Business sector

Not to be confused with private sector or division (business).
Economic sectors
Three-sector model
Additional sectors
Theorists
Sectors by ownership

In economics, the business sector or corporate sector - sometimes popularly called simply "business" - is "the part of the economy made up by companies".[1][need quotation to verify][2] It is a subset of the domestic economy,[3] excluding the economic activities of general government, private households, and non-profit organizations serving individuals.[4] The business sector is part of the private sector, but it differs in that the private sector includes all non-government activity, including non-profit organizations, while the business sector only includes business that operate for profit.

In the United States the business sector accounted for about 78 percent of the value of gross domestic product (GDP) as of 2000.[4] Kuwait and Tuvalu each had business sectors accounting for less than 40% of GDP as of 2015.[5]

In systems of state capitalism, much of the business sector forms part of the public sector.[6] In mixed economies, state-owned enterprises may straddle any divide between public and business sectors, allowing analysts to use the concept of a "state-owned enterprise sector".[7]

The Oxford English Dictionary records the phrase "business sector" in the general sense from 1934.[8] Word usage suggests that the concept of a "business sector" came into wider use after 1940.[9] Related terms in previous times included "merchant class" and "merchant caste".

  1. ^ Longman Business English Dictionary. Such a definition might include State-owned enterprises - compare: Freeman, John R. (1989). Democracy and Markets: The Politics of Mixed Economies. Cornell studies in political economy, ISSN 2472-1433. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. p. 117. ISBN 9780801496011. Retrieved 12 June 2019. In addition, party activists recognize the instrumental value of state-owned enterprise, and in some instances they are directly involved in supervising the operation of the state business sector.
  2. ^ Compare: "business sector". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.) - "that part of the economy which is related to (a particular) business".
  3. ^ But compare Keese, Mark; Salou, Gérard; Richardson, Pete (1991). The measurement of output and factors of production for the business sector in OECD countries: the OECD business sector database. OECD Department of Economics and Statistics working papers. Vol. 95–101. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. p. i. Retrieved 2015-06-07. [...] recent work of the OECD Economics and Statistics Department to construct an international Business Sector Data Base (BSDB) for use in a wide variety of analyses of production and supply issues [...].
  4. ^ a b "BLS Information". Glossary. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Division of Information Services. February 28, 2008. Retrieved 2009-05-05.
  5. ^ "1: Overview: Opportunities and challenges for Myanmar". OECD Development Pathways Multi-dimensional Review of Myanmar. Vol. 3: From Analysis to Action. Paris: OECD Publishing (published 2016). 23 June 2016. p. 29. ISBN 9789264256545. Retrieved 2017-12-27. The countries that have general government revenue more than 60% of GDP are Kiribati, Kuwait, Lesotho, Micronesia and Tuvalu. Source: IMF (2015), World Economic Outlook (database), International Monetary Fund.
  6. ^ Dieterle, David A., ed. (27 March 2017). Economics: The Definitive Encyclopedia from Theory to Practice. ABC-CLIO (published 2017). pp. 297–298. ISBN 9780313397080. Retrieved 19 October 2021. Modern state capitalism involves businesses that are owned or backed by the government with the behavior of a private-sector multi-national company. Today's modern state business develops into a full-fledged business model [...] Regardless of the business sector that the state-powned business is operating, if the government backing the business is not stable, the likelihood of a stable business greatly lessens.
  7. ^ "State-Owned Enterprise Sector Remains Large Despite Increasing Divestiture". Bureaucrats in Business: The Economics and Politics of Government Ownership. World Bank policy research report: International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, volume 4. Oxford: World Bank Publications. 1995. p. 25ff. ISBN 9780195211061. Retrieved 19 October 2021.
  8. ^ "business sector". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
  9. ^ Google Ngram Viewer