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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's viewed as basic elements in the economy, 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 the economy as a system 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. (Full article...)

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The Chicago school of economics is a school of thought favoring free-market economics practiced at and disseminated from the University of Chicago. The leaders were Nobel laureates George Stigler and Milton Friedman (pictured).

It is associated with neoclassical price theory and free market libertarianism, refutation and rejection of Keynesianism in favor of monetarism (until the 1980s, when it turned to rational expectations), and rejection of regulation of business in favor of laissez-faire. In terms of methodology the stress is on "positive economics"--that is, empirically based studies using statistics, with less stress on theory and more on data. The school is noted for its very wide range of topics, from regulation to marriage, slavery and demography, that it studies.

The term was coined in the 1950s to refer to economists teaching in the Economics Department at the University of Chicago, and closely related academic areas at the University such as the Graduate School of Business and the Law School. They met together in frequent intense discussions that helped set a group outlook on economic issues, based on price theory.

The school of thought is not the same as the Department of Economics at the University of Chicago, widely considered one of the world’s foremost economics departments, having fielded more Nobel Prize winners and John Bates Clark medalists in economics than any other university. Only some, but not a majority, of the professors in the economics department are considered part of the school of thought.

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Photo credit: Caciss

Seaborne piracy has been affecting trade since the 13th century BC. Seaborne piracy against transport vessels remains a significant issue, with estimated worldwide losses of US $13 to $16 billion per year.

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Metro Manila, the economic center of the Philippines

The economy of the Philippines is an emerging market, and considered as a newly industrialized country in the Asia-Pacific region. In 2024, the Philippine economy is estimated to be at ₱26.55 trillion ($471.5 billion), making it the world's 32nd largest by nominal GDP and 13th largest in Asia according to the International Monetary Fund.

The Philippine economy is transitioning from one based on agriculture to one based more on services and manufacturing. It has experienced significant economic growth and transformation in recent years. With an average annual growth rate of around 6 percent since 2010, the country has emerged as one of the fastest-growing economies in the world. The Philippines is a founding member of the United Nations, Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, East Asia Summit and the World Trade Organization. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is headquartered in the Ortigas Center located in the city of Mandaluyong, Metro Manila.

The country's primary exports include semiconductors and electronic products, transport equipments, garments, chemical products, copper, nickel, abaca, coconut oil, and fruits. Its major trading partners include Japan, China, the United States, Singapore, South Korea, the Netherlands, Hong Kong, Germany, Taiwan, and Thailand. (Full article...)

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Again, if expenses are too great, and it seems impossible to meet competition, there is seldom any serious effort made to find out why expenses are too high, but it is assumed that the way out of the difficulty is to reduce wages. It never appears to occur to a manager that perhaps the cause of the excessive expense may not lie with the workman, but with the management. Managers rarely seem to suspect that, if the workmen were more intelligently directed, the output per man might be largely increased without a corresponding increase in expense.

Those who have given even superficial study to the subject are beginning to realize the enormous gain that can be made in the efficiency of workmen, if they are properly directed and provided with proper appliances. Few, however, have realized another fact of equal importance, namely, that to maintain permanently this increase of efficiency, the workman must be allowed a portion of the benefit derived from it.

To obtain this high degree of efficiency successfully, however, the same careful scientific analysis and investigation must be applied to every labor detail as the chemist or biologist applies to his work. Wherever this has been done, it has been found possible to reduce expenses, and, at the same time, to increase wages, producing a condition satisfactory to both employer and employee.

The great difficulty in instituting this method of dealing with labor questions is that usually neither employer nor employee has sufficient knowledge of the scientific method to realize either the amount of detail work necessary, or the extent of the benefits to bo derived from it. In general, their inclination is to adhere to the methods with which they are familiar, and to distrust all others, even though their methods have failed to bring them appreciably nearer the solution of their problems, and the newer methods have produced results far more satisfactory than they even hoped for. A scientific investigation into the details of a condition that has grown up unassisted by science has never yet failed to show that economies and improvements are feasible that benefit both parties to an extent unsuspected by either.

—Henry Gantt, Work, wages, and profits, 1913

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

... that The Sims 2: Open for Business has been used to teach business students?
... that due to business closures across California during the COVID-19 pandemic, some of the exotic dancers at Jumbo's Clown Room created the Cyber Clown Girls show so they could continue working?
... that German economist Ingo Böbel became Professor of Economics at International University of Monaco after serving a prison sentence for embezzlement and tax evasion?
... that according to Jimmy Carter, "more of [Georgia's] business was probably conducted in the Henry Grady than in the state capitol"?
... that railroad transportation executive William Phillips Hall was known as the "business millionaire evangelist"?
... that the University of Maryland's Iribe Center was partly funded by a businessman who dropped out of the university?

On this day in business history

May 25:

1919 - Madam C. J. Walker, an American businesswoman and philanthropist, founder of the Madame C.J. Walker Manufacturing Company, died on this day.

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General images

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

Image 1Emil Jellinek-Mercedes (1853–1918), here at the steering wheel of his Phoenix Double-Phaeton (from Entrepreneurship)
Image 2McDonald's Corporation is one of the most recognizable corporations in the world. (from Corporation)
Image 3Lindley 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 4Mexican Stock Exchange in Paseo de la Reforma, Mexico City (from Business)
Image 5In 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 6Dell Women's Entrepreneur Network event in New York City (from Entrepreneurship)
Image 7Plaque in London commemorating Jewish entrepreneur Sir Jack Cohen who in 1919 founded Tesco, the largest supermarket chain in the UK. (from Entrepreneurship)
Image 8Time required to start a business in 2017 (from Business)
Image 9Chart 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 10Student organizers from the Green Club at Newcomb College Institute formed a social entrepreneurship organization in 2010. (from Entrepreneurship)
Image 11"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 12Offices in the Los Angeles Downtown Financial District (from Business)
Image 131/8 share of the Stora Kopparberg mine, dated June 16, 1288 (from Corporation)

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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?