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Concept
Economy
Summary
An economy is an area of the production, distribution and trade, as well as consumption of goods and services. In general, it is defined as a social domain that emphasize the practices, discourses, and material expressions associated with the production, use, and management of scarce resources. A given economy is a set of processes that involves its culture, values, education, technological evolution, history, social organization, political structure, legal systems, and natural resources as main factors. These factors give context, content, and set the conditions and parameters in which an economy functions. In other words, the economic domain is a social domain of interrelated human practices and transactions that does not stand alone.
Economic agents can be individuals, businesses, organizations, or governments. Economic transactions occur when two groups or parties agree to the value or price of the transacted good or service, commonly expressed in a certain currency. However, monetary transactions only account for a small part of the economic domain.
Economic activity is spurred by production which uses natural resources, labor and capital. It has changed over time due to technology, innovation (new products, services, processes, expanding markets, diversification of markets, niche markets, increases revenue functions) and changes in industrial relations (most notably child labor being replaced in some parts of the world with universal access to education).
The word economy in English is derived from the Middle French's yconomie, which itself derived from the Medieval Latin's oeconomia. The Latin word has its origin at the Ancient Greek's oikonomia or oikonomos. The word's first part oikos means "house", and the second part nemein means "to manage".
The most frequently used current sense, denoting "the economic system of a country or an area", seems not to have developed until the 1650s.
Economic history
As long as someone has been making, supplying and distributing goods or services, there has been some sort of economy; economies grew larger as societies grew and became more complex.
Official source
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