In the words of Cournot a French economist, “Economists understand by the term market, not any particular market place in which things are bought and sold but the whole of any region in which buyers and sellers are in such free intercourse with one another that the price of the same goods tends to equality easily and quickly.”

Thus, the essentials of a market are a commodity which is dealt with; the existence of buyers and sellers; a place, be it a certain region, a country or the entire world; and such intercourse between buyers and sellers that only one price should prevail for the same commodity at the same time.