Alternative Economic Search System

Economics is the study of how economic agents or societies choose to use scarce productive resources that have alternative uses to satisfy wants which are unlimited and of varying degrees of importance.

The main concern of economics is economic problem: its identification, description, explanation and solution, if possible. The source of any economic problem is scarcity. Scarcity of resources forces economic agents to choose among alternatives. Therefore, economic problem of choice arises because limited resources with alternative uses are to be utilized to satisfy unlimited wants, which are of varying degrees of importance. Had the resources like human, natural, capital, etc. not been scarce, there would have been no problem of choice and hence no economic problem at all. Therefore, the root cause of all economic problems is scarcity.

A General Listing of Desired Economic Goods and Limited Resources
Economic Goods (Wants)	Limited Resources
Food (bread, milk, meat, eggs, vegetables, coffee, etc.)	Land (various degrees of fertility)
Clothing (shirts, pants, blouses, shoes, socks, coats, sweaters, etc.)	Natural resources (rivers, trees. Minerals. oceans, etc.)
Household goods (tables chairs rugs, beds, dressers, television sets, etc.)	Machines and other human-made physical resources
Space explorations	Non-human animal resources Technology (physical and scientific “recipes” of history).
Education
National defense	Human resources (the knowledge, skill, and talent of individual human beings.
Recreation
Leisure time
Entertainment
Clean air
Pleasant environment (trees, lakes rivers, open spaces etc.)
Pleasant working conditions
More productive resources

Source: The Dryden Press, Economics: Private and Public Choice, 

Scarcity is a relative concept. It can be defined as excess demand i.e., demand more that the supply. For example unemployment is essentially the scarcity of jobs. Inflation is essentially scarcity of goods.

The job of any manager is of economic one. Decision-making is the main job of management. Decision-making involves evaluating various alternatives and choosing the best among them. Consider a manager in any function at any level in an organization: he exercises choice in the name of decision-making. A finance manager is expected to mobilize resources from various sources so as to minimize the cost of funds and deploy these resources so as to maximize the return on investment. A marketing manager is to allocate his advertising budget among various media in such a way so as to maximize the reach.