Q.Critically examine the Scarcity definition of Economics given by Lionel Robbins.

Robbins' scarcity definition is the most analytically influential of the four classical definitions, but it is not free of criticism.

Lionel Robbins' 1932 definition states: "Economics is a science which studies human behaviour as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses." It rests on four elements — unlimited ends, scarce means, alternative uses of those means, and the differing priority of ends — which together force choice. This is why Robbins' view is often called the scarcity or choice-based definition.

Contributions: Robbins freed Economics from Marshall's restriction to "material" welfare, making the subject applicable to any decision involving scarcity — whether a household's budget, a firm's production plan, or a state government's allocation of funds among health, education and irrigation in Andhra Pradesh. It also gave Economics a positive, value-free, scientific character, separate from ethical judgements about what "ought" to be produced.

Criticisms: (i) It is too general and abstract, and in freeing itself from "welfare," it loses the human, ethical concern that Marshall's definition carried; (ii) it is essentially a microeconomic definition, well suited to explaining an individual's or firm's choice problem but largely silent on aggregate, economy-wide questions such as national income, general unemployment, and economic growth — concerns that became urgent after the Great Depression of the 1930s; (iii) by treating Economics as a purely neutral science of means, it says nothing about poverty, inequality or the desirability of a particular allocation, which is precisely what later economists like Samuelson tried to bring back in.

Essay answers often state the definition and stop; full marks require both the contributions (universality, scientific character) and the specific criticisms (abstractness, micro bias, value-neutrality).