| A | B |
|---|
| business | Activity and enterprise that provides goods and services that a society needs |
| profit | Money left over after expenses and taxes have been deducted from revenue generated by selling goods and services |
| nonprofit organizations | Firms whose primary objective is something other than returning a profit to their owners |
| factors of production | Basic inputs that a society usues to produce goods and services, including natural resources, labor, capital, entrepreneurship, and knowledge |
| natural resources | Land, forests, minerals, water, and other tangible 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 |
| entrepreneurs | People who accept the risk of failure in the private enterprise system |
| knowledge | Expertise gained through experience or association |
| goods-producing businesses | Businesses that produce tangible products |
| capital-intensive businesses | Businesses that require large investments in capital assests |
| service businesses | Businesses that provide intangible products or perform useful labor on behalf of another |
| labor-intensive businesses | Businesses in which labor costs are more significant than capital costs |
| electronic commerce ( e-commerce) | The general term for the buying and selling of goods and services on the Internet |
| barriers to entry | Factors that make it difficult to launch a business in a particular industry |
| economics | The study of how society uses scarce resources to produce and distribute goods and services |
| macroeconomics | The study of a country's overall economic issues, such as competition, the allocation of scarce resources, and government policies |
| 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 competition |
| planned system | Economic system in which the government controls most of the factors of production and regulates their allocation |
| communism | Economic system in which all productive resources are owned and operated by the government, to the elimination of private property |
| socialism | Economic system characterized by public ownership and operation of key industries combined with private ownership and operation of less-vital industries |
| privatizing | The conversion of public ownership to private ownership |
| 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 quantities 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 | Situations in which so many buyers and sellers exist that no single buyer and 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 producers |
| 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 a business has a resonsibility |
| recession | Period during which national income, employment, and production all fall |
| business cycle | Fluctuations in the rate of growth that an economy experiences over a period of several years |
| monetary policy | Government policy and actions taken by the Federal Reserve Board to regulate the nation's money supply |
| fiscal policy | Use of government revenue colection and spending to influence 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 taht measures changes in the prices of about 400 goods and services that consumers buy |
| producer price index (PPI) | Monthly statistic that measures changes in the prices at the producer or wholesaler level |
| gross domestic product (GDP) | Dollor value of all the final goods and servies produced by businesses located within a nation's borders; excludes receipts from overseas operations of domestic companies |
| gross national product (GNP) | Dollor value of all the final goods and servies produced by domestic businesses; included receipts from overseas operations and excludes receipts from foreign- owned businesses within a nation's borders |
| economies of scale | Saving from manufacturing, marketing, or buying in large quantities |
| globalization | Tendency of the world's eceonomics to act as a single interdependent market |
| microeconomics | The study of small economic units, such as individual consumers, businesses,and industries |
