I want to learn economic knowledge. Where should I start? What books are you reading?

1. Economy is economy and frugality in production or life. The former includes saving money, materials and labor. In the final analysis, it is to save labor time, that is, to use as little labor consumption as possible and produce as many achievements as possible that society needs. The latter means that individuals or families are careful in their daily consumption and meet their greatest needs with less consumer goods. In short, economy is to achieve greater results or benefits in the form of less human, material, financial, time, space and other economic activities;

2. Economy is the income and expenditure of a country, an enterprise or an individual, such as gross national product, total social output value, output and benefit of an enterprise, income and expenditure of an individual, etc.

3. Economy is the synthesis and simplification of the words "help the world through the country", "help the world through the country" or "help the people through the world". (For example, "Knowing the Bureau to Help" (The Book of Jin) and "Everyone has a way to help, but they don't agree" (Sui Shuo Wen, Volume 6). Its meaning includes how the state manages finance, how to manage various economic activities, how to deal with political, legal, military, educational and other issues, that is, the meaning of governing the country and calming the world;

4. Economy is family management (see Xenophon [Ancient Greece]: On Economy);

5. Economy is a kind of livelihood, a valuable thing necessary for life and useful for family and country (see Aristotle's: Politics in Ancient Greece).

Explain that 1 and 2 reflect idioms in people's daily life; The third explanation is the usage of the word economy in ancient China; The fourth and fifth explanations are the usage of the word economy in ancient Greece.

Second, the interpretation of traditional political economy works

6. Economy refers to the sum of social relations of production. It refers to the sum of production relations or socio-economic systems that people form in the process of material production and are suitable for certain social productive forces, and it is the basis for the establishment of superstructure such as politics, law, philosophy, religion, literature and art;

7. Economy refers to the process of production and reproduction of social material materials. Including the direct production process of material data and the exchange, distribution and consumption process determined by it. Its content includes productivity and production relations, but mainly refers to productivity;

8. Economy refers to the national economy of a country. Including all the material production departments and their activities of a country and some non-material production departments and their activities. We usually talk about the economic situation of different countries from the perspective of national economy (this definition makes a logical mistake, that is, circular definition).

Third, Russian economists explained that

9. Economy is all activities that follow certain economic principles under any circumstances and strive to get the maximum benefit at the least cost;

10. Economy is the sum total of actions taken by people other than human beings in nature in order to create the necessary material environment to meet our needs instead of pursuing enjoyment (see the reference [Russia] M.N Governor-Balanovschi: Principles of Political Economy).

western economics

In western economics, economists have given various definitions to economics, but the definition of economy is vague. They think that the research object of economics is economy, and the most basic concept of economy is a clear and self-evident entity, so there is no clear definition of the word economy in western economics so far. Therefore, their definition of economics is also in a state of confusion. We can only infer the "definition" of economy from its definition of economics.

1 1. Economy refers to wealth;

12. Economy is a scarce resource provided by nature and predecessors, and human beings and society choose to use it;

13. Economy refers to the use of scarce resources to produce valuable goods and distribute them to different individuals;

14. Economy refers to people's life affairs;

15. Saving refers to allocating scarce resources to different and competing needs and meeting these needs to the greatest extent;

16. Economy refers to the effective allocation of scarce resources to competing purposes;

17. Economy refers to the choices made by individuals, enterprises, governments and other organizations in society, which determine the use of scarce social resources;

18. Economy means that society manages its own scarce resources;

19. Economy refers to the choices made by individuals, manufacturers, governments and other organizations in our society, which determine the utilization of social resources;

20. Economy refers to determining the prices of labor, capital and land in economic activities and using these prices to allocate resources; Financial markets 2 1. Economy refers to the behavior of financial markets, which allocate capital to other economic sectors;

22. Economy means to distribute income and help people without damaging economic operation;

23. Economy refers to the influence of government expenditure, tax revenue, budget and deficit on economic growth;

24. Economy refers to unemployment and production fluctuations in the economic cycle, as well as policies to improve economic growth;

25. Economy refers to the influence of trade barriers on the trade patterns of countries;

26. Economy refers to the development of developing countries and the effective use of resources;

27. Economy refers to certain social production, exchange, distribution, consumption and other economic activities, economic relations and economic laws;

28. Economy refers to using limited resources for different purposes;

29. Economy refers to the whole process of resource allocation and all the factors that determine resource allocation.

classify

1. From the research scope: macroeconomics, meso-economics, microeconomics.

2. From the perspective of historical development: family economics, political economics.

3. From the way the government participates in economic development: market economy and planned economy.

4. From the economic subject: government economy (also known as public economy or public sector economy) and non-government economy (including enterprise economy, etc. ).

5. From the perspective of economic research objects: financial economics, industrial economics, etc.

research objects

Because economic thoughts and theories are influenced by social, historical, class and other factors, the research object of economics will inevitably change with the changes of historical times. In the history of western economics, its research objects can be summarized as follows.

1 wealth theory.

Wealth theory is an economic object theory with the earliest age, the longest history and the largest number of holders. Economic thoughts of ancient Greek and Roman scholars. Most economists before neoclassical economics had this kind of object theory. Xenophon, an ancient Greek and Roman thinker, wrote the book Economic Theory, which specializes in the study of family wealth and its growth. Mercantilists are more keen on studying wealth than their predecessors. They focus on the form (gold and silver), generation (circulation field) and growth path (gold and silver mining and foreign trade) of wealth.

The research objects of classical economists are mostly wealth theory. William petty, a British classical economist, took how to increase national tax revenue and wealth as the research object in his works, and put forward the famous conclusion that "land is the mother of wealth and labor is the father of wealth" in his (tax theory). Adam Smith, a master of classical economics, wrote in The Wealth of Nations: It is to study the nature and causes of national wealth and the way of wealth growth. David ricardo followed Smith's theory of wealth object, but paid special attention to the distribution of wealth. He regards the distribution of wealth as the research object of political economy.

Said, a French economist, also pointed out in his book Introduction to Political Economy published in 1803 that political economy is a science that "explains how wealth is produced, distributed and consumed". On this basis, he divided political economy into three parts: production, distribution and consumption, and established a dichotomy. James mill is in his.

2. Historical or systematic theory.

As the main opponent of classical economics, the German school of history in the19th century has always placed history in an extremely important position in economic research and insisted on establishing classics centered on nation-states. /kloc-At the beginning of the 9th century, adam muller thought that political economy had two purposes: to greatly satisfy individual interests and strengthen the whole national family, and the latter was the main one. Liszt, the pioneer of German historical school, put forward that national economics is opposite to cosmopolitan economics. He believes that national economics represents the interests of economically backward countries, and its research object is the way to prosperity of backward countries. Cosmopolitan economics represents the interests of economically developed countries and its research object is the world economy. Luo, the founder of the historical school, pointed out that national economics or political economics is a science to explore the law of a country's economic development, and economics should be closely related to and based on laws, countries, religions and other disciplines. Hildebrand claimed that economics should produce an economic history of cultural history, which is closely related to other branches of history and statistics. Shmuler, a representative of the New Historical School, further distinguished between national economics and national economics, holding that the research object of national economics is national economy, while the research object of national economics is national organizational structure and economic function. American institutional school regards institution as the driving force of social and economic development and changes, and its fundamental feature is to pay attention to institutional research. Van Buren, an American institutional scholar, believes that economics should study the influence of the origin and evolution of institutions on the corresponding social and economic relations. Kang Mangsi directly named his book (Institutional Economics), thinking that institutional economics is a theory about the role of collective actions (customs, families, companies, countries, etc.). ) in controlling personal actions.

3. The theory of human desire and its satisfaction.

Sismondi and Rochelle both mentioned "people" in economic research. But the concept of people they say is rather vague.

Masha, the pioneer of the subjective economic school, clearly pointed out in (economic harmony) that "the object of political economy is people" and explained that "desire, effort and satisfaction are people in the economic point of view". Meng Le of Austrian School clearly defined the research object of political economy as human desire and its satisfaction. He divided economics into applied economics, historical statistical economics and theoretical economics. It is pointed out that theoretical economics studies the conditions for human beings to prepare for satisfying their desires. Pombavik and Vizer still regard human desire and its satisfaction as the research object of political economy. Jevons also pointed out that economics is a calculus of happiness and pain.

4. The comprehensive theory of man and wealth.

Marshall, a famous British economist, synthesized various research objects about economics when the view that economics is a wealth science was opposed and the definition of researchers was difficult to justify. In the book Principles of Economics, it is pointed out that on the one hand, economics is a science to study wealth, on the other hand, it is also a more important aspect, and it is a part of the discipline to study people.

5. The theory of human choice behavior.

In 1932, Robbins summed up the similarities and differences of many economists' economic concepts, and put forward a classic definition of economics in this paper: "Economics is a human behavioral science that studies the relationship between purpose and scarce means with alternative uses". This shows that the emergence of economics lies in the contradiction between human endless desire and commodity scarcity. Hicks' this also shows more clearly that political economy is a science that studies human behavior choices. Paul samuelson, a famous contemporary American economist, wrote in his book Economics that economics is a science that studies how people and society make the final choice.

6. Macroeconomic behavior theory.

The representative figure of macroeconomic behavior theory is the famous British economist Keynes. Economics before Keynesian Revolution mostly analyzed microeconomic behaviors, such as studying the economic behaviors of a single consumer product, a single market or a single enterprise or industry, which mostly belonged to microeconomics. On the research object of economics, Keynes turned from microeconomic behavior analysis to macroeconomic behavior analysis. Keynes emphasized the gross research of national income, total employment, total demand and total supply, and emphasized "how to make all resources in this system achieve the most suitable employment in the whole economic system". The publication of 1936 Keynes (general theory of employment, interest and money) marked the emergence of macroeconomics.

7. The fusion theory of microeconomic behavior and macro research.

In order to make up for the defect that Keynesian economics only pays attention to macroeconomic analysis and ignores microeconomic analysis, some contemporary economists combine Keynesian macroeconomic theory with neoclassical microeconomic theory. They divide economics into microeconomics and macroeconomics based on the scarcity law. Microeconomics takes resource allocation as the research object, because resources are scarce. Macroeconomics takes the utilization of resources as the research object, because there will be unreasonable utilization of resources in the allocation of resources, and there will be problems of idle or waste of resources. The rational utilization of scarce resources requires state intervention. The allocation and utilization of resources can be solved by different ways and means, which involves the economic system. Many contemporary economists advocate the establishment of a mixed economic system. In this system, there are both a free market economy in which the market mechanism plays a role, and an economy in which the state intervenes in economic life and macro-control. To sum up, the definition of economics should be to study the allocation and utilization of scarce resources under a certain economic system. This definition involves four issues: first, scarce resources, which is the basis of economics and the starting point of research; The second is resource allocation, which belongs to the research object of microeconomics; The third is the utilization of resources, which belongs to the research object of macroeconomics; The fourth is the economic system, because both microeconomics and macroeconomics involve economic system issues.

8. Generalized object theory.

There are two viewpoints of generalized object theory: (1) lateral analysis. This view holds that economics is a science that studies economic theory, economic problems and economic policies. It defines the research object of economics as economic theory, economic problems and economic policies. (2) Vertical and horizontal analysis. According to this view, the research object of economics includes six aspects, namely, origin, schools, theories, methods, problems and policies.

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Related nouns

market economy

Basic characteristics of market economy: As a way of resource allocation, market economy has some basic characteristics that are similar to each other under any social and economic system. These basic characteristics constitute the fundamental difference between market economy and planned economy: the prosperous and independent enterprise system brought by market economy.

Independent market subject is the cornerstone of market economy, and enterprise is the most important market subject. In a market economy, what to produce, how much to produce and how to produce are determined by the scale and structure of market demand, and enterprises should respond flexibly to market supply and demand, competition and price changes. Therefore, enterprises must have independent property rights, be able to participate in market economic activities independently, and implement independent management, self-financing and budget constraint hardening. The independent enterprise system mainly includes three meanings: first, enterprises have clear and independent property rights and are effectively protected by law; Second, enterprises have full decision-making power and can make their own decisions according to changes in market information; Third, enterprises bear civil liability for their own decisions and actions.

Perfect market system

In order to improve efficiency and optimize resource allocation, the market mechanism must have a perfect market system. A perfect market system requires that there must be enough buyers and sellers in the market to fully compete with each other and avoid monopoly by buyers or sellers, otherwise the full play of the market resource allocation function will be limited.

Open market space

Market economy is a highly developed commodity economy based on socialized mass production. With the deepening of social division of labor and the growth of social production, it is necessary to expand the market, which requires all ethnic groups, regions and countries to become an interdependent organic whole and unite scattered local markets into a unified national market; Integrate the domestic market into the world market. The market economy is essentially open and borderless, and the internationalization of the flow of production factors such as capital and labor is the inevitable product and basic feature of the market economy.

Sound legal basis

Market access, market transactions, market competition, etc. in the operation of market economy must be regulated, guaranteed and constrained by laws, and government management departments should also coordinate and manage various economic activities in the market according to corresponding laws and regulations. Without a good legal environment, there is no fundamental guarantee for the independence of market subjects, the effectiveness of market competition, the standardization of government behavior and the order of market order. Therefore, fundamentally speaking, a sound legal system is the inherent requirement of the market economy.

Integration of basic resources

The socialist market economy should be based on the extensive integration of resources. Land resources and mineral resources are the basic resources for economic construction and development, and should be rationally developed and utilized, so that a large number of basic economic resources can be used as the follow-up reserves for economic development. Only by establishing a long-term and effective supply system of economic resources can we ensure the long-term and stable development of the market economy.

Bubble/bubble economy

Cihai (1999 edition) has a more accurate explanation. "Bubble economy: the excessive growth of virtual capital and the continuous expansion of related transactions are increasingly divorced from the growth of physical capital and industrial sectors. The prices of financial securities and real estate are soaring, and speculative transactions are extremely active. The bubble economy lies in financial speculation, causing false prosperity of social economy, and finally the bubble will burst, leading to social shock and even economic collapse. "

External effect

Economic externality, also known as economic activity externality, is an important concept in economics. It means that in social and economic activities, the behavior of one economic subject (country, enterprise or individual) directly affects another corresponding economic subject, but externalities appear without corresponding payment or compensation. Economic externalities are also called external costs, external effects or spillover effects. Externality can be positive or negative. Economic externalities are the non-market effects of economic activities of economic subjects (including manufacturers or individuals) on others and society. Divided into positive externalities and negative externalities. Positive externality means that the activities of an economic subject are beneficial to others or society, and the beneficiaries do not have to pay the price. Negative externalities mean that the activities of an economic subject harm others or society, but those who cause external diseconomy do not bear the cost of economic externalities.

Externality was first proposed by Marshall, a British economist, in his classic book Principles of Economics, and it has been nearly 1 10 years. The so-called externality, also known as externality or spillover effect, refers to the external influence of the activities of a person or an enterprise on others or other enterprises. This influence does not occur in the price-based exchange between the parties concerned, so its influence is external. More precisely, the external economic effect is the influence of one economic subject's behavior on the welfare of another economic subject, which is difficult to be reflected in currency or market transactions. Economic externalities can be expressed by the utility function of consumers.

Theoretically speaking, it is generally believed that the existence of externalities is one of the defects of market mechanism in allocating resources. In other words, when externalities exist, the market mechanism alone cannot promote the optimal allocation of resources and the maximization of social welfare, and the government should intervene moderately. In reality, externalities, especially external diseconomy, are still a serious social and economic problem, such as environmental pollution or environmental destruction.