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A market is, as defined in economics, a social arrangement that allows buyers and sellers to discover information and carry out a voluntary exchange. Along with a right to own property, it is one of the two key institutions that organize trade. The existence of markets is one of the key components of capitalism. Though markets are often viewed as being located in a physical marketplace that allow a face-to-face meeting, markets may exist in any medium that allows social interaction, such as through mail or over the Internet.

Structure

The information function of a market requires, at a minimum, that the buyer and seller are both aware of what is being sold and if a voluntary transaction is possible. Economic models assume that such knowledge is perfect, including in knowledge of alternatives and other factors affecting the proposed sale/purchase.

Markets rely on adjustments to price to coordinate individual decision making relating to supply and demand. For example, suppose that more buyers want a certain good than is available from sellers at a given price. The solution requires either that buyers reduce their demand for the good, or that sellers produce more of the good. These results are accomplished by a rise in the price of that good: some buyers will refuse to pay the higher price, while more sellers are willing to offer the good for the increased price. In cases where more of an item is available than people will buy, the reverse effect (a drop in price) will make the choices of buyers and sellers compatible. Markets are thus efficient, in the economic sense, in that the buyers who value a good most highly will buy from sellers most willing to sell.

In economics, a market that runs under laissez-faire policies is a free market. It is "free" in the sense that the government makes no attempt to intervene through taxes, subsidies, minimum wages, price ceilings, etc. Markets may also be skewed by a seller with a monopoly, sellers with an oligopoly or a buyer with a monopsony. Markets that have their efficiency reduced in these ways are referred to by economists as "failed markets".

While barter markets exist, most markets require the existence of currency or other form of money. An economic system in which goods and services (and resources required to produce those goods and services) are mediated by markets is called a market economy. Critics of the market economy have tried or proposed a command economy or other non-market economy. The attempt to mix socialism with the incentives created by a market is known as market socialism, which includes the relatively recent socialism with Chinese characteristics, though some argue that socialism and markets are fundamentally incompatible.