ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the markets within the context of the total economy. National accounting procedures often forget unmarketed outputs because of measurement difficulties and give them a low implicit weighting that underestimates total economic activity. The commercial sector has framed economists’ perceptions of the total economy as the sum of traded goods and services. Whatever their shared attributes, markets embrace internal variety and complexity, in line with the complexity of the total economy. The relative size of market and non-market sectors in an economy varies over time and place. Assumptions about the primacy of the market sector seem to be justified by the chronic trend towards commodification. Non-market sectors are largest in less developed countries, with a shift towards markets during economic development. The market/non-market and recorded/unrecorded distinctions can set out the various economic sectors but may give a false impression. Markets in a modern developed economy vary in trading conditions, price setting, price volatility and quantity adjustments.
