The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics

Living Edition
| Editors: Palgrave Macmillan

Positive Economics

  • Stanley Wong
Living reference work entry

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95121-5_1382-1
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Abstract

There is general agreement among economists that positive economics is the branch of economics which is concerned with the description and explanation of economic phenomena, while normative economics encompasses the body of thought devoted to the application of positive economics for the purpose of giving advice about practical problems including those about public policy. Often the distinction between the two branches of economics is described in terms of the type of question asked. The question ‘What is?’ belongs to positive economics; the question ‘What ought to be?’, to normative economics.

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Copyright information

© The Author(s) 1987

Authors and Affiliations

  • Stanley Wong
    • 1
  1. 1.