Economic power refers to the ability of countries, businesses or individuals to make decisions on their own that benefit them. Scholars ofinternational relations also refer to the economic power of a country as a factor influencing itspower in international relations.^[1]

Economists use several concepts featuring the word power:

• Market power is the ability of a firm to profitably raise themarket price of a good or service overmarginal cost.
  • Monopoly power is a strong form of market power—the ability to set prices or wages unilaterally. This is the opposite of the situation in aperfectly competitive market in whichsupply and demand set prices.
• Purchasing power, i.e. the ability of any amount ofmoney to buy goods and services. Those with moreassets, or more correctlynet worth, have more power of this sort. The greater theliquidity of one's assets, the greater one's purchasing power is.Purchasing power parity is a way of adjusting exchange rate valuations to reflect the actual goods or services that can be purchased for a given amount of currency.
• Corporate power, the landmark ofcorporate capitalism in which with corporations and large business interest groups have power and influence over government policy, including the policies of regulatory agencies and influencing political campaigns.
• Bargaining power, i.e. the ability of players in abargaining game to influence the outcome which is the players sharing rule for something (a prize, a cake or access to resources).^[2]Information is a contributor to bargaining power. In the case of two agents entering into a contract, if one agent knows that their deal will turn out significantly better, or worse, than the other suspects, then they are exercising a form of informational economic power (seeinformation asymmetry).
• Managerial power, i.e. the ability of managers to threaten their employees with firing or other penalties for not following orders or for not giving in satisfying reports. This exists if there is a cost of job loss, especially due to the existence ofunemployment and workers' lack of sufficient assets to survive without working for pay.
• Worker power, i.e. the ability of workers to threaten their managers with resignation for not providing satisfying working conditions. This exists if there is a cost of hiring, especially due to the existence of lowunemployment, recruiting costs, or training costs.
• Class power inMarxianpolitical economy refers to a situation undercapitalism where a minority (thecapitalists) in society controls themeans of production and therefore is able toexploit the majority (theworkers).

• Vatiero M. (2009),Understanding Power. A 'Law and Economics' Approach.Archived 2020-07-30 at theWayback Machine,VDM Verlag.ISBN 978-3-639-20265-6.

• Philosophy of economics

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