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The time required to start a business is the number of calendar days needed to complete the procedures to legally operate a business. This chart is from 2017 statistics.

Fish for sale in Dhaka, Bangladesh, with a price tag of 395 Bangladeshi taka per kilogram.

Business is the activity of making one's living or making money by producing or buying and selling products (such as goods and services).^{[need quotation to verify]} Simply put, it is "any activity or enterprise entered into for profit."

Having a business name does not separate the business entity from the owner, which means that the owner of the business is responsible and liable for debts incurred by the business. If the business acquires debts, the creditors can go after the owner's personal possessions. A business structure does not allow for corporate tax rates. The proprietor is personally taxed on all income from the business.

The term is also often used colloquially (but not by lawyers or by public officials) to refer to a company. A company, on the other hand, is a separate legal entity and provides for limited liability, as well as corporate tax rates. A company structure is more complicated and expensive to set up, but offers more protection and benefits for the owner. (Full article...)

Economics (/ˌɛkəˈnɒmɪks, ˌiːkə-/) is "the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services."

Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of economic agents and how economies work. Microeconomics is a field which analyzes what's viewed as basic elements in the economy, including individual agents and markets, their interactions, and the outcomes of interactions. Individual agents may include, for example, households, firms, buyers, and sellers. Macroeconomics analyzes the economy as a system where production, consumption, saving, and investment interact, and factors affecting it: employment of the resources of labour, capital, and land, currency inflation, economic growth, and public policies that have impact on these elements. (Full article...)

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Odwalla Inc. is an American food product company that sells fruit juices, smoothies and food bars. It was founded in Santa Cruz, California, in 1980 and since 1995 is headquartered in Half Moon Bay, California. Odwalla's products includes juices, smoothies, soy milk, bottled water, organic beverages, and several types of energy bars, known as "food bars".

The company experienced strong growth after its incorporation in 1985, expanding its distribution network from California to most of North America, and went public in 1993. In 2001, Odwalla was acquired by The Coca-Cola Company for US$181 million and became a wholly owned subsidiary.

A period of decline occurred as the result of a fatal outbreak of E.coli-H7 in 1996 that was caused by using bruised fruit that had been contaminated. Odwalla originally sold unpasteurized juices, claiming that the process of pasteurization altered the flavor of the juice. Following the E.coli outbreak, Odwalla adopted flash pasteurization and other sanitization procedures. Odwalla recalled its juices and experienced a 90% reduction in sales following the event. The company gradually recovered and the following year became profitable again.

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European Central Bank headquarters in Frankfurt, Germany

Photo credit: Dontworry

The European Central Bank (ECB) is one of the world's most important central banks, responsible for monetary policy covering the 15 member countries of the Eurozone. It was established by the European Union (EU) in 1998 with its headquarters in Frankfurt, Germany.

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The MIBC, in the financial capital of Russia, Moscow

The Economy of Russia has gradually transformed from a planned economy into a market-oriented economy. It has enormous natural resources, particularly oil and natural gas. As of 2021, it was the fifth-largest economy in Europe, the world's eleventh-largest economy by nominal GDP, and the sixth-largest by PPP.

Russia's vast geography is an important determinant of its economic activity, with the country holding a large share of the world's natural resources. It has been widely described as an energy superpower; as it has the world's largest natural gas reserves, the second-largest coal reserves, the eighth-largest oil reserves, and the largest oil shale reserves in Europe. It is the world's leading natural gas exporter, the second-largest natural gas producer, and the second-largest oil exporter, and producer. Russia's foreign exchange reserves are the world's fifth-largest. It has a labour force of roughly 70 million people, which is the world's sixth-largest. Russia has a large and sophisticated arms industry, capable of designing and manufacturing high-tech military equipment, and is the world's second-largest exporter of arms. Russia also has the world's fifth-largest number of billionaires. (Full article...)

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"Judgments of this kind must always be inferior to those which an able business man forms, by the aid of instincts based on long experience with regard to his own business. But they may be made much more trustworthy than they are at present, if they can be based on statistical measures of the relative quantities of the benefits and the injuries which different courses of public action are likely to cause to the several classes of the community. Much of the failure and much of the injustice, in which the economic policies of governments have resulted, have been due to the want of statistical measurement. A few people who have been strongly interested on one side have raised their voices loudly, persistently and all together; while little has been heard from the great mass of people whose interests have lain in the opposite direction; for, even if their attention has been fairly called to the matter, few have cared to exert themselves much for a cause in which no one of them has more than a small stake. The few therefore get their way, although if statistical measures of the interests involved were available, it might prove that the aggregate of the interests of the few was only a tenth or a hundredth part of the aggregate of the interests of the silent many."

—Alfred Marshall, Principles of Economics, 1890

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Did you know (auto-generated) - load new batch

... that James McHenry Jones was the president of a university, a leader of a fraternal organization, and a director of one of the first African American–owned fossil-fuel companies?
... that cooking manga achieved mainstream popularity in the 1980s as a result of the "gourmet boom" associated with the Japanese bubble economy?
... that in 1958, Virginia Ali and her husband Ben Ali founded Ben's Chili Bowl, a landmark Washington, D.C. restaurant where Martin Luther King Jr., Jesse Jackson, and Stokely Carmichael would often eat?
... that when starting his business, Vincent Figgins needed help from the mysterious "Black Man"?
... that a business-firm party is a political party created and run by one person to further their own interests?
... that within three years, American subscription television service ON TV went from boasting 725,000 subscribers in eight cities to being out of business?

On this day in business history

April 23:

1915 - Arnold Alexander Hall, a British aeronautical engineer, scientist and industrialist, was born on this day.

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General images

The following are images from various business-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Time required to start a business in 2017 (from Business)
Image 2A vegetable seller in a rural Sri Lankan village (from Sales)
Image 31/8 share of the Stora Kopparberg mine, dated June 16, 1288. (from Corporation)
Image 417th-century Walloon-Dutch-Swedish businessman Louis De Geer (1587–1652) was a pioneering entrepreneur and industrialist at the dawn of modern capitalism. (from Entrepreneurship)
Image 5Fish for sale in Dhaka, Bangladesh, with a price tag of 395 Bangladeshi taka per kilogram. (from Business)
Image 6Mexican Stock Exchange in Paseo de la Reforma, Mexico City (from Business)
Image 7Emil Jellinek-Mercedes (1853–1918), here at the steering wheel of his Phoenix Double-Phaeton, was a European entrepreneur who helped design the first modern car (from Entrepreneurship)
Image 8A beach salesman showing necklaces to a tourist in Mexico (from Sales)
Image 9Dell Women's Entrepreneur Network event in New York City (from Entrepreneurship)
Image 10McDonald's Corporation is one of the most recognizable corporations in the world. (from Corporation)
Image 11Malala Yousafzai, a Pakistani activist, social entrepreneur and youngest-ever Nobel Peace Prize winner (from Entrepreneurship)
Image 12Apple co-founder and longtime leader Steve Jobs (pictured in 2010) led the introduction of many innovations in the computer, smartphone and digital music industries (from Entrepreneurship)
Image 13Student organizers from the Green Club at Newcomb College Institute formed a social entrepreneurship organization in 2010. (from Entrepreneurship)
Image 14A bond issued by the Dutch East India Company (VOC), dating from 1623, for the amount of 2,400 florins (from Corporation)
Image 15Lindley LJ was the leading expert on partnerships and company law in the Salomon v. Salomon & Co. case. The landmark case confirmed the distinct corporate identity of the company. (from Corporation)
Image 16In 2012, Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women's Issues Melanne Verveer greets participants in an African Women's Entrepreneurship Program at the State Department in Washington, D.C. (from Entrepreneurship)
Image 17Replica of an East Indiaman of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) (from Corporation)
Image 18Offices in the Los Angeles Downtown Financial District (from Business)
Image 19A Hollister Co. store in Leeds, England; the clothing retailing is a prominent sales market (from Sales)
Image 20Chart of the South Sea Company's stock prices. The rapid inflation of the stock value in the 1710s led to the Bubble Act 1720, which restricted the establishment of companies without a royal charter. (from Corporation)
Image 21"Jack and the Giant Joint-Stock", a cartoon in Town Talk (1858) satirizing the 'monster' joint-stock economy that came into being after the Joint Stock Companies Act 1844. (from Corporation)

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More did you know

...that French economist A.R.J. Turgot (pictured) served as the intendant of the genéralité of Limoges from 1761 to 1774?

...that in economics, the monetary base is defined as the portion of the commercial banks' reserves that are maintained in accounts with their central bank plus the total currency circulating in the public?

...that Friedrich Hayek was appointed as a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour by Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom on the advice of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher?

...that Gunnar Myrdal, the 1974 co-winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics was married Alva Myrdal, a Swedish diplomat who won the 1982 Nobel Peace Prize?

...that Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Daron Acemoglu was the 2005 recipient of the John Bates Clark Medal?

...that Gold Fixing is the procedure by which the price of gold is set on the London market by the five members of the London Bullion Market Association?

...that the postal services of Canada, Finland and the United Kingdom have their own dedicated address to which letters to Santa Claus pleading their good behavior and requesting gifts?

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