National economy (NE) is characterised as all the activities related to the production, distribution and consumption of goods and services within a country. The activities highly depend on natural resources (occurrence, stage of development, renewability, …), national wealth (factories, railways, roads,…), structure of the population (age, health, employment,…) and political and economical systems. All companies, citizens as well as the state are engaged in these activities.

The structure of NE can be depicted by sectors, economic decision-makers, factors that affect performance of national economies and economic indicators.

Various ways are used for dividing a national economy into sectors. The division into four sectors based on the phases in the production chain is commonly used.
Primary sector includes production of raw materials and basic food – agriculture, forestry, grazing, farming, hunting, fishing and mining.
Secondary sector produces goods – manufacturing, processing and construction.
Tertiary sector deals with services to the general population and businesses – retail and wholesale, transportation, distribution, restaurants, media, tourism, insurance, banks, healthcare and law.

Quaternary sector involves intellectual activities – scientific research, education and IT.
Some even suggest a quinary sector as a sector of the highest decision-makers.
From the aspect of ownership, sectors can be divided into public sector, owned and managed by government agencies, e.g. national defence, public transportation and social security services, private sector concerned with profit-making activities, and voluntary sector.
Based on profitability, sectors are profit-making and non-profit.

Each economy is vitally dependent on economic decision-makers / agents / economic actors:
Households which demand goods and services and supply land, labour and capital;
Companies / enterprises / firms which provide goods and services;
Government / state establishes the rules, produces public goods, distributes income;
Foreign countries.

Land, labour and capital are referred to as factors of production in national economies.
Land, or natural resources, is used for farming and building. It also covers energy resources, non-energy resources such as copper, iron, etc., and the physical environment – air, sun, water.

Labour represents all human time spent in production. It is the most significant input in developed economies.
Capital can be in the form of material goods, means of production, money or equities used for producing a higher amount of capital.
Sometimes know-how is addressed as the fourth factor of production.
Time is a specific phenomenon which should be considered as a specific factor of production. It affects all human activities and therefore the whole national economy.

Economic measures:
GDP (gross domestic product) which is the total market value of all final goods and services within a country during one year.
NI (national income) which represents all income in the country (wages, profits, interest, rents and pensions) expressed as the total net value of goods and services produced there.

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