There is no agreed-upon definition of power in economics. At least four definitions of power have been used: U.S. Economic Calendar Economics at the Open Directory Project Economics textbooks on Wikibooks The Economists Economics A-Z Institutions and organizations Bureau of Labor Statistics - from the American Labor Department Center for Economic and Policy Research (USA) National Bureau of Economic Research (USA) - Economics material from the organization... The concept of power occurs in multiple areas. ...

• purchasing power, i.e., the ability of any amount of money to buy goods and services. Those with more assets (or, more correctly, net worth) have more power of this sort. The greater the liquidity of one's assets, the greater one's purchasing power is.

• monopoly power, i.e., the ability to set prices or wages. This is the opposite of the situation in a perfectly competitive market, in which supply and demand set prices. See bargaining power.

• managerial power, i.e., the ability of managers to threaten their employees with firing or other penalties for not following orders. This exists if there is a cost of job loss, especially due to the existence of unemployment and workers' lack of sufficient assets to survive without working for pay.

• class power in Marxian political economy: under capitalism this refers to a situation where a minority (the capitalists) in society controls the means of production and thus is able to exploit the majority (the workers).

In general, those with more power also have more freedom than others and may be able to exploit others in society and/or cause some sort of market failure. In economics, purchasing power refers to the amount of goods and services a given amount of money -- or, more generally, liquid assets -- can buy. ... Money Money is any marketable good or token used by a society as a store of value, a medium of exchange, or a unit of account. ... It has been suggested that Definiton of asset be merged into this article or section. ... Net worth (sometimes net assets) is the total assets minus total liabilities of an individual or company. ... Market liquidity is a business or economics term that refers to the ability to quickly buy or sell a particular item without causing a significant movement in the price. ... In economics, a monopoly (from the Greek monos, one + polein, to sell) is defined as a persistent market situation where there is only one provider of a kind of product or service. ... Perfect competition is a model in economic theory. ... The supply and demand model describes how prices vary as a result of a balance between product availability at each price (supply) and the desires of those with purchasing power at each price (demand). ... In economics, bargaining power refers to the ability to influence the setting of prices or wages, usually arising from some sort of monopoly or monopsony position -- or a non-equilibrium situation in the market. ... Management (from Old French ménagement the art of conducting, directing, from Latin manu agere to lead by the hand) characterises the process of leading and directing all or part of an organization, often a business, through the deployment and manipulation of resources (human, financial, material, intellectual or intangible). ... Dorothea Langes Migrant Mother depicts destitute pea pickers in California during the Great Depression. ... A social class is, at its most basic, a group of people that have similar status. ... Marxian economics refers to a body of economic thought stemming from the work of Karl Marx. ... Political economy was the original term for the study of production, the acts of buying and selling, and their relationships to laws, customs and government. ... In common usage capitalism refers to an economic system in which all or most of the means of production are privately owned and operated, and where investment and the production, distribution and prices of commodities (goods and services) are determined by the influence of market forces (in a free market... // General Means of production generally refers to productive assets which are inputs in a production process. ... This article discusses the economic concept of exploitation. ... This article does not cite its references or sources. ... This article discusses the economic concept of exploitation. ... In economics, a market failure is a situation in which markets do not efficiently organize production or allocate goods and services to consumers (for example, a failure to allocate goods in a way some see as socially or morally preferable). ...

It is worth noting that information is also a form of power, in the case of two agents entering into a contract; if one agent knows that their deal with turn out significantly better (or worse) than the other suspects, then they are exercising a form of informational economic power. See Information asymmetry In economics, information asymmetry occurs when one party to a transaction has more or better information than the other party. ...