberal City" and "Latinos Inc: Marketing and the Making of a People." The talk is part of the Public Intellectuals Forum, a series of public lectures sponsored by the UC Davis Humanities Institute and UC Davis Center for History, Society and Culture. For more information, contact Jennifer Langdon at (530) 754-0331 or visit http://dhi.ucdavis.edu/?page_id=651.

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