Economics

Traditionally economics has been defined to be a science, which studies how societies solve their economic problems. An economic problem exists only when there are scarce means, which can be used to satisfy alternative ends. Nowadays more emphasis is put on defining economics as a set of tools, with which one can understand many types of phenomena in different types of societies.

Economics is an important component of almost any business school curriculum. Many of the topics (if not all) are relevant for business education. It is important to understand, for instance how the degree of competition affects the behaviour of firms, how the international risks affect the domestic firms, what are the efficient ways of organising economic activity in different competitive environments, and so on.

The topics of interest for economics are rather diverse. The traditional division is to micro- and macroeconomics. In addition to these two main branches economics is divided into narrower subfields, which concentrate on specific problems. International economics, industrial organisation, money and banking, public finance, economic development, and environmental and resource economics are examples of such specialised areas of economics. Since economics is a tool oriented science a lot of emphasis in the curriculum is placed especially on quantitative methods and their applications to relevant problems.