Economics is the study of resource allocation. It informs decision-making by comparing different options by a common denominator (money).

At this point the haters say “you can’t put a dollar value on everything!”. This may be true, but merely attempting to put a financial value on non-financial objects is part of the beauty of using economics in policy-making. It forces us to reconsider how we value things. This is important because we are rarely asked to justify our intuitive decision-making cognitive processes and the result is we are often wrong.