Encyclopedia > Market

  Article Content

Market

A market is a mechanism which allows people to trade, normally governed by the theory of supply and demand. Both general and specialised markets, where only one commodity is traded, exist. Markets work by placing many interested sellers in one place, thus making them easier to find for prospective buyers. An economy which relies primarily on interactions between buyers and sellers to allocate resources is known as a market economy in contrast to a command economy.

The traditional market is a city square where traders set up stalls and buyers browse the merchandise. This kind of market is very old, and countless such markets are still in operation around the whole world. The Roman term, still in use in a related sense, is forum.

In modern times, mainly after the invention of the electronic computer, markets are not always located in a physical space. Such virtual markets consist of communication paths where information exchange is easy and deals may be struck. A notable example of this is the international currency market.

See also: Financial markets, Marketing

List of Marketing TopicsList of Management Topics
List of Economics TopicsList of Accounting Topics
List of Finance TopicsList of Economists



All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License

 
  Search Encyclopedia

Search over one million articles, find something about almost anything!
 
 
  
  Featured Article
Sanskrit language

... and modification. In its older Vedic form, it is a close descendant of Proto-Indo-European, the root of all later Indo-European languages. Vedic Sanskrit i ...

 
 
 
This page was created in 40.6 ms