Economic problems involve overcoming relative resource scarcity to achieve economic goals. Often, this entails choosing an optimum course of action among the available alternatives with constraints.

Economic decisions are made, within a given set of surroundings, at the individual household, company, organization, community, national, regional and global levels. In addition to the relative scarcity issue, cultural norms, environmental and social consequences, local politics and, sometimes, attitudinal factor are involved in economic decision making. Thus, a clear understanding of the economics and the differences between the economic and non-economic variables is critical.