how do u mean by economics as a science?

Question

i know economist do not go to the laboritries for experiment so why then say economics is a science.

Answer 1

There is a question inside of your question. And this question is, "What IS science?".

The easiest way to describe science is as whatever is produced by using the scientific method. This is a process founded principally upon objective measurement. Something is objective if it doesn't matter who does it, where, or when, as long as the correct steps are followed in the production and observation of the phenomenon. And this requirement of being objective is actually a pretty strict one.

One example of such is that it usually requires some kind of constant, external reference point. You can't just say, "Does it take a long time for the bus to arrive?" - different people have completely different ideas of what a long time is. Instead, you use some kind a timepiece so that anyone who measures with a correct timepiece will get the same answer.

Requiring measurement is essentially what differentiates science from other forms of philosophy. There is no yardstick by which we can measure 'ethics' or 'divinity' or the 'best way to live'. Both science and philosophy have another characteristic that can differentiate them from other pursuits - they try to be useful and add AND CORRECT the total of human knowledge. Art, for example, may attempt to outshine other art, but each piece is still valid in its own way... it is not a kind of philosophy at all.

So let's look at economics. Precise definitions of economics can be difficult, but one of my favourites is the one from British economist Lionel Robbins: "the science which studies human behaviour as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses." So economics is concerned primarily with certain aspects of human behaviour. In that sense, it might be considered a subset of psychology or sociology.

Can we measure human behaviour? Are there useful things to be said about it? The answer to both those questions seem pretty unequivocably to be yes. There is no 'behaviour-ometer' like a geiger counter, but if you define what you're talking about, pretty much everyone can agree on whether a person or a group of people perform a behaviour or not. And just about any businessman will tell you that it is QUITE useful to be able to know which ones they're going to want to do!

So economics is certainly a science, even if perhaps it's not quite as concrete a one as, say, physics. Part of the reason it seems less scientific is because humans are so wickedly complex that even if you knew everything there was to know about one of them, it wouldn't necessarily tell you about others of them, unlike, say, an electron. Another part of the reason is similar to physics - sometimes the very act of measuring something causes enough disturbances that you ruin whatever it is you're trying to measure. You can't put a human in a lab and expect him to act the same as if he's in his living room. So economics has to be a bit more distant and oblique, looking at the activities of, perhaps, millions of people at a time, and doing so by analyzing peripherally collected data such as shopping reciepts. But these concerns, while making things harder for an economist, don't disqualify the scientific aims of it's practicioners!

Answer 2

Economics like many other subjects requires tedious research and critical analysis on the area of study. Most will consider economics to be a theory-based subject that often come to conclusions because "in theory" the results should be this way.

However this is not true, all economic theories are backed by mathematical formulae and these equations are achieved through the many years of research by economists and, in some cases, mathematicians. Findings will always have a margin of error due to the unpredictability of human behaviour, and changing business, environment, legislation and political conditions. (Yes! All these factors are taken into account in economics!)

Economists often use models to predict outcomes. These models are just like experiments conducted in controlled enviroment that the researcher hold all other variables constant while changing a single one to see how it will affect the outcome.

It is thus not surprising to refer to economics as a science considering the difficulty of it all.

Answer 3

It is a science not as in laboratory work but in the broader sense of the term, as in is it a science or an art. It is studied and can be learned and involves applying principles and rules to a real life situation as opposed to something that comes natural or flows from creativity. Music is an art as opposed to math, economics, computer technology which are sciences. But actually economists do perform experiments, such as surverying consumers and citizens to recognize trends in spending.

Answer 4

Because Economics deals with theories. You can apply any economical idea but not get the result you want.

Best example I can think of....Reagan's Trickle Down Economics.

The idea was to give rich folks all kinds of tax breaks and incentives...and then what they ended up with would give workers below them better wages and such. That blew a hole in the hamper....they kept the money.

Answer 5

There are a lot of high powered theories and high level mathematics involved in economics, as a matter of fact nobody really understands how it works.