Economics is the study of how societies manage scarce resources. It answers the three fundamental questions every society must face: What to produce? How to produce it? For whom to produce it? From a village market to global trade — economics explains how the world works financially.
The field splits into two branches: microeconomics (individual behavior — how consumers buy, how firms price, how workers negotiate) and macroeconomics (the big picture — GDP, inflation, unemployment, national policies). Both work together to give a complete picture of economic activity.
Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations" (1776) is considered the birth of modern economics. Since then, giants like David Ricardo, Karl Marx, John Maynard Keynes, Milton Friedman, and Amartya Sen have shaped the discipline. Today, economics influences everything from central bank decisions to climate policy to healthcare reform.