What is a private sector?
Private sector are a sector of the economy where businesses are owned by private individuals or organisations, as such they aim to maximize their profit.
What is a public sector?
While, the public sector are made up of organisations owned by the government setup to provide services to the public. As such, their objective is to fulfil the welfare needs of its citizens and the general public.
However, not all economies have public and private sectors. A planned economy such as those in North Korea would only have a public sector or a very small private sector. On the other hand, a predominant market economy like the United States of America would have a very small public sector. A mixed economy would be a country which have a significant size of both public sector and private sector, such as Singapore.
IMPORTANT!
Don't be mistaken between public corporations and public companies. Public companies are what is better known as public-listed companies, which have their shares openly traded in a stock exchange. Public corporations are government owned, setup to provide government services.
RELATED CONCEPTS
What the different types of economic systems
PAST YEAR QUESTIONS
Define ‘public sector’ (2 marks) May/June 2021/11
State two features of a private sector business (2 marks) May/June 2020/13
Identify and explain two objectives Y2M might have if it was in the private sector. (4 marks) May/June 2019/11