---
id: extraction-rules
name: extraction_rules
artifact_type: content
description: Guidelines for extracting economic entities from source text
version: 1.0.0
---

# Entity Extraction Rules

## What Constitutes an Entity

An economic entity is a distinct concept, actor, mechanism, or institution
that plays a functional role in Adam Smith's economic analysis. Extract
entities at the level of specificity where they carry independent meaning.

## Extraction Criteria

1. **Concepts**: Abstract economic ideas (e.g., "division of labour",
   "effectual demand", "natural price"). Extract when Smith defines,
   explains, or argues about the concept.

2. **Actors**: Economic agents with defined roles (e.g., "the labourer",
   "the merchant", "the sovereign"). Extract when the actor performs
   a distinct economic function.

3. **Mechanisms**: Processes or dynamics that produce economic effects
   (e.g., "accumulation of stock", "market price adjustment",
   "foreign trade"). Extract when the mechanism is described as
   producing specific outcomes.

4. **Institutions**: Organised structures that shape economic behaviour
   (e.g., "the corporation", "the guild", "the joint-stock company").
   Extract when the institution's economic function is described.

## Granularity Rules

- Extract at the level of a single coherent concept.
- Do NOT extract synonyms as separate entities — choose the primary term
  Smith uses and note variations.
- DO extract distinct aspects of a broad concept as separate entities when
  Smith treats them independently (e.g., "wages of labour" and "profits
  of stock" are separate from "price of commodities" even though they
  compose it).
- If an entity appears across multiple chapters, extract it on first
  significant appearance and note cross-references in later chapters.

## Naming Conventions

- Use Smith's own terminology where possible.
- Normalise to lowercase except for proper nouns.
- Use the most common form Smith uses (e.g., "division of labour" not
  "divided labour").

## Quality Checks

- Each entity must have a definition that would be comprehensible without
  reading the source chapter.
- Each entity must cite the specific book and chapter of first appearance.
- Economic Domain must be one of: Production, Distribution, Exchange,
  Consumption, Accumulation, Regulation, or General Theory.
