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各位读者好！今天的文章将探索经济学的定义。
经济学的定义并没有在一开始就被准确地描述出来，它的定义在时间的长河中不断地调整和被纠正。在接下来的内容里，你将看到由四个不同经济学家所发表出的经济学定义：
- “经济学是对国家财富性质和原因的调查。”—亚当·斯密
- “经济学是人类在日常生活事物中的学问。 它研究个人和社会活动中物质资源的获得、福利、及其利用（使用）的相关部分。”—阿尔弗雷德·马歇尔
- “经济学是一门研究人类行为最终目的和稀缺财产之间关系的科学，而后者可能有多种用途。”—莱昂内尔·罗宾斯
- “经济学是关于人类和社会如何选择使用稀缺的生产资源的方法，不论其包不包括金钱的使用亦或者这些资源可能具有其他用途，并随着时间的推移生产各种商品并将其分配给现在和将来供不同人和社会团体使用。”—保罗·萨缪尔森
定义的发表顺序(从最早到最新)为亚当·斯密到保罗·萨缪尔森。我们可以看到每一位经济学家都对经济学彰显出了更全面的认知，更将一些新的思考方面纳入了定义中使其更加清晰精确。
根据亚当·斯密给出的第一个定义，他认为经济学只专注于金钱财富的研究。但其实这并不准确，原因在于他忽略了经济学中非金钱相关的部分，而这也就把我们带到了阿尔弗雷德·马歇尔的定义。他将经济学定义为对财富和人类自身的平衡研究，后者涉及到人类的行为、思想、选择......他减少了亚当·斯密之前对财富部分的高度关注从而纠正了不准确性。但是，亚当·斯密和阿尔弗雷德·马歇尔都没有在自己的定义中提及一个在经济学研究中极其关键的方面--也就是在接下来莱昂内尔·罗宾斯的定义中提到的“稀缺资源的分配”。在我们做出任何行动之前，我们总是要考虑稀缺资源的因素--因为在这个世界里，几乎所有我们的资源都不是无限的，因此不论是个人和群体，都必须要对这些资源进行明智地分析安排以此来获得最大利益。莱昂内尔·罗宾斯对于经济学的定义有着更全面的定义，他提供了原因(稀缺资源)到结果(人类行动)的链条。但如果单单按照他的定义，经济学只包含了较为微观的个体行为分析，而阻碍了GDP、国民收入等宏观概念的学习，因此其仍存在一定的缺陷。到目前为止，前三个定义中出现了三个经济学特征:财富、人类行为和稀缺资源的分配，但它们并没有联系在一个单一的定义中——直到20世纪经济学家保罗·萨缪尔森提出了他的定义。保罗·萨缪尔森在他的定义中不仅连接了之前经济学所有的三个部分，而且他用“消费”这个词来暗示了一个新的特征，即人类在生活中无尽的需求，因为需求驱动人们做出选择和行动，所以经济学家应当把这一部分纳入学习之中。简单概括一下他的定义：经济学是研究人们如何合理安放稀缺资源来生产商品以满足自己需求的学问，这些选择可能与货币有关亦可能无关且这些稀缺资源也有多种用途。总体而言，保罗·萨缪尔森相对而言构建了最全面、最精确的经济学定义，其接受度也是最高的。
作为今天文章的结尾，这里罗列出了一个经济学定义应该包括的方面:
- 满足需求
- 人类行为和选择
- 稀缺资源的分配
- 财富/非财富
借阅文献：
- Corporate Finance Institute. &#34;What is Economics - Definitions, Criticisms. Modern Economic Theory.&#34; Corporate Finance Institute. n.d. Web. 31 Jul. 2020. <https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/knowledge/economics/what-is-economics/>
- Nicolas Zou，2020.8.2
（未经允许不得转载。如果你有好的建议可以写在评论区里或私信给我。谢谢大家的支持！)
<hr/>Hi everyone! Today’s article will be exploring the definition of economics.
The definition of economics was not described accurately in the first place, it has been adjusting and correcting throughout time. In the following content you will see four economics’ definitions given by different economists:
- “Economics is an inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations.” — Adam Smith
- “Economics is the study of mankind in the ordinary business of life. It examines that part of the individual and social activities that are closely related to the attainment of material resources, to welfare, and its utilization.” — Alfred Marshall
- “Economics is the science which studies human behavior as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses.” — Lionel Robbin
- “Economics is the study of how people and society choose, with or without the use of money, to employ scarce productive resources which could have alternative uses, to produce various commodities over time and distribute them for consumption now and in the future among various persons and groups of society.” — Paul A. Samuelson
The publication order of the definitions--from the earliest to the most contemporary--is Adam Smith to Paul A. Samuelson. We can see that each economist had gradually developed a more precise understanding of the economics, also, new aspects were being formulated into the subject&#39;s definitions to make it more comprehensive.
Based on the first definition given by Adam Smith, he thought that economics only concentrated on wealth, money, etc. However, this is not accurate: He ignored the aspects of economics that are non-wealth related. This then leads us to Alfred Marshall&#39;s definition. He defined economics as the balancing study of both wealth and mankind itself, the latter involves human behaviors, thoughts, choices... He reduced the high focus of wealth by proposing the part of human beings into the definition, which corrected the inaccuracy. But still, two of them did not mention a vital feature, until Lionel Robbin brought this into the subject: The allocation fo the scarce resources. As we all know, almost all the resources we owned are not infinite, therefore it is essential for people--individuals and groups--to arrange them wisely to achieve the maximum profit, therefore the scarce resources are always being considered before we make any actions. Compare Lionel&#39;s definition with Alfred&#39;s, the former drew a more comprehensive definition that includes cause (scarce resources) and effect (human behaviors). Though according to Lionel&#39;s definition, economics is about microeconomics which only analyzing the action of individuals, and this prevented the involvement of macroeconomic concepts such as GDP and national income, so there are still certain drawbacks. By this far, three features appeared in the first three definitions: Wealth, human behaviors, and allocation of scarce resources, but they were not connected in a single definition--Until the 20th-century economist, Paul Samuelson proposed his. Paul A. Samuelson not only connected all the previous features in his definition, but he used the word &#34;consumption&#34; to indicate a new feature, which is humans&#39; limitless wants since human behaviors are always driven by wants, so economists should take this aspect into study. To sum up his definition, economics is the study of how people allocate scarce resources to produce goods to fulfill their wants, these choices may or may not be money-related and those scarce resources also have multiple uses. In conclusion, Paul A. Samuelson has relatively constructed the most comprehensive and most precise definition of economics, moreover, it is the definition that has most acceptances.
To finish up today&#39;s article, here is a list of aspects that should include in an economics definition:
- Fulfilling wants
- Human behavior and choices
- Allocation of scarce resources
- Wealth/non-wealth
Bibliography:
- Corporate Finance Institute. &#34;What is Economics - Definitions, Criticisms. Modern Economic Theory.&#34; Corporate Finance Institute. n.d. Web. 31 Jul. 2020. <https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/knowledge/economics/what-is-economics/>
-Nicolas Zou, 2020.8.2
(Cannot reprint without permission. If you have any good advice and suggestions, please leave them in the comment section or tell me privately. Thank everyone for the support!) |
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发表于 2022-12-8 08:24:02
