Economics is the study of how scarce resources are allocated to satisfy unlimited human wants. It involves making choices about how to use limited resources like labor, equipment, and knowledge to produce goods and services for consumption. At its core, economics examines how societies allocate scarce resources to produce commodities and distribute them for consumption. It also analyzes problems like rising transportation and utility costs and aims to define economics as the efficient use of scarce resources to maximize satisfaction of human needs and wants.