HERFINDAHL INDEX: A measure of concentration of the production in an industry that's calculated as the sum of the squares of market shares for each firm. This is an alternative method of summarizing the degree to which an industry is oligopolistic and the relative concentration of market power held by the largest firms in the industry. The Herfindahl index gives a better indication of the relative market control of the largest firms than can be found with the four-firm and eight-firm concentration ratios.

     See also | market share | oligopoly | concentration ratio | market control | antitrust laws |

HERFINDAHL INDEX, AmosWEB GLOSS*arama, http://www.AmosWEB.com, AmosWEB LLC, 2000-2025. [Accessed: July 10, 2025].

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The official entry in the National Income and Product Accounts maintained by the Bureau of Economic Analysis for sales taxes. Indirect business taxes are one key difference between national income (the resource cost of production) and gross (and net) domestic product (the market value of production). Indirect business taxes (IBT) is generally less than 10 percent of gross domestic product (7 to 8 percent is common).

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