Market intervention

A market intervention is a measure that modifies or interferes with the market, usually done by governments, but also by philanthropic and political-action groups.

Examples of market interventions

• Bailouts pay (usually tax) money to people or organizations in financial difficulty; bail-ins transfer organizations from the ownership of their former shareholders to that of their creditors, cancelling the debt.
• Competition laws aim to increase competition and prevent monopoly and oligopoly
• Copyright is a legal monopoly granted on creative works
• Minimum wages legislatively limit the lowest pay level
• Monetary policy is manipulating the supply of money to attain economic goals; usually done by governments, as they are the ones that typically control currencies
• Nationalization transfers a privately-held thing into government ownership
• Non-tariff barriers to trade restrict imports and exports by method other than direct taxes
• Patents are legal monopolies granted on practical inventions
• Privatization transfers a government-held thing into private ownership
• Quantitative easing occurs when the government buys government bonds, raising their price and lowering the return per unit price to people and institutions buying government bonds.
• Regulation bans, limits, or requires some market activities
• Subsidies and market/government incentives pay money to produce some desired change in recipients
  • Cross subsidization and feebates are subsidies funded by a linked tax
• Welfare is government support to individuals, in cash or in kind, often directed at basic needs

Levies

• Bank levies are when banks are required to give one-off payments to governments
• Capital levies require people or institutions to pay a one-time taxlike payment, to the government or some institution the government wishes to support; often paid only if above a certain level of wealth

Taxes

Taxes are also market interventions.