The subject of economic science, methodology and stages of development

define the subject of economics in the course of its formation and development was not immediately apparent.To describe this concept in a few words is impossible.No brief definition reveals grasped the essence of economics phenomena.

subject of economics determined by different researchers in different ways.You can specify such definitions as "activities related to the exchange and cash transactions," "daily business life, in which the extracted livelihoods and their use", "the behavior of people in the production, distribution, exchange and consumption of goods of a material nature" andpr.

complexity of determining the subject matter of this science due to the fact that economic relations are very complicated and intertwined numerous times, each time resulting in the qualitatively new kinds of relationships.They include millions of people, companies, industries, products, services and prices.

subject of economics in understanding Western researchers reduced to the study of phenomena and the description of the facts of economic nature: money markets, credit relations, unemployment, inflation, supply, demand, profits, etc.In this context, we study the connection between these phenomena and their mutual interdependence.

Currently, more attention is drawn to the study of human values, which are derived from the process of so-called natural self-life, the laws of human interaction with nature and the material medium.This leads to the fact that the subject treated economics begins with some modifications.

As for the man of her life has not found a source of inexhaustible resource that you can use for their own livelihoods, it is highly dependent on what nature provides it.The limited natural resources also poses society the task of selecting destinations, as well as ways to use the resources that are available to him in the presence of a certain period.Methods for solving these problems are the subject of economics.

methodology of economics - is the study of its methods.At the present stage of the science of economics has a wide range of methods used for the understanding of economic realities.These methods formed since antiquity, starting with Aristotle and Heraclitus, laid the foundation for a dialectical view of the world.This principle is still widely used economic science in its research.

In addition, it uses methods such as the study of the processes of the economy in relation phenomena and their development, as a synthesis and analysis, deduction and induction, of cause and effect, distinguishing the essence and phenomena themselves, the movement of thought from the abstract to the concrete, and many others.

However, economic science has and specific research methods, which are due to the specific objectives of the objects of scientific research.The main principle of economics is the study of the facts, and not defined a priori dogma.To this end, it uses specific methods of the study, classification of representative and reliable facts, their analysis and synthesis, purification of the facts from accidental and inessential.On the basis of this conclusion, the economic laws and models.

Stages of development economics in general can be reduced to four periods:

  1. pre-scientific development (18 th century)
  2. origin of economics (1750-1870 gg.)
  3. Discovery and development of the main basic principles of economicTheory (1870-1930 gg.)
  4. Modern theoretical research and development (after 1930).

main stages of development of the economic thought - a mercantilism, classical political economists (physiocrats, market school), Marxist political economy and economics line (neoclassical and neokeynsianty).