Normative economics (as opposed to positive economics) is that part of economics that expresses value judgments (normative judgments) about economic fairness or what the economy ought to be like or what goals of public policy ought to be.
It is common to distinguish normative economics ("what ought to be" in economic matters) from positive economics ("what is"). But many normative (value) judgments are held conditionally, to be given up if facts or knowledge of facts changes, so that a change of values may be purely scientific. But welfare economist Amartya Sen distinguishes basic (normative) judgments, which do not depend on such knowledge, from nonbasic judgments, which do. He finds it interesting to note that "no judgments are demonstrably basic" while some value judgments may be shown to be nonbasic. This leaves open the possibility of fruitful scientific discussion of value judgments.
An example of a normative economic statement is as follows:
The price of milk should be $6 a gallon to give dairy farmers a higher living standard and to save the family farm.
This is a normative statement, because it reflects value judgments. This specific statement makes the judgment that farmers need a higher living standard and that family farms need to be saved.
Subfields of normative economics include social choice theory, cooperative game theory, and mechanism design.
Some earlier technical problems posed in welfare economics and the theory of justice have been sufficiently addressed as to leave room for consideration of proposals in applied fields such as resource allocation, public policy, social indicators, and inequality and poverty measurement
Famous quotes containing the word economics:
“Women’s battle for financial equality has barely been joined, much less won. Society still traditionally assigns to woman the role of money-handler rather than money-maker, and our assigned specialty is far more likely to be home economics than financial economics.”
—Paula Nelson (b. 1945)