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Gender pay gap
80% of UK companies and public sectors
organisations pay women less than men.
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Market - definition
A market is an arrangement between buyers and sellers to
exchange goods or services for money. Markets are the
fundamental means by which scarce resources are allocated a
price, and are essential to the operation of the
price mechanism.
Markets form under certain conditions, and where these
conditions are not met markets struggle to form.
Conditions for market formation include the existance of:
- Buyers who expect a pay-off in terms of the
satisfaction of a want or a need - referred to as utility.
- Purchasing power, which enables buyers to convert
their wants or needs into 'effective demand'.
- Sellers who expect a pay-off, firstly in terms of
the revenue they need to cover their production costs, and secondly to
generate a profit, which is excess revenue over costs.
- Means of 'communication' between buyers and sellers
so that preferences can be indicated and goods and services offered for
sale. In early market forms it was essential that buyers and sellers
met, or at least that their representatives met - however, new
technologies have meant that buyers and sellers no longer need to meet
in the same physical space.
- Knowledge is balanced between buyers and sellers,
so that one partly cannot persistently exploit the other party by
withholding relevant information. Markets can breakdown when information
is not available to all parties.
- A medium of exchange to facilitate a market
transaction - namely, money or credit.
- The ability to pay at a later date - called
deferred payment.
- A legal system which enables both buyers and
sellers to be protected through civil law, such as contracts, and
through criminal law, such as laws against theft.
- Property rights so that individual sellers have the
right to sell, and buyers have to right to buy, and to own what they
have bought.
- In addition, markets require a financial system to
enable individuals and firms to borrow if they need to and to save when
they have surplus funds.
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