Short notes on positive and normative economics.

 Positive Economics... 

A positive science is that which studies the facts as they are but not as they ought to be. It means it only explains what is or what will be. It studies the things as they happen in reality. It only explains the situations and conditions but not comment what is right and what's wrong. It's totally neutral between wants. It studies causes and effect relationship between economic variables. According to classical economists, economics is a positive science. According to them, it was non of the function of economists to comment the rightness or wrongness of economic situation. It's simply concerned with the problem of resources in relation to unlimited wants. For example: the manufacture and sale of cigarette may be injurious to health. So it's morally unjustifiable but economists have no right to pass the judgements on this because it satisfies human wants and involved in economic activities. 

         Like classical economists, Robbins has also the same view that economics is a positive science and explains the fact as they are. It only explores and explains the causes and effect relationship. 

Normative Economics... 

Neo- classical economists challenged the view point that economics is a positive science. According to them, economics is a normative science. A normative science studies the facts not as they are but as they ought to be. It's related to the criteria of what what ought to be. It lays down certain objectives and efforts are made to attain them. For example: to alleviate poverty, unemployment, price stability etc. It's a social science and therefore it can't ignore the objective of betterment of mankind. It isn't only light giving but also fruit bearing. It not only explores and explains but also suggests measures to improve existing system so that it may work better. It's the duty of economists to make careful study of different economic problems and suggest ways and means to solve these problems. Hence, economics is a normative science. 

      From above discussion, we can conclude that economics is both positive and normative science. The true scope of economics includes the study of problems of consumption , production, exchange and distribution of wealth as well as determination of values of goods and services, volume of employment &economic growth. Besides, it also studies the causes of poverty, unemployment, inflation etc and steps for their removals.