Finance is a term for the management, creation, and study of money and investments. Specifically, it deals with the questions of how an individual, company or government acquires money – called capital in the context of a business – and how they spend or invest that money. Finance is then often divided into the following broad categories: personal finance, corporate finance, and public finance.
Business is the activity of making one's living or making money by producing or buying and selling products. Simply put, it is "any activity or enterprise entered into for profit."
A financial market is a market in which people trade financial securities and derivatives at low transaction costs. Some of the securities include stocks and bonds, raw materials and precious metals, which are known in the financial markets as commodities.
Financial capital is any economic resource measured in terms of money used by entrepreneurs and businesses to buy what they need to make their products or to provide their services to the sector of the economy upon which their operation is based, e.g., retail, corporate, investment banking, etc. In other words, financial capital is internal retained earnings generated by the entity or funds provided by lenders to businesses in order to purchase real capital equipment or services for producing new goods and/or services.
Infrastructure is the set of fundamental facilities and systems that support the sustainable functionality of households and firms. Serving a country, city, or other area, including the services and facilities necessary for its economy to function. Infrastructure is composed of public and private physical structures such as roads, railways, bridges, tunnels, water supply, sewers, electrical grids, and telecommunications. In general, infrastructure has been defined as "the physical components of interrelated systems providing commodities and services essential to enable, sustain, or enhance societal living conditions" and maintain the surrounding environment.
A mutual fund is a professionally managed investment fund that pools money from many investors to purchase securities. The term is typically used in the United States, Canada, and India, while similar structures across the globe include the SICAV in Europe and open-ended investment company (OEIC) in the UK.
Public works are a broad category of infrastructure projects, financed and constructed by the government, for recreational, employment, and health and safety uses in the greater community. They include public buildings, transport infrastructure, public spaces, public services, and other, usually long-term, physical assets and facilities. Though often interchangeable with public infrastructure and public capital, public works does not necessarily carry an economic component, thereby being a broader term.
In finance, valuation is the process of determining the present value (PV) of an asset. In a business context, it is often the hypothetical price that a third party would pay for a given asset. Valuations can be done on assets or on liabilities. Valuations are needed for many reasons such as investment analysis, capital budgeting, merger and acquisition transactions, financial reporting, taxable events to determine the proper tax liability.
A real estate investment trust (REIT) is a company that owns, and in most cases operates, income-producing real estate. REITs own many types of commercial real estate, including office and apartment buildings, warehouses, hospitals, shopping centers, hotels and commercial forests. Some REITs engage in financing real estate.
A public–private partnership is an arrangement between two or more public and private sectors of a long-term nature. Typically, it involves private capital financing government projects and services up-front, and then drawing profits from taxpayers and/or users over the course of the PPP contract. Public–private partnerships have been implemented in multiple countries and are primarily used for infrastructure projects. They have been used for building, equipping, operating and maintaining schools, hospitals, transport systems, and water and sewerage systems.
A capital gains tax (CGT) is a tax on the profit realized on the sale of a non-inventory asset. The most common capital gains are realized from the sale of stocks, bonds, precious metals, real estate, and property.
An investment trust is a form of investment fund found mostly in the United Kingdom and Japan. Investment trusts are constituted as public limited companies and are therefore closed ended since the fund managers cannot redeem or create shares.
Tax revenue is the income that is collected by governments through taxation. Taxation is the primary source of government revenue. Revenue may be extracted from sources such as individuals, public enterprises, trade, royalties on natural resources and/or foreign aid. An inefficient collection of taxes is greater in countries characterized by poverty, a large agricultural sector and large amounts of foreign aid.
A venture capital trust or VCT is a tax efficient UK closed-end collective investment scheme designed to provide venture capital for small expanding companies, and income and/or capital gains for investors. VCTs are a form of publicly traded private equity, comparable to investment trusts in the UK or business development companies in the United States. They were introduced by the Conservative government in the Finance Act 1995 to encourage investment into new UK businesses.
Real estate investing involves the purchase, management and sale or rental of real estate for profit. Improvement of realty property as part of a real estate investment strategy is generally considered to be a sub-specialty of real estate investing called real estate development. Someone who actively or passively invests in real estate is called a real estate entrepreneur or a real estate investor.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to finance:
Reputation capital is the quantitative measure of some entity's reputational value in some context – a community or marketplace. In the world of Web 2.0, what is increasingly valuable is trying to measure the effects of collaboration and contribution to community. Reputation capital is often seen as a form of non-cash remuneration for their efforts, and generally generates respect within the community or marketplace where the capital is generated.
Impact investing refers to investments "made into companies, organizations, and funds with the intention to generate a measurable, beneficial social or environmental impact alongside a financial return". At its core, impact investing is about an alignment of an investors beliefs and values with the allocation of capital to address social and/or environmental issues.
An investment fund is a way of investing money alongside other investors in order to benefit from the inherent advantages of working as part of a group such as reducing the risks of the investment by a significant percentage. These advantages include an ability to:
Sustainable Development Goal 17 is about "partnerships for the goals." One of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals established by the United Nations in 2015, the official wording is: "Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development". The Goal has 17 targets to be achieved by 2030, broken down into five categories: finance, technology, capacity building, trade and systemic issues. Progress towards targets will be measured by 25 indicators.
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Belarus 
Belgium 
Benin 
Bosnia and Herzegovina 
Botswana 
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Cameroon 
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Chile 
Republic of the Congo 
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Costa Rica 
Croatia 
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Egypt 
Ethiopia 
Finland 
France 
Gabon 
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Germany 
Ghana 
Guinea 
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Iran 
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United Kingdom 
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