When people hear ‘economics’ they often think about stock prices, the Federal Reserve, political debates, GDP numbers, or international trade agreements, but in reality, economics is the study of human beings. From the individual to groups of people acting as a business to the citizens of an entire nation, economists seek to understand complex systems by examining the behaviors and decisions made by human beings. What are the forces and pressures that shape our individual and collective choices? How does the scarcity, abundance, distribution, and consumption of resources change our behavior and our world? The tools and knowledge to answer these questions position economists at the heart of society’s most important issues.
In order to change and improve the world – we must understand it – and studying economics is one of the best pathways to unravel why the world moves in the way that it does.