I guess real vs everything else economy can be kinda defined as... take all 'economic' activity. Put everything into one of two groups. The group for which you can eliminate without harming your physical ability to continue to operate the other group is the 'not real' economy.

Or in the words of my econ prof, the real economy is an engine that runs on the lubricant of money/currency. In other words, -any- currency market is by definition 'not the real economy'.