"And most students who come into a beginning economics class, for example my undergraduates, when they think about economics they think, 'Oh, I don’t know, about the stock market, they think about jobs, they think about profits and businesses. And of course those are all elements of economics," Dr. Walden says.

"But I tell them that there is one major essential issue that really economics was created to address, and that is collectively we only have so many resources at any point in time and yet collectively we want to use more of those resources. We want more than what those resources can provide. So the essential economic problem is how to take a small amount of resources and satisfy at least at meet some of those needs.

"So economics fundamentally is about choice.And so we apply those ideas about choice to many areas: choice about jobs, choice about investment, choice about buying," he adds.

"But it’s really, again, about choice."