Economic value refers to intrinsic, long-term, ultimate value of an operating enterprise as determined by net cash flow analysis.

The term value can refer to either accounting value, market value, or economic value. 


Measures of accounting value include book value per share, net worth per share, net asset value per share, and net tangible asset value per share. 


Market value refers to common stock equity capitalization or financial "size", and is equal to the share price times the number of shares outstanding. Publicly-traded market value includes only those shares that are not held in private accounts. 


Measures of accounting value and market value can be used for quick mechanical screening criteria for filtering out common stocks for further investigation. 


In contrast, economic value refers to intrinsic, long-term, ultimate value of an operating enterprise as determined by net cash flow analysis using spreadsheets and formulas. 

Intrinsic value is independent of quoted market prices. Accounting value is commonly confused with economic value. 

Economic value can refer to either value in use or value in exchange.

Economic value can refer to either value in use or value in exchange.

• For example, water has high value in use but due to an excess supply may have a low price or be free for the taking. 
• Diamonds, in contrast, have high value in exchange due to their real or artificially-managed low supply relative to demand. 

The great 'paradox of value' was obvious when contrasting the useless dearness of the diamond to the cheapness of the water without which we cannot live.   A start is supposed to have been made at connecting value to a general theory of utility.  The apparent paradox between the value of water and diamonds is resolved by the difference between total utility and marginal utility.