Portal:Business

Portal topics: Activities; Culture; Geography; Health; History; Mathematics; Nature; People; Philosophy; Religion; Society; Technology; Random portal

The Business and Economics Portal

Business is the practice of making one's living or making money by producing or buying and selling products (such as goods and services). It is also "any activity or enterprise entered into for profit."

A business entity is not necessarily separate from the owner and the creditors can hold the owner liable for debts the business has acquired. The taxation system for businesses is different from that of the corporates. A business structure does not allow for corporate tax rates. The proprietor is personally taxed on all income from the business.

A distinction is made in law and public offices between the term business and a company such as a corporation or cooperative. Colloquially, the terms are used interchangeably. (Full article...)

Economics (/ˌɛkəˈnɒmɪks, ˌiːkə-/) is a social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services.

Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of economic agents and how economies work. Microeconomics analyses what is viewed as basic elements within economies, including individual agents and markets, their interactions, and the outcomes of interactions. Individual agents may include, for example, households, firms, buyers, and sellers. Macroeconomics analyses economies as systems where production, distribution, consumption, savings, and investment expenditure interact, and factors affecting it: factors of production, such as labour, capital, land, and enterprise, inflation, economic growth, and public policies that have impact on these elements. It also seeks to analyse and describe the global economy. (Full article...)

Refresh with new selections below (purge)

Selected article

A Bank run (also known as a run on the bank) is a type of financial crisis. It is a panic which occurs when a large number of customers of a bank fear it is insolvent and withdraw their deposits.

A run on the bank begins when the public begins to suspect that a bank may become insolvent. As a result, individuals begin to withdraw their savings. This action can destabilize the bank to the point where it may in fact become insolvent. Banks retain only a fraction of their deposits as cash (see fractional-reserve banking): the remainder is issued as loans. As a result, no bank has enough reserves on hand to cope with more than the fraction of deposits being taken out at once, and will 'call in' the short term deposits itself has made. This can cause a shortage of Market liquidity in the short term money market.

As a bank run progresses, it generates its own momentum. As more people withdraw their deposits, the likelihood of default increases, so other individuals have more incentive to withdraw their own deposits. If many or most banks were to suffer runs at the same time, then the resulting chain of bankruptcies can cause a long economic recession.

To prevent bank runs, Central banks can prevent financial institutions from failing by:

Deposit insurance systems insure each depositor up to a certain amount, therefore the depositors' savings are protected even if the bank fails. This removes the incentive to withdraw deposits simply because others are withdrawing theirs if consumers trust the insurance system.
Central banks act as a lender of last resort. To prevent a bank run, the Central Bank guarantees that it will make short-term, high-interest loans to banks, to ensure that, if they remain economically viable, they will always have enough liquidity to honour their deposits.
Reserve ratios and Tier 1 capital thresholds both limit the proportion of deposits which a bank can loan out.

More selected articles...

Read more...

Selected image

An auctioneer and her assistants scan the crowd for bidders.

Photo credit: Indianhilbilly

An auction is a process of buying and selling goods or services by offering them up for bid, taking bids, and then selling the item to the highest bidder. In economic theory, an auction may refer to any mechanism or set of trading rules for exchange.

More selected pictures...

Read more...

Selected economy

Warsaw, central business district

The economy of Poland is an emerging and developing, high-income, industrialized, mixed economy that serves as the sixth-largest in the European Union by nominal GDP and fifth-largest by GDP (PPP). Poland boasts the extensive public services characteristic of most developed economies and is one of few countries in Europe to provide no tuition fees for undergraduate and postgraduate education and with universal public healthcare that is free at a point of use. Since 1988, Poland has pursued a policy of economic liberalisation but retained an advanced public welfare system. It ranks 20th worldwide in terms of GDP (PPP), 21st in terms of GDP (nominal), and 21st in the 2023 Economic Complexity Index. Among OECD nations, Poland has a highly efficient and strong social security system; social expenditure stood at roughly 22.7% of GDP.

The largest component of Poland's economy is the service sector (62.3%), followed by industry (34.2%) and agriculture (3.5%). Following the economic reform of 1989, Poland's external debt has increased from $42.2 billion in 1989 to $365.2 billion in 2014. Poland shipped US$224.6 billion worth of goods around the globe in 2017, while exports increased to US$221.4 billion. The country's top export goods include machinery, electronic equipment, vehicles, furniture, and plastics. Poland was the only economy in the EU to avoid a recession through the 2007–08 economic downturn. (Full article...)

More selected economies

Selected quote

"Buy what thou hast no need of; and e'er long thou shalt sell thy necessaries."

—Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack, 1732-1758

More selected quotes

More quotes at Wikiquote

Topics

Business: Accountancy · Actuarial science · Administration · Business continuity planning · Business development · Business ethics · Business intelligence · Business model · Business process · Businesspeople · Commerce · Commercial law · Companies · Companies law · Control · Consumer behaviour · Corporate crime · Corporate social responsibility · Electronic commerce · Entrepreneurship · Family business · Fictional companies · Finance · Globalization · Industry · Information technology management · Insurance · Internal communications · International business · International trade · Logistics · Management · Market · Marketing · Market Research · Mergers and acquisitions · Operations management · Operations research · Organizational studies · Procurement · Project management · Public relations · Quality management · Retailing · Risk management · Sales · Supply Chain Management

Lists: Accounting · Business · Business law · Business management · Business theorists · Economics · Economists · Finance · Important publications · Industrial organization · Information technology management · International trade · Management · Marketing · Production · Project management · Think tanks

Related WikiProjects

WikiProjects

Did you know (auto-generated) - load new batch

... that Eliane Capobianco's election to the Bolivian Constituent Assembly reflected the propensity of the country's agribusiness elites to occupy positions that granted them influence over land reform policy?
... that Earle M. Chiles, a businessman and philanthropist from Portland, Oregon, was also a senator of the board of Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, Germany?
... that the first batch of Action Computer Enterprise's Discovery 1600, one of the first multi-user microcomputers, was delivered to a tobacco-growing business in Thailand?
... that new employees of a business headquartered in the Editors Building chose their office decorations from a 7,000-piece collection of historic memorabilia of Washington, D.C.?
... that Stan Lee modeled Tony Stark after 20th-century business magnate Howard Hughes?
... that the developer of Citizen Sleeper was inspired by the feeling of people coming together and their own experiences as a non-binary person struggling to make ends meet through the gig economy?

On this day in business history

November 27:

1894 - Konosuke Matsushita, founder of Panasonic, was born on this day.

More on this day

General images

The following are images from various business-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Student organizers from the Green Club at Newcomb College Institute formed a social entrepreneurship organization in 2010. (from Entrepreneurship)
Image 2Dell Women's Entrepreneur Network event in New York City (from Entrepreneurship)
Image 3Chart of the South Sea Company's stock prices. The rapid inflation of the stock value in the 1710s led to the Bubble Act 1720, which restricted the establishment of companies without a royal charter. (from Corporation)
Image 4Lindley LJ was the leading expert on partnerships and company law in the Salomon v. Salomon & Co. case. The landmark case confirmed the distinct corporate identity of the company. (from Corporation)
Image 5Offices in the Los Angeles Downtown Financial District (from Business)
Image 6"Jack and the Giant Joint-Stock", a cartoon in Town Talk (1858) satirizing the 'monster' joint-stock economy that came into being after the Joint Stock Companies Act 1844 (from Corporation)
Image 7Emil Jellinek-Mercedes (1853–1918), here at the steering wheel of his Phoenix Double-Phaeton (from Entrepreneurship)
Image 81/8 share of the Stora Kopparberg mine, dated June 16, 1288 (from Corporation)
Image 9Time required to start a business in 2017 (from Business)
Image 10In 2012, Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women's Issues Melanne Verveer greets participants in an African Women's Entrepreneurship Program at the State Department in Washington, D.C. (from Entrepreneurship)
Image 11McDonald's Corporation is one of the most recognizable corporations in the world. (from Corporation)
Image 12Plaque in London commemorating Jewish entrepreneur Sir Jack Cohen who in 1919 founded Tesco, the largest supermarket chain in the UK. (from Entrepreneurship)
Image 13Mexican Stock Exchange in Paseo de la Reforma, Mexico City (from Business)

edit

More did you know

...that Luca Pacioli, codified the double-entry bookkeeping system in his mathematics textbook Summa de arithmetica, geometria, proportioni et proportionalità published in Venice in 1494?

...that, as of August 2008, more than 113 countries around the world, including all of Europe, required or permitted IFRS reporting and 85 required IFRS reporting for all domestic, listed companies?

...that IFRS financial statements consist of a statement of financial position, a statement of comprehensive income, a statement of changes in equity, a Statement of Cash Flows and a Notes to the Financial Statements?

...that in the circular flow model, the inter-dependent entities of producer and consumer are referred to as "firms" and "households" respectively and provide each other with factors in order to facilitate the flow of income?

...that Wassily Leontief was the first to use a matrix representation of a national economy, in his input-output model?

...that the balance of payments of a country is the record of all economic transactions between the residents of a country and the rest of the world in a particular period?