What refers to the production and distribution of goods and services as well as their management a. economics b. free trade c. interdependence

A. Economics

We might also include consumption of goods and services along with production and distribution and management.

The Physiocrats of France (believers in "rule by nature" in economics) and Adam Smith in Scotland were some of the first to pursue economics as a field of inquiry.  They would have called it the "political economy," which Smith defined as follows:  "A branch of the science of a statesman or legislator ... to provide a plentiful revenue or subsistence for the people, or more properly to enable them to provide such a revenue or subsistence for themselves; and to supply the state or commonwealth with a revenue sufficient for the public services."   --  Quote from the introduction to Book IV of Smith's famous work, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776).