什么是經濟學和微觀經濟學？ (What are Economics and Microeconomics?)

Economics is a social science concerned with the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. It studies how individuals, businesses, governments, and nations make choices on allocating resources to satisfy their wants and needs, trying to determine how these groups should organize and coordinate efforts to achieve maximum output.

經濟學是一門社會科學，涉及商品和服務的生產，分配和消費。 它研究了個人，企業，政府和國家如何選擇分配資源以滿足其需求和需求，試圖確定這些群體應如何組織和協調努力以實現最大產出。

One of the major types of economics is microeconomics. Microeconomics aims to model economic activities as an interaction of individual economic agents pursuing their private interests.

經濟學的主要類型之一是微觀經濟學。 微觀經濟學旨在將經濟活動建模為追求個體利益的個體經濟主體的相互作用。

為什么微觀經濟學對數據科學家很重要？ (Why is microeconomics important to data scientists?)

A lot of people used to ask me “So you turned economics into Data Science?” Well, both of them have a lot of common interests, if one who knows economics well can have a better understanding of business and machine learning algorithms.

很多人曾經問我：“所以你把經濟學變成了數據科學？” 好吧，如果對經濟學非常了解的人可以對商業和機器學習算法有更好的了解，那么他們就有很多共同的興趣。

Even though those researchers have the same title “Data Scientist”, their jobs and their industries could be very different — healthcare, telecommunications sector, internet, energy sector, retail companies, the automotive industry. If we look through those companies and their products, we can see that their target is the consumers, users, or members. Therefore, understanding how individuals make decisions is very vital, and based on the relevant data, companies can put forward corresponding strategies to keep consumers’ utility. If microeconomics is a direction then data science is a car so we can drive the car and go to the given direction.

即使這些研究人員具有相同的稱呼“數據科學家”，他們的工作和所從事的行業也可能大不相同-醫療保健，電信行業，互聯網，能源行業，零售公司，汽車行業。 如果我們查看那些公司及其產品，我們可以看到他們的目標是消費者，用戶或成員。 因此，了解個人如何做出決定非常重要，并且公司可以根據相關數據提出相應的策略來保持消費者的效用。 如果說微觀經濟學是一個方向，那么數據科學就是一輛汽車，那么我們就可以開車去往給定的方向。

My previous blog explained the relationship between consumer behavior and behavioral economics, and how to analyze consumer behavior data using python. This blog will present the relationships between microeconomics and data science.

我以前的博客解釋了消費者行為與行為經濟學之間的關系，以及如何使用python分析消費者行為數據。 該博客將介紹微觀經濟學與數據科學之間的關系。

個人決策 (Individual Decision Making)

Individual decision making is the fundamental theory in microeconomics. It focuses on how individual consumers and agents make decisions. Those individuals could be a person, a household, a firm, or the government. For example, in the retail industry, data scientists will personalize shopping itineraries based on consumer behavior data. Understanding consumer behavior is an important aspect of marketing and microeconomics can explain how potential customers will respond to new products or new services, why they demand, and what they do at particular price levels.

個人決策是微觀經濟學的基本理論。 它著重于個人消費者和代理商如何做出決定。 這些人可以是個人，家庭，公司或政府。 例如，在零售業中，數據科學家將根據消費者行為數據來個性化購物路線。 了解消費者的行為是營銷的重要方面，微觀經濟學可以解釋潛在客戶如何對新產品或新服務做出React，他們為什么要求以及在特定價格水平下的行為。

需求，效用和支出 (Demand, Utility, and Expenditure)

For all individuals, their income and their demand for some goods are limited. From the point of consumers’ perspective, the utility function is an invisible relationship between price and income and also represents the satisfaction of their choices. Basically, utility function considers an individual who wants to maximize utility from a limited income. On the other hand, consumers want to lower their expenditures and maximize their satisfaction. The goal for researchers is to analyze how the price changes affect people’s demand and to calculate how much we need to compensate to keep all consumer's utility stable and constant. We can apply data science methods and combine microeconomics to explore those important insights through the data.

對于所有人而言，他們的收入和對某些商品的需求是有限的。 從消費者的角度來看，效用函數是價格和收入之間的隱形關系，也代表了他們選擇的滿意度。 基本上，效用函數考慮的是一個想要從有限的收入中最大化效用的個人。 另一方面，消費者希望降低支出并最大化滿意度。 研究人員的目標是分析價格變化如何影響人們的需求，并計算我們需要補償多少以保持所有消費者的效用穩定不變。 我們可以應用數據科學方法，并結合微觀經濟學來通過數據探索那些重要的見解。

From the point of a company’s perspective, how to set up a price for a good under competitive economy is a big question. We can see during Covid-19, lots of companies have had big sales many times in order to manage their inventory and minimize losses. The after-discount price always changes by time. For example, Lancome had a promotion — Buy One Get One Free. Under the competitive economy, after Lancome’s promotion ended, Estee Lauder had the same promotion — Buy One Get One Free. Based on consumer reactions, those companies will launch smarter strategies to face this economic crisis.

從公司的角度來看，如何在競爭經濟條件下為商品設定價格是一個大問題。 我們可以看到在Covid-19期間，許多公司為了管理庫存并最大程度地減少損失而多次取得了大筆銷售。 折后價始終隨時間變化。 例如，蘭蔻有促銷活動-買一送一。 在競爭激烈的經濟環境下，蘭蔻的促銷結束后，雅詩蘭黛也進行了同樣的促銷-買一送一。 根據消費者的React，這些公司將推出更明智的戰略來應對這場經濟危機。

供應鏈，利潤最大化，成本最小化 (Supply Chain, Profit maximization, Cost Minimization)

The supply chain is used to improve supply chain management (strategic decisions) for suppliers and customers of a company. It basically describes the business processes to satisfy a customer’s demands. Supply chains rely on data scientists who can capitalize on the data and microeconomics can help data scientists understand the relationship between profit maximization, cost minimization, and supply chain better.

供應鏈用于改善公司供應商和客戶的供應鏈管理(戰略決策)。 它基本描述了滿足客戶需求的業務流程。 供應鏈依賴可以利用數據的數據科學家，微觀經濟學可以幫助數據科學家更好地了解利潤最大化，成本最小化和供應鏈之間的關系。

結論 (Conclusion)

Microeconomics helps data scientists to understand consumers’ decisions and also helps companies to make strategic decisions (supply chains)based on consumers’ responses.

微觀經濟學可以幫助數據科學家了解消費者的決策，還可以幫助企業根據消費者的React做出戰略決策(供應鏈)。