Defining Markets

William Jackson

A chapter in Markets: Perspectives from Economic and Social Theory, 2019, pp 3-11 from ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics

Abstract: Economics teaching dwells at length on markets, as in the supply-and-demand diagram, the most widespread of textbook models. The organised nature of markets narrows down their definition but remains vague about their structural details. Markets can be interpreted as voluntary exchanges that are organised and institutionalised so as to ease trade. Trade spans the whole economy, it can best be classified as distribution and distinguished from production or consumption. Trade without money would usually be classified as non-market exchange, though the exact meaning of barter has been contentious. A possible way forward is to have both ‘weak’ definitions of markets that correspond to everyday language and ‘strong’ definitions that correspond to ideal markets. If market trade has fluid characteristics, then theorists may pick out different characteristics and portray markets in alternative ways. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.

Keywords: markets; distribution; exchange; organisation; competition (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B50 D40 L10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/342765/1/Defining-Markets.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:eschap:342765

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in EconStor Open Access Book Chapters from ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics ().