A very good place to look is the entry on economics and political economy in the New (1987) Palgrave by Peter Groenewegen. Or even the entry in the original Palgrave - if my memory serves me well - by Sidgwick. Jevons in the preface to the second 1879 edition of TPE credits Henry Dunning Macleod with the reintroduction of the word. "Among minor alterations, I may mention the substitution for the name Political Economy of the single convenient term Economics. I cannot help thinking that it would be well to discard, as quickly as possible, the old troublesome double- worded name of our Science. Several authors have tried to introduce totally new names, such as Plutology, Chrematistics, Catallactics, etc. But why do we need anything better than Economics? This term, besides being more familiar and closely related to the old term, is perfectly analogous in form to Mathematics, Ethics, AEsthetics, and the names of various other branches of knowledge, and it has moreover the authority of usage from the time of Aristotle. Mr. Macleod is, so far as I know, the re-introducer of the name in recent years, but it appears to have been adopted also by Mr. Alfred Marshall at Cambridge. It is thus to be hoped that Economics will become the recognised name of a science, which nearly a century ago was known to the French Economists as la science ?conomique. Though employing the new name in the text, it was obviously undesirable to alter the title-page of the book." Note, however, that the term also appears in the posthumous translation of Francis Hutcheson's 1742 _Philosophiae moralis institutio compendiaria. The book was translated in 1747 as _A Short Introduction to Moral Philosophy. Hutcheson, however, is Aristotelian in the use of the term "economics" ("Oeconomicks treat of the rights and obligations in a family"). [I quote from the second 1753 edition, iii.1, p. 243]. He divides Oeconomicks into three categories, "concerning marriage", "the duties of parents and children" and "of masters and servants" following closely Aristotle's Politics (1753, p. 235). See my "NICOMACHEAN ETHICS IN POLITICAL ECONOMY: THE TRAJECTORY OF THE PROBLEM OF VALUE", History of Economic Ideas, xiv/2006/1. Moreover see the entry economics in the Oxford English Dictionary: With sing. and pl. concord. (In most senses predominantly with singular concord after the end of the 18th cent.) 1. a. The science or art of household management; domestic economy; (also) a treatise on this subject (see etymology at ECONOMIC n. and adj.). Cf. HOME ECONOMICS n. 1535 W. MARSHALL tr. Marsilius of Padua Def. of Peace iii. f. 12v, [Aristotle's] oeconomykes [L. Iconomia], wherin he treateth of the gouernynge and ordrynge of an howse or howsholde. 1560 Bk. Discipline in Wks. J. Knox (1848) II. 214 In the secound colledge, in the first classe, one reader onlie in the ethicques, oeconomicques and politiques. 1584 T. COGAN Hauen of Health ii. 14 Aristotle..in his Oeconomikes..biddeth us to rise before day. a1619 M. FOTHERBY Atheomastix (1622) II. xiv. ?2. 356 Morall Philosophie..hath three parts: Ecclesiastickes, Oeconomickes, and Politickes. 1661 J. GLANVILL Vanity of Dogmatizing xvii. 166 The more practical ones of Politicks and Oeconomicks. 1701 P. WARWICK Disc. Govt. 104 A Princes Politicks will be as improsperous as his Oeconomicks are, who loves to spend freely, and yet never to look upon an account. 1770 J. LANGHORNE & W. LANGHORNE tr. Plutarch Lives (1879) II. 586/2 Economics, so far as they regard only inanimate things, serve only the low purposes of gain; but where they regard human beings they rise higher. 1832 Times 9 July 4/4 The mysteries of cooking..which this young lady is now about to collect, arrange, and classify, in a code of trans-Atlantic culinary economics. 1909 Amer. Jrnl. Sociol. 14 741 "With respect to labor," says Aristotle's Economics, "the one sex is by nature capable of attending to domestic duties, but weak in duties out of doors." 1989 16th Cent. Jrnl. 20 450 Renaissance commentators were fond of reiterating women's household responsibilities set forth in the spurious third book of Aristotle's Economics. b. The management of private or domestic finances; (also) financial position. 1851 T. CARLYLE Life J. Sterling I. iv. 41 The family economics getting yearly more propitious and flourishing. 1851 T. CARLYLE Life J. Sterling II. vi. 140 The Original Regulations..a very solid lucid piece of economics. 1956 Times 14 May 3/4 Few housekeepers seem to make any real attempt to keep track of expenses. Others seem incapable of attempting to discuss family economics with their husbands. 1978 Newsweek (Nexis) 23 Oct. 75 Spurred by Federal deregulation and their own economics, many scheduled carriers are dropping unprofitable "puddle jumps" to concentrate on the big-buck, long-haul business. 1983 Times 5 Jan. 4/8 The rule..will mean a serious blow to the family economics of quite a few bureaucrats. 2. The branch of knowledge (now regarded as one of the social sciences) that deals with the production, distribution, consumption, and transfer of wealth; the application of this discipline to a particular sphere; (also) the condition of a state, etc., as regards material prosperity; the financial considerations attaching to a particular activity, commodity, etc. In early use as a compound (rural economics), prob. in distinction to "domestic" economics (sense 1). The term economics was used without qualification in the 19th cent. as a less frequent equivalent to political economy (POLITICAL adj. and n. Special uses 2; now sometimes referred to as "classical economics" and associated with Adam Smith, Ricardo, Mill, and others). A more mathematical approach to the discipline ("Neoclassical economics") was promoted by Alfred Marshall (1842-1924, Professor of Political Economy at the University of Cambridge from 1864 until 1877: see quots. 1879 and 1890), who popularized the use of economics at the expense of political economy. Various schools of economics emphasize the interplay between humans and the material resources of a nation, etc., to various degrees over mathematical factors. Sometimes with modifying word or affix, as in BIOECONOMICS n., MICROECONOMICS n., MACROECONOMICS n., etc. Cf. also -NOMICS comb. form. 1764 W. HARTE Ess. Husbandry I. 63 Some prize-questions in rural oeconomics were then proposed annually, particularly by the two Academies of Lyons and Bourdeaux. 1792 A. YOUNG Trav. France 176 He..engaged to go with me..to Tour D'Aigues to wait on The baron..whose essays are among the most valuable on rural conomics. 1839 T. CARLYLE Chartism iv. 26 The oppression has gone far farther than into the economics of Ireland. 1841-4 R. W. EMERSON Ess. 1st Ser. (1876) vii. 181 Chemistry, natural history, and economics. 1844 B. DISRAELI Coningsby I. III. iii. 283 Those moral attributes..are independent of economics. 1863 M. HOWITT tr. F. Bremer Greece & Greeks I. v. 138 The improvement of Greece in economics. 1879 A. MARSHALL & M. P. MARSHALL Economics of Industry 2, I therefore proposed to term it [sc. economic science] Economics..and I am happy to say that this suggestion is now meeting with very general acceptance. Wherever you turn now the term economics meets your eye. 1881 P. GEDDES in Nature 29 Sept. 526/1 Those sections..were devoted to..physical economics. 1890 A. MARSHALL Princ. Economics I. 1 Political Economy, or Economics, is a study of man's actions in the ordinary business of life; it inquires how he gets his income and how he uses it. 1906 J. S. STUART- GLENNIE in Sociol Pap. II. 250 The second order of ethical sciences..form the contents of three classes of sciencesEconomics, Deontics, and Juridics. 1914 J. A. HOBSON Work & Wealth xxii. 326 The difficulty is best illustrated in the recent extension of quantitative analysis into economics by the method of marginal preferences. 1924 T. N. CARVER (title) Elements of rural economics. 1938 Amer. Econ. Rev. 28 17 In his messianic zeal for the new order Marx built up a system of economics to support his preconceptions. 1958 J. K. GALBRAITH Affluent Society iii. 20 As the man who first gave economics its modern structurewho looked at the factors determining prices, rents, wages, and profits..Ricardo has a special claim to have bent the twig. 1967 Times Rev. Industry Mar. 103/2 (advt.) Lecturer..in Management Science... Applicants should have a good honours degree..in a "numerate" subject (e.g., engineering, mathematics, mathematical economics, physics, statistics). 1988 Oxf. Today 1 35/2 "Not just teaching economics, but doing it well, in Whitehall twice, and as a member of, or adviser to, three successive quangos." 2002 P. AUGER & J. PALMER Rise of Player Manager ii. 11 New economic policies built around monetarism in the UK, supply-side economics in the US and a belief nearly everywhere in the virtues of open market competition and deregulation, transformed the environment for business. 3. With pl. concord. The financial considerations relating to a particular activity, project, or commodity. Chiefly with of. 1879 Times 26 Apr. 11/5 The ethics and economics of smuggling ought by this time to be pretty clearly understood. 1937 Amer. Home Apr. 4/2 To account for the present providential situation would be to delve into..the psychology of the home owner, the economics of real estate. 1970 T. SOUTHERN Blue Movie IV. xxiii. 256 The economics of film-making today simply are not compatible with budget allocations of exorbitant fees for the actors. 1983 J. S. FOSTER Structure & Fabric (rev. ed.) I. iii. 13/2 His choices must be made in terms of..the economics of the end result. 2001 Contact May 63/2 The economics of notebook production..dictate that only the very biggest players can afford..their own designs. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PHRASES economics of scale n. the (beneficial) economic and financial effects of increasing the scale of an (esp. industrial) process; cf. economies of scale n. at ECONOMY n. Phrases 2. 1972 Observer 20 Aug. 9/7 The economics of scale, that much-abused phrase, used to justify any increase in size. 2002 R. PORTER Blood & Guts viii. 155 Since then the iron law has been expansion, capital investment, bureaucratization, commodification and the economics of scale and the division of labour. Nicholas J. Theocarakis