Etymology of economy
According
to the Dictionnaire de l’Académie française (9th edition), economy comes from:
- from Latin economy, “disposition, arrangement (of a literary work)”,
- which itself comes from the Greek oikonomia, “administration of a house”
But from the 4th century BC, the word economy is used to designate the administration of the City.
It is in this sense that Plato in The Politics compares the administration of a house to the administration of a small City.
In 1615, Antoine de Montchrestien published Traité de l’économie politique, an expression that will remain to call the science of exchanges.
It was not until the 19th century that the term political science was used.
Definition of economy
Today
, according to the Dictionary of the French Academy (9th edition) the word economy means:
The set of human activities and resources contributing to the production and distribution of wealth.
And political economy, the study of facts relating to the production and distribution of wealth in a nation.
→ Summary of the Wealth of Nations – Adam Smith
→ Most influential economists in history