microeconomics

The study of the individual parts of the economy, the household and the firm, how prices are determined and how prices determine the production, distribution and use of goods and services.

The subdivision of the discipline of economics that studies the behavior of individual households and firms interacting through markets, how prices and levels of output of individual products are determined in these markets, the interconnections by which different markets affect each other, and how the price mechanism allocates resources and distributes income. [See also: macroeconomics , economics , political economy ]