Research in Economics at LiU

Human existence is often characterized by a lack of time and money for all that we would like to achieve. Economics is often described as the doctrine of "economy with limited resources." It deals, in other words, with how individuals, families, organizations and nations make decisions regarding their consumption in order to achieve various objectives with the resources they have, and the resulting consequences.

Modern economics as a scientific discipline is considered to have been founded by Adam Smith in the publication of the book The Wealth of Nations (An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations) in 1776.

The Swedish term "Nationalekonomi" (National Economics) is somewhat incomplete, since it implies that the object of study is primarily the nation's economy. Internationally, the area is simply known as "Economics". What characterizes the science is thus scarcity problems and research methodology while the objects of study may include most of what is studied in the social sciences. Furthermore, economic research is conducted on the boundary to the behavioural sciences, engineering and medicine. This can be illustrated by examples such as: political economy, law and economics, environmental economics, health economics, real estate management, etc.

Traditionally, economics is divided into the subdivisions of macroeconomics and microeconomics. In macroeconomics we study how the economy works as a whole and how it develops. Macroeconomic theories deal with comprehensive concepts such as unemployment, inflation, interest rates, growth, and how these phenomena occur. Within the sub-area of microeconomics we study individual actors', i.e., individuals' and companies', prerequisites and behaviours and how these actors interact in different markets. As an unregulated market economy may lead to resources not being used optimally from a social perspective, we also study how this can be affected by political decisions.

At the Department of Management and Engineering (IEI), where economics is a sub-department, research is conducted in areas such as experimental economics, financial economics, institutional economics, neuroeconomics and transport economics. At IEI there is also research conducted in the boundary between economics and technology at the Department of Production Economics and the Division for Environmental Technology and Management. Furthermore, there is multidisciplinary research with a health economic orientation conducted at the Center for Medical Technology Assessment (CMT).

Research

Nationalekonomi (in swedish)

Links

Research at CMT

Research in Environmental Management and Environmental System Analysis

Productions Economics