Markets are broadly classified as factor markets or goods markets.
Factor markets are markets for the purchase and sale of factors of production. In capitalist private enterprise economies, households own the factors of production (the land, labor, physical capital, and materials used in production).
Goods markets are markets for the output of production. From an economics perspective, firms, which ultimately are owned by individuals either singly or in some corporate form, are organizations that buy the services of those factors. Firms then transform those services into intermediate or final goods and services. (
Intermediate goods and services are those purchased for use as inputs to produce other goods and services, whereas final goods and services are in the final form purchased by households.) These two types of interaction between the household sector and the firm sector—those related to goods and those related to services—take place in factor markets and goods markets, respectively.