What is a definition of economics for? Why would we want one? For a dictionary definition, see a dictionary, or observe how the word is actually used. Both might give confusing results, but that reflects actual usage. Possibly more enlightening - try to find out who is generally counted as an economist (supplementary question: by whom?) and observe what they do. Or observe journals generally counted as economics journals (by library classification? weighted by some means, such as citation counts?) and see what they publish. Or look at research funding (history of economics would pretty well vanish by that criterion!). That would tell you what economics actually is, not what someone thinks it ought to be. Do something similar for past periods to find out what economics used to be. Making up definitions, possibly to reflect some idea of what you wish your colleagues were doing, is fun, but does it get us anywhere? Tony Brewer, University of Bristol ([log in to unmask])