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I just came across the tags and . They seem to be about the same thing, at least according to their descriptions.

The tag wiki excerpt from :

For questions regarding wealth, trade, or financial concepts.

The tag wiki excerpt from :

For questions regarding wealth, trade or financial concepts.

Except for a comma they are identical...

The full tag wiki from :

An economy is a system of trading and exchanging goods and services. It may be on any scale -- a town, a planet, a galaxy. While the primary object being exchanged in an economy is usually money, this tag also applies to systems of trade and barter.

The full tag wiki from :

Economics is the study of trading and exchanging goods and services. It may be on a planetary level or on a town level. While the primary object being exchanged in an economy is usually money, systems of trade and barter also apply.

The difference seems to be that refers to the study of this stuff, while is an example of this stuff. Is that the whole difference? Do we really need this distinction on Main? If so, should we update the tag wikis to make this difference more prominent, for example by mentioning the other tag and stating the differences explicitly to avoid future confusion? Or is it enough to have the example because we are more concerned with examples of economies than with the study of this field?

Currently we have 501 questions tagged with and 40 questions tagged with . 12 of those questions have both tags, which means there already is a considerable overlap.

For me it looks like we should get rid of and focus on . Or make them synonyms. What does the community think?

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    $\begingroup$ I only see a very slight difference in the two, only because you said it was there and because I looked really really hard for it. I think we can happy merge them. $\endgroup$
    – EveryBitHelps
    May 4, 2018 at 12:50
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    $\begingroup$ Go here: worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/tags/economy/synonyms to vote to approve them as synonyms. $\endgroup$
    – James
    May 25, 2018 at 16:39

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After scanning the two tags, I'd say they're complete synonyms. There are 501 questions with the tag and 40 with the tag . It seems to me that can therefore be replaced with without any significant change. Furthermore, they are not different enough in spelling to warrant marking them as synonyms - anyone typing out economics and economy is going to get six letters in before any difference in spelling, and by that time the only two options left will be and .

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    $\begingroup$ I agree that they should be merged, and make economics a synonym of economy. In reality, "economics" (the study of economy) doesn't make a lot of sense here since a comparative analysis of economies would be off-topic. $\endgroup$
    – JBH
    May 14, 2018 at 0:30

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