Economics Associate in Arts Degree Program

Economics is the study of production, consumption and allocation decisions under conditions of scarcity, or as economist Steven Landsburg says, "People respond to incentives. Everything else is noise.". The field is broken down into macroeconomics, the performance of the economy as a whole, and microeconomics, the economic behavior of consumers or firms. Macroeconomics includes topics such as economic growth, inflation, changes in employment and unemployment, international trade performance, and the relative success or failure of government and Federal Reserve economic policies. The general concern of microeconomics, on the other hand, is the efficient allocation of scarce resources between alternative uses. Therefore, microeconomics looks at the determination of price through the optimizing behavior of consumers and firms, with consumers seeking to maximize happiness and firms, profit.