Economics. The word conjures up all sorts of images: manic stock traders on Wall Street, an economic summit meeting in a European capital, a somber television news anchor announcing good or bad news about the economy. . . . You probably hear about economics several times each day. What exactly is economics? First, economics is a social science. It seeks to explain something about society, just like other social sciences, such as psychology, sociology, and political science. But economics is different from these other social sciences because of what economists study and how they study it. Economists ask different questions, and they answer them using tools that other social.
