ABSTRACT
Economic relations begin with transactions of goods. But economics has scarcely answered a simple but important question, i.e., just what transactions are. Actual transactions may be broadly divided into three categories: transactions between an enterprise and an individual (a consumer), transactions between one enterprise and another, and transactions between an enterprise and a nonbusiness corporation such as the government or a foreign country. Of these, transactions between enterprises predominate. Interfirm transactions are linked together along a long chain, which ends when the commodity passes into the hands of the final purchaser-a consumer, the government, or a foreign country, as the case may be.
