Socialist economics are the workings, flow, and distribution of funds, of socialism. According to many proponents, socialist economic theories and arrangements are united by the desire to: produce for use rather than profit (maximize use-value as opposed to exchange-value), achieve greater equality, give workers greater control of the means of production, utilize rational economic planning to create a more effective mechanism for coordinating production and distribution of goods and services, and to direct the economy towards social and societal economic goals. The term socialist economics may also be applied to analyses of the economics of existing socialist systems, such as the works of Hungarian economist János Kornai.

Within the broad scope of socialist economics are various economic theories, sometimes in opposition to one another. Some of these are: Marxian economics, the Lange Model, participatory economics, cooperative economics and mixed economies (as championed by social democrats and some democratic socialists).