A black market or underground economy is the market in which illegal goods are traded. Due to the nature of the goods traded, the market itself is forced to operate outside the formal economy, supported by the established state power. Typically the totality of such activity is referred to with the definite article as a complement to the official economies, by market for such goods and services, e.g. "the black market in bush meat".
The black market is distinct from the grey market, in which commodities are distributed through channels which, while legal, are unofficial, unauthorized, or unintended by the original manufacturer, and the white market, the legal market for goods and services.
Worldwide, the underground economy is estimated to have provided 1.8 billion jobs.
Read more about Black Market: Background, Pricing, Consumer Issues, Size of The Global Black Markets, Organized Crime, Appearance and Disappearance, See Also
Famous quotes containing the words black and/or market:
“It is dangerous to leave written that which is badly written. A chance word, upon paper, may destroy the world. Watch carefully and erase, while the power is still yours, I say to myself, for all that is put down, once it escapes, may rot its way into a thousand minds, the corn become a black smut, and all libraries, of necessity, be burned to the ground as a consequence. Only one answer: write carelessly so that nothing that is not green will survive.”
—William Carlos Williams (1883–1963)
“When General Motors has to go to the bathroom ten times a day, the whole country’s ready to let go. You heard of that market crash in ‘29? I predicted that.... I was nursing a director of General Motors. Kidney ailment, they said; nerves, I said. Then I asked myself, “What’s General Motors got to be nervous about?” “Overproduction,” I says. “Collapse.””
—John Michael Hayes (b. 1919)