Economy

Currency, or money, is a generally accepted, recognized, and centralized medium of exchange that market participants use to engage in transactions for goods and services in an economy. Each government has its own money system that is monitored by a central authority.

The buying, selling, or bartering of goods and services is known as trade. In an economy, a trade takes place between a producer and a consumer, usually in exchange for money. An exchange of goods and services between two countries is international trade.

A knowledge economy is a system of consumption and production based on the intangible assets of intellectual capital. It refers to the ability to capitalize on scientific discoveries and academic research, and has come to represent a large component of all economic activity in developed countries.

Wealthy is an abundant supply of valuable economic assets or resources owned by a person, company, community, or nation. It can be determined by subtracting debt from the total market value of all physical and intangible assets.

The law of supply and demand is an economic theory based on two separate "laws" that explain the interaction between the sellers of a resource and the buyers of that resource. The theory defines the relationship between the price of a given good or product and the willingness of people to either buy or sell it. Generally, as the price increases, people are willing to supply more and demand less and vice versa when the price falls.

A decline of the purchasing power of a specific currency over time is known as inflation. You can see the rate of decline reflected in the increase of an average price level of a basket of selected goods and services in an economy over a specified period of time. The rise in the general level of prices, often expressed as a percentage, means that a unit of currency effectively buys less than it did in prior periods.

An association of workers united as a single entity, known as organized labor or a union, seek to improve the economic status and working conditions of employees through collective bargaining with management.

The colloquial phrase "sluggish economy" is not an exact and quantifiable thing. It is derived from an analogy to a slug and refers to an economy in which growth is slow in macroeconomic terms. It can be used to describe an entire economy or a segment of it.

Gross domestic product (GDP) is a broad measure of a country's overall domestic production and a measure of that country's overall economic health. It is calculated by the total monetary or market value of all the finished goods and services produced within a country’s borders in a specific time period.