| A | B |
|---|
| business | A profit-seeking organization that provides goods and services that a society wants or needs |
| profit | Money left over after expenses and taxes have been deducted from revenue generated by selling goods and services |
| nonprofit businesses | Firms whose primary objective is something other than returning a profit to their owners |
| goods-producing business | Businesses that produce tangible products |
| capital-intensive businesses | Businesses that require large investments in capital assets |
| barrier to entry | A critical resource or capability a company must possess before it can enter a particular market or industry |
| service business | Businesses that perform useful activities for customers |
| labor-intensive businesses | Businesses in which labor costs are more significant than capital costs |
| economics | The study of how society uses scarce resources to produce and distribute goods and services |
| microeconomics | The Study of how consumers, businesses, and industries collectively determine the quantity of goods and services demanded and supplied at different prices |
| macroeconomics | The study of "big picture" issues in an economy, including competitive behavior among firms, the effect of government policies, and overall resource allocation issues |
| natural resources | Land, forests, minerals, water, and other tangivle assets usable in their natural state |
| human resources | All the people who work for an organization |
| capital | The physical, human-made elements used to produce goods and services, such as factories and computers; can also refer to the funds that finance the operations of a business |
| entrepreneurship | The combination of innovation, initiative, and willingness to take the risks required to create and operate new businesses |
| knowledge | Expertise gained through experience or association |
| economic system | Means by which a society distributes its resources to satisfy its people's needs |
| free-market system | Economic system in which decisions about what to produce and in what quantities are decided by the market's buyers and sellers |
| capitalism | Economic system based on economic freedom and comopetition |
| planned system | Economic system in which the government controls most of the factors of production and regulates their allocation |
| communism | Economic system in which the government owns and operates all productive resources and determines all significant economic choices |
| socialism | Economic system characterized by public ownership and operation of key industries combined with private ownership and operation of less-vital industries |
| privatization | The conversion of public ownership to private ownership |
| tangible | Things you can touch |
| demand | Buyers' willingness and ability to purchase products |
| supply | Specific quantity of a product that the seller is able and willing to provide |
| demand curve | Graph of the quantities of product that buyers will purchase at various prices |
| supply curve | Graph of the quantites that sellers will offer for sale, regardless of demand, at various prices |
| equilibrium price | Point at which quantity supplied equals quantity demanded |
| competition | Rivalry among businesses for the same customer |
| pure competition | Situation in which so many buyers and sellers exist that no single buyer or seller can individually influence market prices |
| monopoly | Market in which there are no direct competitors so that one company dominates |
| oligopoly | Market dominated by a few products |
| monopolistic competition | Situation in which many sellers differentiate their products from those of competitors in at least some small way |
| competitive advantage | Ability to perform in one or more ways that competitors cannot match |
| stakeholders | Individuals or groups to whom business has a responsibility |
| recession | Period during which national income, employment, and production all fall |
| recovery | Period during which income, employment, production, and spending rise |
| business cycles | Fluctuations in the rate of growth than an economy experiences over a period of several years |
| monetary policy | Government policy and actions taken by the Federal Reserve Board to regular the nation's money supply |
| fiscal policy | Use of government revenue collection and spending to influnce the business cycle |
| economic indicators | Statistics that measure variables in the economy |
| inflation | Economic condition in which prices rise steadily throughout the economy |
| deflation | Economic condition in which prices fall steadily throughout the economy |
| consumer price index (CPI) | Monthly statistic that measures changes in the prices of about 400 goods and services that consumers buy |
| producer price index (PPI) | A statistical measure of price trends at the producer and wholesaler levels |
| gross domestic product (GDP) | Value of all the final goods and services produced by businesses located within a nation's borders; excludes receipts from overseas operation of domestic companies |
| globalization | Tendency of the world's economies to act as a single interdependent economy |
