boom and bust

booms and busts (plural)
boom-and-bust (alternative adjective)
boom or bust (alternative)
boom-bust (alternative)

The reason such comments provoke scepticism is because Brown's mantra during his 10 years at the Treasury was that his prudence as chancellor of the exchequer would ensure there would never be a return to “boom and bust” economics.

2008 September 11, Deborah Summers, “‘No return to boom and bust’: what Brown said when he was chancellor”, in The Guardian:

Boom and bust is a long-running theme with rail suppliers. [...] I sympathise with those complaining of the ill-effects of boom and bust. [...] If boom and bust has been going on for decades (and it has), then perhaps it's an enduring characteristic and one that companies must work with, saving cash in the good times to see them through the bad.

2019 November 20, Philip Haigh, “An important to-do list for NR and its many suppliers”, in Rail, page 66:

(economics, finance, business) A pattern of high prices in a given market or in the entire economy followed by ruinously low prices, falling production, and bankruptcies by producers; prosperity followed by recession.


predatory pricing

(economics, business) A strategy of selling a good or service at a very low price so as to drive one's competitors out of business (at which point one can raise one's prices more freely).


free rider

A lighthouse is the classic example of a public good because it is difficult to prevent a ship (a free rider) from using it.

Trump also promises to attack the sources abroad that he blames for the country’s malaise: economic interdependence, transnational criminals, traditional allies he sees as free riders on America’s long-running global beneficence.

2024 December 12, Eric Cortellessa, “Donald Trump 2024 TIME Person of the Year”, in Time:

(economics) One who obtains benefit from a public good without paying for it directly.

搭便車者 /搭便车者

(economics) one who obtains benefit from a public good without paying for it directly


path dependence

en-noun

path dependence (usually uncountable, plural path dependences)

path dependences (plural)
path dependency (alternative)

(uncountable, economics) The theory that a technological option selected by the market need not be the technologically best one, because of the traction obtained by an early-introduced, technologically inferior alternative option.


network effect

Aided by preferential attachment and network effects (the phenomenon of a good or service becoming more valuable the more people who use it), a handful of winners emerge, overshadowing other available options.

2014, Astra Taylor, chapter 4, in The People's Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age, Henry Holt and Company, →ISBN:

(economics) The higher growth rate of businesses with higher market share in those segments of economy in which the value of a product or service depends on the compounding effects of the number of existing users of the product or a service, as is the case with telephone networks.


network externality

network externality (plural network externalities)

(economics) An externality arising from network effects.


political economy

political economy (countable and uncountable, plural political economies)

Arguing for a limit on the power of money, [John Maynard Keynes] was faithful to a long tradition of political economy that was concerned with the balance of interests and the dangers of financial domination.

2012 July 8, Maurice Glasman, “We need to talk about Keynes – and his Viagra economics”, in The Guardian:

Ten years ago, David Simon’s iconic TV series The Wire portrayed contemporary Baltimore as wracked by illegal drug use, violent crime and failing institutions. But underneath the symptoms were the structures of political economy. As the show’s tagline had it, “everything is connected”.

2017 July 20, David Ritter, “Dirty coal to dirty politics: everything is connected through a malformed political economy”, in The Guardian:

Everywhere, international opposition to capitalism's global reach would have been fiercer; the Wall Street–City of London–Frankfurt axis that was to shape so much of global political economy in the 1990s and beyond would have been weaker.

2022, Gary Gerstle, chapter 5, in The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order […] , New York: Oxford University Press, →ISBN:

(economics, politics) Interdisciplinary studies drawing upon economics, law, and political science in explaining how political institutions, the political environment, and the economic system — capitalist, socialist, mixed, and so on — influence each other.


discretionary spending

discretionary spending (usually uncountable, plural discretionary spendings)

In this scenario discretionary spending is held to a constant share of GDP.

2000, D. W. Elmendorf et al., “Social Security Reform and National Saving in an Era of Budget Surpluses”, in Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, volume 2000, number 2, page 48:

(economics) The amount or portion of a person's or group's expenditures which is used for non-essential or voluntary disbursements; the amount or portion of one's expenditures which one may make as one sees fit.


disposable income

disposable income (countable and uncountable, plural disposable incomes)

Perhaps the day is not far off when we witness McDonald's and Burger King fighting it out on the corner of 18th and Castro for our well-publicized “disposable income.”

1982 July 15, David Craig, “Heck with Haagen-Dasz”, in Bay Area Reporter, volume 12, number 28, page 7:

(economics) The amount of a person's or group's monetary income which is available to be saved or spent (on either essential or non-essential items), after deducting all taxes and other governmental fees.

renda disponible

amount of a person's income which is available to be saved or spent


macroeconomic

en-adj

macroeconomic (comparative more macroeconomic, superlative most macroeconomic)

more macroeconomic (comparative)
most macroeconomic (superlative)
macro-economic (alternative)

/ˌmækɹəʊˌiːkəˈnɒmɪk/

/ˌmækɹoʊˌɛkəˈnɑːmɪk/

On Monday, chipmaker Nvidia (NVDA) cut its sales outlook for the fourth quarter, citing “deteriorating macroeconomic conditions, particularly in China.” Last week, Intel’s (INTC) CEO also noted that “trade and macro concerns, especially in China, have intensified.”

2019 January 28, Seth Fiegerman, “Apple earnings: How low can iPhone sales go?”, in CNN Business:

But judges, law students, economists, human rights experts, and Mexico’s most important trading partners worry [the judicial reform] could lead to democratic backsliding – and macroeconomic turbulence – that the incoming President Claudia Sheinbaum will inherit when she takes office Oct. 1.

2024 August 29, Whitney Eulich, “Why Mexican judicial reform is causing a rift with the US”, in The Christian Science Monitor:

Relating to the entire economy, including the growth rate, money and credit, exchange rates, the total amount of goods and services produced, total income earned, the level of employment of productive resources, and the general behavior of prices.


marginalism

en-noun

marginalism (countable and uncountable, plural marginalisms)

(economics) The use of marginal analysis to solve large classes of microeconomic problems.


HO

Heckler-Ohlin (thereom)
w:Heckscher-Ohlin theorem

(economics) Initialism of Heckler-Ohlin (thereom).


Texas ratio

(economics, finance) A measure of a bank's creditworthiness, equal to ratio of the bank's nonperforming assets (nonperforming loans plus other real estate owned) to the sum of its tangible equity capital plus loan-loss reserves.


contracyclical

en-adj

contracyclical (comparative more contracyclical, superlative most contracyclical)

more contracyclical (comparative)
most contracyclical (superlative)

The government cut taxes during the recession as a contracyclical measure.

(economics) Tending to counteract the effects of the business cycle.

motsyklisk

tending to stabilize an unbalanced economy


Smithian

Smithian (comparative more Smithian, superlative most Smithian)

more Smithian (comparative)
most Smithian (superlative)

Smith's ideas inform Austen's most beloved novel too. In Pride and Prejudice, the idea of pride is Smithian.

2025 May 17, Henry Oliver, “Without prejudice”, in FT Weekend, Life & Arts, page 18:

(economics) Of or characteristic of the theories of the political economist Adam Smith (1723–1790).


sweetwater

en-noun

sweetwater (countable and uncountable, plural sweetwaters)

(economics) neoclassical, in reference to U.S. macroeconomics and economics departments around the Great Lakes.


invisible hand

Coined by Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations. Influenced by and echoing earlier use as "the hand of God". See Etymology citations.

By preferring the ſupport of domeſtick to that of foreign induſtry he intends only his own ſecurity; and by directing that induſtry in ſuch a manner as its produce may be of the greateſt value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other caſes, led by an inviſible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention.

1776 March 9, Adam Smith, “Of Restraints upon the Importation of Such Goods from Foreign Countries as can be Produced at Home”, in An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. […], volume II, London: […] W[illiam] Strahan; and T[homas] Cadell, […], →OCLC, book IV (Of Systems of Political Oeconomy), page 35:

When Lucasians postulate that prices are ‘flexible’ they seem to mean that we can observe only Walrasian market-clearing prices. There is no nonsense here about the invisible hand doing any noticeable and comprehensible work: its task is accomplished by definition.

1982, Frank Hahn, Monetary and Inflation, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, page 48:

In short, Smith understood that the invisible hand is often benign, but not always.

2008 May 25, Robert H. Frank, “The Invisible Hand Is Shaking”, in New York Times, retrieved 2008-08-14:

Aha, they say, but extreme wealth is good for all of us. All will be uplifted by their god’s invisible hand. […]

2014 July 29, George Monbiot, “The rich want us to believe their wealth is good for us all”, in The Guardian:

Yet the carbon giants continue to reap $600 billion in annual subsidies from public coffers, not to speak of a greater subsidy: the right, in Klein’s words, to treat the atmosphere as a “waste dump.” ¶ So much for the invisible hand. As the science fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson observed, when it comes to the environment, the invisible hand never picks up the check.

2014 November 6, Rob Nixon, “Naomi Klein’s ‘This Changes Everything’”, in New York Times:

However, the mainstream pro-capitalist position, especially as flat-out climate-change denialism becomes less common in the ruling class, is that the invisible hand and mighty forces of ‘entrepreneurialism’ will definitely lead to the ‘fixing’ of the problem.

2022, China Miéville, chapter 6, in A Spectre, Haunting: On the Communist Manifesto, →OCLC:

(economics) A metaphor for the principle that in a free market, an individual pursuing his own self-interest also tends to promote the good of his community as a whole.


macroprudential

The thesis is that to improve further the lines of defence against financial instability we should strengthen the macroprudential orientation of the regulatory and supervisory framework.

(economics) Relating to systemic prudence, especially to the strengths and vulnerabilities of financial systems.


mercantilist

On this point there was no difference between mercantilists and feudalists, between crowned planners and vested interests, between centralizing bureaucrats and conservative particularists.

1957 [1944], Karl Polanyi, chapter 6, in The Great Transformation, Beacon Press: Boston, page 70:

(economics) One who believes in mercantilism.


too big to fail

1912, Fabian Society, Fabian Tract No. 164, "Gold and State Banking: A Study in the Economics of Monopoly"
The fact, which surely everybody knows and hardly anybody ventures to state, is that the stability of our great banks--and all our banking system which now matters a tittle consists of great banks--is based not on the supply of gold in their vaults, nor on the reserve in the Bank of England, but on the fact that they are too big to fail, too big commercially and far too big politically. If Lloyds, or the London County, or the National Provincial stopped payment, the consequences would far exceed a San Francisco earthquake, a Chicago fire, or any other catastrophe within the memory of man.

The Trunk's too big to fail. Too many investors. He'll get more money, keep the system going this side of disaster, then let it collapse.

In these efforts, we aim not only to make the financial system better able to withstand future shocks but also to mitigate moral hazard and the problem of "too big to fail," by reducing the range of circumstances in which systemic stability concerns might prompt government intervention.

2008, Ben S. Bernanke, Testimony on regulatory restructuring before the Committee on Financial Services, U.S. House of Representatives on July 10, 2008

This is the only remedy that would permit an escape from the “doom loop” described by Piergiorgio Alessandri and Andrew Haldane (2009), whereby, when financial institutions are seen as “too big to fail,” governments have no option but to bail them out with public money, no matter how many times they claim they will not do so.

2011, William Leiss, The Doom Loop in the Financial Sector: And Other Black Holes of Risk, University of Ottawa Press, →ISBN, page 126:

The rise of unregulated “shadow banks” and the lack of restrictions on insurers and asset managers were pinpointed as concerns – as was the growth of global banks to a scale larger than 2008 and the fear that they are again “too big to fail”.

2018 October 7, Shane Hickey, “Shadow banks, trade wars, Trump … clouds gather over the IMF’s paradise”, in The Observer:

“The risk that this monster bank can use its monopoly standing to blackmail the government and dictate its own regulation is enormous,” Wermuth said. “It’s absolutely too big to fail.”

2023 March 22, Philip Oltermann, quoting Cédric Wermuth, “Switzerland’s national pride dealt heavy blow by the merger of its banking titans”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:

(finance, economics, politics) Deemed too important to the economy or polity to be allowed to “fail”, that is to be liquidated or to go bankrupt.


business cycle

(economics) A long-term fluctuation in economic activity between growth and recession.


pinch point

(economics) The level of inventories of a commodity or product below which consumers become concerned about security of supply


Black Thursday

(business, historical, economics, finance) The day when the New York Stock Exchange crashed before the Great Depression; Thursday, October 24th, 1929.

(business, historical, economics, finance) March 12, 2020, as part of the 2020 stock market crash; the day on which United States stock markets saw their biggest single-day percentage drop since 1987.


quality-adjusted life year

quality-adjusted life year (plural quality-adjusted life years)

The quality-adjusted life-year (QALY) is a generic measure of health-related quality of life that takes into account both the quantity and the quality of life generated by interventions.

2014, Anthony J. Culyer, The Dictionary of Health Economics, 3rd edition, Edward Elgar Publishing, →ISBN, page 516:

(medicine, economics) A unit of measurement, equivalent to one year of life in perfect health, that can be used to decide whether a medical procedure is worthwhile for an individual.


balance of trade

balance of trade (usually uncountable, plural balances of trade)

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-balance of trade.wav

(economics, trade) The difference between the monetary value of exports and imports in an economy over a certain period of time.


bank rate

bank rate (countable and uncountable, plural bank rates)

(economics) The rate of interest that a central bank charges when it lends money to another bank


marketize

en-verb

marketize (third-person singular simple present marketizes, present participle marketizing, simple past and past participle marketized)

marketizes (present singular third-person)
marketizing (participle present)
marketized (participle past)
marketized (past)
marketise (alternative)

Marketizing many traditional public services has met both success and failure.

(economics, management) To convert to management by open-market principles.


physiocrat

From French physiocrate, corresponding to physio- + -crat.

The Physiocrats espoused a professional service ethic and, in the interests of societal welfare, sought to establish laws of political economy and social relations.

2002, Colin Jones, The Greta Nation, Penguin, published 2003, page 219:

Smith spent some time in Paris and got to know the physiocrats personally, notably François Quesnay and Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot.

2019, Leo Damrosch, The Club, Yale, published 2020, page 319:

(economics, now historical) Any of a group of economists in 18th-century France who believed that the government should not seek to influence the operation of natural economic laws.


migradollar

(US, economics) A dollar sent home by a foreign migrant worker, especially to Mexico.


green tax

(economics) A fiscal policy in which a differential level of taxation is intended to promote ecologically sustainable activities via economic incentives


catallactics

Literally, “science of exhanges”, from Ancient Greek καταλλάσσω (katallássō, “to exchange, reconcile”). Probably coined by British economist Richard Whately in 1831.

coinage

Catallactics is thus «the order brought about by the mutual adjustment of many individual economies in a market»[…]

2005, Raimondo Cubeddu, The Philosophy of the Austrian School, Routledge, →ISBN, page 98:

(economics) A form of political economics based on the science of exchange.


bull trap

(economics) A temporary reverse in the downward trend of a share price that tempts some investors to buy


stock variable

(economics, accounting) A variable whose value depends on an instant rather than on a period of time.


flow variable

(economics, accounting) A variable whose value depends on a period of time rather than an instant, example being the gross domestic product.


shock therapy

en-noun

shock therapy (usually uncountable, plural shock therapies)

From shock + therapy. The medical sense first appears c. 1917 in the Journal of Experimental Medicine.

(informal, economics) A government policy of a sudden release of price controls and immediate trade liberalization within a country.


division of labour

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-division of labour.wav

(economics) The separation of work into different categories or tasks, each category or task being carried out by different groups of workers.


Obamanomics

Blend of Obama + economics, equivalent to Obama + -nomics. See Related terms below.

(US politics, economics, neologism) The economic policies of Barack Obama.


economic capital

(economics) Real or financial capital, or both combined.


jawboning

jawboning (usually uncountable, plural jawbonings)

Or the merely verbal pressure of jawbonings by prominent people may try to silence a certain point of view.

1991, Terrence E. Cook, The Great Alternatives of Social Thought, page 194:

Persistent persuasive talk, particularly (politics, economics) talk that includes implied threats of punitive action, such as tighter government regulation.


procyclical

en-adj

procyclical (comparative more procyclical, superlative most procyclical)

more procyclical (comparative)
most procyclical (superlative)

The employment rate is procyclical, when the economy is doing well more people are working, when it's not doing well, fewer people are working.

(economics) Moving in the same direction as the overall state of an economy


countercyclical

countercyclical (comparative more countercyclical, superlative most countercyclical)

more countercyclical (comparative)
most countercyclical (superlative)

The unemployment rate is countercyclical in the sense that it rises when economic growth is low and vice versa.

(economics) Moving in the direction opposite to that of the overall state of an economy.


acyclical

acyclical (comparative more acyclical, superlative most acyclical)

more acyclical (comparative)
most acyclical (superlative)

(economics) Moving independent of the overall state of an economy.


procyclicality

en-noun

procyclicality (usually uncountable, plural procyclicalities)

(economics) The quality of being procyclical.


illiquidity

illiquidity (countable and uncountable, plural illiquidities)

(economics) The condition of being illiquid; a lack of liquidity; difficulty in selling out an asset


overleveraged

en-adj

overleveraged (comparative more overleveraged, superlative most overleveraged)

more overleveraged (comparative)
most overleveraged (superlative)
over-leveraged (alternative)

(economics) Subject to excessive leverage


detrend

en-verb

detrend (third-person singular simple present detrends, present participle detrending, simple past and past participle detrended)

detrends (present singular third-person)
detrending (participle present)
detrended (participle past)
detrended (past)

(transitive, statistics, economics) To manipulate (data) to remove overall long-term trends in order to emphasise other patterns.


positive economics

(economics) The branch of economics that concerns the description and explanation of economic phenomena and their causal relationships


corporate tax

Corporate taxes were levied on capital or net income, subject to an annual minimum.

(economics) A tax levied on a corporation, especially on its profits; corporation tax.

公司稅 /公司税

tax levied on the profit of corporations


shadow banking system

en-noun

shadow banking system (plural shadow banking systems)

Coined by Paul McCulley in 2007. Parallel with earlier constructions such as shadow cabinet and shadow government as names for quasi-institutions running unofficially in parallel with the official institutions.

Given the Chinese banking sector's predominance in the economy, it seems surprising that China appears to need another, parallel, shadow banking system.

2016, Ning Zhu, China's Guaranteed Bubble […] , McGraw Hill, →ISBN, page 35:

(derogatory, banking, finance, economics) Non-bank financial institutions, that, like banks, borrow short and in liquid forms and lend or invest long in more illiquid assets.


Keynesianism

From Keynesian + -ism; named after John Maynard Keynes, British economist.

(economics) A prescriptive or normative economic stance according to which the state should actively stimulate economic growth and improve stability in the private sector through interest rates, taxation and public projects.


inflater

And the effect of such notes, as inflaters of the currency, would be less than the effect of greenbacks.

1864, The Bankers Magazine, volume 19, page 402:


CGT

Is capital gains tax (CGT) going to rise dramatically as the government attempts to claw back the cost of extra spending during the coronavirus pandemic? […] CGT is a tax on the profit when you sell (or ‘dispose of’) something (an ‘asset’) that’s increased in value. It’s only the gain that is taxed.

2020 July 15, Patrick Collinson, “Capital gains tax review: your questions answered”, in The Guardian:

capital gains tax
capital gains tax#English

(economics) Initialism of capital gains tax.


poverty line

America’s poverty line is $63 a day for a family of four. In the richer parts of the emerging world $4 a day is the poverty barrier. But poverty’s scourge is fiercest below $1.25 (the average of the 15 poorest countries’ own poverty lines, measured in 2005 dollars and adjusted for differences in purchasing power): people below that level live lives that are poor, nasty, brutish and short.

2013 June 1, “Towards the end of poverty”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8838, page 11:

(economics) The threshold of poverty, below which one's income does not cover necessities.


reflate

en-verb

reflate (third-person singular simple present reflates, present participle reflating, simple past and past participle reflated)

reflates (present singular third-person)
reflating (participle present)
reflated (participle past)
reflated (past)

From re- + (in)flate, on the basis of deflate. Equivalent to Latin re- + Latin flō (“blow”) + -ate (verb-forming suffix).

af

Bassetto […] shows that the central bank can disallow deflationary solutions by imposing negative nominal interest rates as a way to reflate the economy by creating arbitrage opportunities.

2020, Benigno, Pierpaolo, “A Central Bank Theory of Price Level Determination”, in American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, volume 12, number 3, →DOI, page 261 of 258-283:

(economics) To restore the general level of prices to a previous or desirable level.


ZIRP

ZIRPs (plural)
zirp (alternative)
Zirp (alternative)

(economics) Initialism of zero interest rate policy.


horizontalism

December 2001 riots in Argentina
horizontalism

From horizontal + -ism. The sense “equitable distribution of power” is a calque of Spanish horizontalidad, originating from the 2001 protests in Argentina.

Indeed, it has been said that in horizontalism, commercial banks lend to all who demand credit.

2006, “Endogenous money, central banks and the banking system”, in Mark Setterfield, editor, Complexity, Endogenous Money and Macroeconomic Theory […] , Edward Elgar Publishing, →ISBN, page 171:

(macroeconomics) An approach to money creation theory pioneered by Basil Moore which states that private bank reserves are not managed by central banks.


nonauto

GM may spin off some nonauto operations.

Consumer credit for nonauto goods declined $48 million, compared with the $173 million reduction of March.

1975 June 5, “Business Ticker”, in Chicago Tribune, archived from the original on 2013-06-30:

(economics) Not automotive, or not directly linked to the automotive industry


producer price index

en-noun

producer price index (plural producer price indexes)

(economics) A price index that measures the average changes in prices received by domestic producers for their output.

生産者物価指数

せいさんしゃぶっかしすう


prerecession

In the case of the 2001 recession, employment did not return to its prerecession level for four years.

2009 January 10, Louis Uchitelle, “Jobless Rate Hits 7.2%, a 16-Year High”, in New York Times:

(economics) Occurring before a recession


disinflation

disinflation (countable and uncountable, plural disinflations)

(economics) A decrease in the inflation rate.


reflation

reflation (countable and uncountable, plural reflations)

From reflate + -ion, parallel to deflation.

This continues until there is a reflation, a currency devaluation and government guarantees of the efficacy of key financial intermediaries.

2011 July 18, John Cassidy, quoting Ray Dalio, “Mastering the Machine”, in The New Yorker, →ISSN:

(economics) The act of restoring a deflated general level of prices to a previous or desired level.


remonetization

remonetization (usually uncountable, plural remonetizations)

remonetizations (plural)
remonetisation (alternative)

From remonetize + -ation or re- + monetization.

“King, I’m glad to meet you,” declared Senator Key Pittman of Nevada, who was nominally in England to discuss the remonetization of silver.

2009 January 15, Janet Maslin, “A Monetary Horror Story That Looks Like Today’s”, in New York Times:

(economics) The act or process of remonetizing, or restoring to the status of legal tender.


preboom

From 1999 to 2007, the price of Pu’er, a fermented brew invented by Tang Dynasty traders, increased tenfold[…] before tumbling far below its preboom levels.

2009 January 17, Andrew Jacobs, “A County in China Sees Its Fortunes in Tea Leaves Until a Bubble Bursts”, in New York Times:


nonmanufacturing

Between 1962 and 1984, Chicago lost 244,000 manufacturing jobs, while the number of nonmanufacturing jobs (service, research, retail, financial, and real estate) climbed by 372,500.

1988 January 8, Grant Pick, “A Plant Dies in Cragin”, in Chicago Reader:

(economics) Outside of the manufacturing sector


felicific calculus

Widely attributed to British philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), but apparently used only by his successors.

Bentham's way of becoming the Newton of the moral world was to develop the "felicific calculus."

1918, Wesley C. Mitchell, “Bentham's Felicific Calculus”, in Political Science Quarterly, volume 33, number 2, page 164:

cost-benefit analysis
cost-benefit analysis

(historical, philosophy, economics) A quasi-mathematical technique proposed by 19th-century utilitarian ethical theorists for determining the net amount of happiness, pleasure, or utility resulting from an action, sometimes regarded as a precursor of cost-benefit analysis.


integrability

integrability (usually uncountable, plural integrabilities)

This problem, known as the integrability problem, has a long tradition in economic theory, beginning with Antonelli (1886) […]

1995, Andreu Mas-Colell, Michael D. Whinston, and Jerry R. Green, Microeconomic Theory, Oxford University Press, page 75:

(economics) The recoverability of preferences from a Walrasian demand function.


antistimulus

en-adj

antistimulus (comparative more antistimulus, superlative most antistimulus)

more antistimulus (comparative)
most antistimulus (superlative)

These are only some of the fundamentally fraudulent antistimulus arguments out there.

2009 January 26, Paul Krugman, “Bad Faith Economics”, in New York Times:

(economics, politics) Against stimulus; against major governmental influence in an economy.


conditionality

en-noun

conditionality (countable and uncountable, plural conditionalities)

absoluteness

antonym(s) of “state of being subject to conditions”

(countable, economics, finance) A condition applied to the access of a government to credit facilities and other international financial assistance, especially from the IMF and the World Bank.


degrowth

degrowth (countable and uncountable, plural degrowths)

From de- + growth, a calque of French décroissance.

A negative growth (i.e. a reduction) of an economy or a population.


nondurable

Demand for nondurable goods, products like food, paper and petroleum, fell by 4.8 percent in December after an 8.7 percent fall in November.

2009 February 6, The Associated Press, “Factory Orders Fall Again With No Clear End in Sight”, in New York Times:

(economics) Providing useful services for only one period, especially a year.


anticompetitive

en-adj

anticompetitive (comparative more anticompetitive, superlative most anticompetitive)

more anticompetitive (comparative)
most anticompetitive (superlative)

And he sees no evidence of any anticompetitive impact.

2007 February 24, Steve Lohr, “A Software Maker Goes Up Against Microsoft”, in New York Times:

(economics, business) Acting to hinder or obstruct competition.

反競爭的 /反竞争的

acting to hinder or obstruct competition


reprivatize

en-verb

reprivatize (third-person singular simple present reprivatizes, present participle reprivatizing, simple past and past participle reprivatized)

reprivatizes (present singular third-person)
reprivatizing (participle present)
reprivatized (participle past)
reprivatized (past)
reprivatise (alternative)

Many analysts cite Swedish bank nationalization, from the early 1990s, as a model, because the Swedes later reprivatized these banks and resumed economic growth.

2009 March 1, Tyler Cowen, “Message to Regulators: Bank Fix Needed Quickly”, in New York Times:

(economics) To privatize a company that was previously nationalized


casualize

casualize (third-person singular simple present casualizes, present participle casualizing, simple past and past participle casualized)

casualizes (present singular third-person)
casualizing (participle present)
casualized (participle past)
casualized (past)
casualise (alternative)

Many of the workers have been casualized during the recent downturn.

(economics, chiefly British) To convert from regular to casual labor


antidumping

Instead, it relied on antidumping actions to combat what it said were unfair Chinese trade practices.

2007 April 2, David Lague, “China Says New U.S. Duty Disrupts Relations”, in New York Times:

(economics, trading) Intended to combat or prevent dumping, the sale of goods below cost for anticompetitive purposes

反傾銷 /反倾销

intended to combat or prevent dumping, the sale of goods below cost


rivalrous

en-adj

rivalrous (comparative more rivalrous, superlative most rivalrous)

more rivalrous (comparative)
most rivalrous (superlative)

/ˈɹaɪvəlɹəs/

Rivalrous goods are those which can be consumed by only one person at the same time – for example, a candy bar or a suit; […]

20th–21st century, Thomas A. McGahagan, “Public Goods”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name), Department of Economics, University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown, archived from the original on 2015-05-05:

(economics, of a good) Which can be consumed by no more than one person at the same time.


midmarket

midmarket (comparative more midmarket, superlative most midmarket)

more midmarket (comparative)
most midmarket (superlative)
mid-market (alternative)

Near-synonyms: middlebrow, midbrow, middle-end

(economics) Designed for customers with a middle income.


midmarket

(economics) The market in mid-priced commodities.


mid-priced

(economics) Having a price less than the most expensive and greater than the cheapest


depressionary

depressionary (comparative more depressionary, superlative most depressionary)

more depressionary (comparative)
most depressionary (superlative)

(economics) Characteristic of a depression


primary industry

en-noun

primary industry (plural primary industries)

(economics) An industry that processes raw materials for conversion by secondary industry into goods or services sold by tertiary industry to provide goods or services to consumers.


tertiary industry

tertiary industry (plural tertiary industries)

(economics) An industry that provides goods or services to consumers using raw materials from primary industry and goods processed by secondary industry.


primary sector

(economics) The sector of the economy that principally produces raw materials for use by other sectors.


secondary sector

secondary sector (plural secondary sectors)

(economics) The sector of the economy that principally uses raw materials produced by the primary sector for sale and use by other sectors.

第二產業 /第二产业

economic sector that uses raw materials and produces manufactured goods


tertiary sector

tertiary sector (plural tertiary sectors)

(economics) The sector of the economy that principally provides goods and services to consumers using goods produced by the other sectors.

第三產業 /第三产业

economic sector that provides goods and services


absentee ownership

absentee ownership (countable and uncountable, plural absentee ownerships)

The property lapsed into disrepair under decades of absentee ownership.

The numerous absentee ownerships made it difficult for the owners to make common cause.

(economics, business, uncountable) Ownership of business or property by parties rarely present.


depressionlike

en-adj

depressionlike (comparative more depressionlike, superlative most depressionlike)

more depressionlike (comparative)
most depressionlike (superlative)

El Centro has the highest unemployment rate in the nation, a depressionlike 22.6 percent.

2009 March 4, David Leonhardt, “Job Losses Show Breadth of a Recession”, in New York Times:


quantitative easing

en-noun

quantitative easing (usually uncountable, plural quantitative easings)

Possibly partly after Japanese 量的緩和 (ryōteki kanwa, “quantitative easing”), short form of 量的 (ryōteki, “quantitative”) 金融 (kin'yū, “financial”) 緩和 (kanwa, “easing”).

uder

Summers believes that quantitative easing (printing a lot more yen and getting them circulated) is the most effective way of doing that.

1999 September 18, “ANALYSIS: Professor Summers teaching Japan a Lesson”, in Asia Times:

2012, The Economist, Jul 14th 2012 issue, Quantitative easing: QE, or not QE?
In times of severe economic distress, however, rates may fall to zero. Cue QE. When the Bank of Japan (BoJ) pioneered QE in 2001, its goal was to buy enough securities to create a desired quantity of reserves (hence, “quantitative easing”). Its actions, it hoped, would raise asset prices and end deflation.

(economics) A monetary policy in which the central bank increases the money supply in the banking system, as by purchasing bonds from banks.

expansió quantitativa

monetary policy where the central bank creates money electronically


animal spirits

From Middle English spirite animal; equivalent to animal (adjective) + spirits.

This flaw exists because the financial system necessary for capitalist vitality and vigor — which translates entrepreneurial animal spirits into effective demand for investment — contains the potential for runaway expansion, powered by an investment boom.

1975, Hyman P. Minsky, John Maynard Keynes, page 11:

The existence of animal spirits does not imply that "irrational psychology" is the controlling factor in business and economics.

2005, Roger S. Frantz, Two minds: intuition and analysis in the history of economic thought, page 91:

One of John Maynard Keynes's most famous terms, "animal spirits," is another name for much the same concept as irrational exuberance

2006, Robert J. Shiller, Irrational Exuberance, page 233:

(economics) After Keynes (citation 1936, above), the emotional and intuitive factors that drive business decisions whether to make investment gambles.


rrp

(economics) Initialism of Recommended Retail Price.


moral hazard

en-noun

moral hazard (usually uncountable, plural moral hazards)

And what about moral hazard—or concern that protecting the system, however errant the behaviour of certain bankers, will encourage more folly in the future?

2008 October 4, William Keegan, “Moral hazard? It's just another danger along the capitalist way”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:

I go to a lot of pro-market think tank events where one speaker or another blames the financial crisis and the current recession on moral hazard, as well as basically everything else that has gone wrong in the last sixty years. I'm afraid I don't see it.

2009 December 18, Megan McArdle, “How Big a Problem is Moral Hazard?”, in The Atlantic:

Pyne said the uncapped scheme introduced a “moral hazard” because it encouraged employers and workers to agree to overgenerous redundancy entitlements, knowing taxpayers would foot the bill if the company failed.

2014 September 4, Lenore Taylor, quoting Christopher Pyne, “Capping redundancy payments fixes 'moral hazard', says Christopher Pyne”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:

(economics, insurance) The prospect that a party insulated from risk may behave differently from the way it would behave if it were fully exposed to the risk.


adverse selection

It is adverse selection that leads US workers who anticipate high family medical expenditure to seek employers with superior health insurance coverage for their employees.

The large number of "lemons" in the used-car market is the result of adverse selection.

(economics, business, insurance) The process by which the price and quantity of goods or services in a given market is altered due to one party having information that the other party cannot have at reasonable cost.


rephasing

rephasing (countable and uncountable, plural rephasings)

From rephase + -ing. The noun follows from the verb.

Early in 1993, ATN [[[w:Atlantic Tele-Network|Atlantic Tele-Network]]] requested and obtained from the GOG [Government of Guyana] a rephasing of the programme. ATN made this request on the basis of suppliers’ delays, and theft and willful destruction of property locally. Thus, whereas the scope of agreed works remains unchanged, the time frames are no longer applicable. At least one implication of this rephasing is clear: at minimum, there must result a postponement of some of the benefits expected from the divestiture.

1998, Gene O. Evelyn, “The Divestiture of the Guyana Telecommunications Corporation”, in Deryck R. Brown (editor), Evaluation, Learning and Caribbean Development, Canoe Press, page 430

In addition, the [Executive] Board [of the International Monetary Fund] also approved a rephasing of the country's future disbursements into five equal amounts of SDR 27.6 million (about US$40.7 million).

2005 June 9, “IMF Executive Board Completes Second Review Under Peru’s Stand-By Arrangement”, International Monetary Fund Press Release No. 05/137, reproduced in IMF Country Report No. 07/110 (2007 March)

The Estimate shows a £20m increase in grants to the compensation Agency as a result of rephasing of non-cash provisions from 2009-10 and 2010-11 into 2008-09 (Estimate, p 381). ¶ […] No, this additional funding in 2008-09 is not treated as a call on the Reserve. It is a rephasing of the Agency’s CSR07 budget within the existing total.

2009, House of Commons, Northern Ireland Affairs Committee: HC 90 The Work of the Committee in Session 2008–09, →ISBN, page 35:

(economics, finance) A rescheduling; especially, a rescheduling of debt repayments or other obligations.


reprivatization

reprivatizations (plural)
reprivatisation (alternative)
re-privatisation (alternative)
re-privatization (alternative)

From re- + privatization; coined as early as 1936. Possibly a calque of German Reprivatisierung (“reprivatization”).

calque

‘Re-privatisation,’ as it is called, has, however, been under way in the cases of all three banks. Some 40 per cent of the G.D. Bank’s holding of Deutsche-Disconto shares had passed back into private hands by the end of 1935. The new advance of bank shares to above par ought to smooth the way for complete ‘re-privatisation.’

POLITICAL OBSTACLES The process of nationalization and reprivatization went amazingly well in Sweden partly because it was remarkably free of political interference.

2009 March 8, Alan S. Blinder, “Nationalize? Hey, Not So Fast”, in New York Times:

(economics) The process of, or an instance of, returning to private ownership.


corner solution

en-noun

corner solution (plural corner solutions)

(mathematics, economics) A solution to a minimization or maximization problem where an interior solution is infeasible.


marginal utility

marginal utility (countable and uncountable, plural marginal utilities)

(economics) The additional utility to a consumer from an additional unit of an economic good.

边际效用

the additional utility to a consumer from an additional unit of an economic good


user charge

(economics) A fee for government-provided goods or services, charged to the user.


non-rational

In the nature of things there must be causes that explain why an industrial enterprise—mill, factory, foundry, dairy, refinery—is located at just this or that place, and not somewhere else. Some of these causes are non-rational, such as accident and caprice. . . . The remaining causes are rational and economic; that is, the selected locality is deemed to offer certain advantages in production or marketing.

1896, Edward A. Ross, “The Location of Industries”, in The Quarterly Journal of Economics, volume 10, number 3, page 247:

(economics, social sciences, public policy) Not based on one's own interests; inconsistent with utility maximization.


dismal science

Coined by Thomas Carlyle in 1849, a play on gay science (“poetry”).

[N]ot a "gay science," but a rueful—which finds the secret of this universe in "supply and demand" . . . a dreary, desolate and, indeed, quite abject and distressing one; what we might call, by way of eminence, the dismal science.

1849, Thomas Carlyle, “Occasional Discourse on the Negro Question,”, in Fraser's Magazine for Town and Country, volume 40, pages 530–531:

Galbraith has managed to write with wit and style about the ‘dismal science’ of economics.

1973, William R. Doerner, "‘Crypto Servants’ and Socialism (review of Economics and the Public Purpose by John Kenneth Galbraith)," Time, 8 Oct.

Two Dismal Sciences: Economics and National Security—Writing during World War II, J. B. Condliffe lamented, "Economists have not contributed in very large measure to the recent outpouring of publications on the causes, conduct, and consequences of war." By the turn of the millennium, however, the situation had changed.

2002, E. B. Kapstein, “Two Dismal Sciences Are Better Than One—Economics and the Study of National Security”, in International Security, volume 27, number 3, page 160:

(idiomatic, sometimes derogatory, sometimes humorous, usually with "the") Economics or the field of political economy.


consumer credit

(banking, economics) Credit extended to an individual for the purchase of consumer goods and services.


FRB

Federal Reserve Bank
w:Federal Reserve Bank

(US, economics, banking) Initialism of Federal Reserve Bank.


GIP

gross internal product
gross internal product#English

(economics) Initialism of gross internal product.


reflationary

en-adj

reflationary (comparative more reflationary, superlative most reflationary)

more reflationary (comparative)
most reflationary (superlative)

And despite a barrage of green rhetoric, Britain has only committed £1.5bn to sustainability as part of its £25bn reflationary package, less than a third of France, a sixth of Germany and 100 times less than China, according to analysts at HSBC Bank.

2009 March 28, Terry Macalister, “It should be the environment and the economy, stupid”, in The Guardian:

(economics) Of or pertaining to reflation.


tatonnement

Borrowed from French tâtonnement (“groping”).

bor+

Alternatively, we may use a tatonnement algorithm guessing an initial sequence #92;#123;K#95;t#92;#125;#95;#123;t#61;0#125;ᵀ and updating it after each iteration i[.]

2024, Burkhard Heer, Alfred Maußner, Dynamic General Equilibrium Modeling: Computational Methods and Applications, third edition, Springer, →ISBN, page 503:

(economics) An iterative auction process by which an exchange equilibrium is imagined to be achieved.


trade surplus

(economics) A positive balance of trade.


sanctionable

(economics, geopolitics) That can be subjected to economic sanctions.


unsanctionable

(economics, geopolitics) That cannot be subjected to economic sanctions.


Great Depression

For the first time since the Great Depression, median family income has fallen substantially over an entire decade. Income grew slowly through most of the last decade, except at the top of the distribution, before falling sharply when the financial crisis began.

2012 October 24, David Leonhardt, “Standard of Living Is in the Shadows as Election Issue”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

(economics, business, finance, historical) A major economic collapse characterized by mass unemployment and limited business activity that lasted from 1929 to 1940 in the US and a similar period in many other countries.


disinflationary

en-adj

disinflationary (comparative more disinflationary, superlative most disinflationary)

more disinflationary (comparative)
most disinflationary (superlative)

For the period through 1984, there is weak support for accelerationism, though the linear fit is mainly due to the disinflationary impact of high unemployment, which no one disputes, not the inflationary effects of prosperity.

1998, James K. Galbraith, “Comments”, in Inflation, Unemployment, and Monetary Policy, page 66:

(economics) Exhibiting or causing reduced inflation.


full employment

... not at the time recognized that this was a basic departure from the Keynesian view in which both of these full employments were regarded as identical.

1979, James H. Gapinski with Charles Edward Rockwood and Abba Ptachya Lerner, Essays in post-Keynesian inflation, page 272:

(economics, politics) A policy goal state in which all those wanting employment at the prevailing wages can find it.

plein-emploi

a policy goal state in which all those wanting employment at the prevailing wages can find it


rent-seeking

From rent (“a profit from possession of a valuable right”) + seeking.

compound

In many market-oriented economies, government restrictions upon economic activity are pervasive facts of life. These restrictions give rise to rents of a variety of forms, and people often compete for the rents. Sometimes, such competition is perfectly legal. In other instances, rent seeking takes other forms, such as bribery, corruption, smuggling, and black markets.

1974 June, Anne O[sborn] Krueger, “The Political Economy of the Rent-seeking Society”, in The American Economic Review, volume 64, page 291; reprinted in Roger D[ouglas] Congleton, Arye L. Hillman, and Kai A. Konrad, editors, 40 Years of Research on Rent Seeking 2: Applications: Rent Seeking in Practice, Berlin; Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag, 2008, page 151

It is almost certain that ‘rent-seeking’ would be a significant factor in a capitalist economy where the government encourages cartelization or confers ‘a leading sector’ role on any sector.

1990 July, Mukesh Eswaran, Ashok Kotwal, Demand Externality as an Impediment to Productivity Growth in LDC's (Discussion Papers of the Department of Economics (University of British Columbia); no. 90-23), Vancouver, B.C.: University of British Columbia, →OCLC, pages 4–5:

People find it privately rational to invest resources in efforts to secure differentially favored access to the economic power inherent in bureaucratic discretion. This rent seeking on the part of those who compete for the scarce access to valued goods ... represents wasteful investment on the part of all people who are unsuccessful in the competitive effort.

2001, James M[cGill] Buchanan, Choice, Contract, and Constitutions (The Collected Works of James M. Buchanan; 16), Indianapolis, Ind.: Liberty Fund, →ISBN, pages 258–259:

One importance consequence of that fact is that efforts to restrict emissions may encourage the affected parties to seek regulatory provisions that provide them with tax exemptions or access to permits—that is, they may engage in rent-seeking behavior. For example, fossil fuel suppliers might advocate a system in which they were given emissions permits free of charge—so that they would receive the entire scarcity rent resulting from the emissions limits.

2003 April, “Trade-offs among Policy Options”, in The Economics of Climate Change: A Primer (A CBO Study), [Washington, D.C.]: Congressional Budget Office, United States Congress, →ISBN, pages 38–39:

Legislation can result in rents (and profits) to special-interest groups. However, rent seeking by seeking favorable legislation can be costly (e.g., in contributions to campaigns).

2006, Walter J. Wessels, “Public Choice and Externalities”, in Economics (Business Review Books), 4th edition, Hauppauge, N.Y.: Barron's, →ISBN, page 542:

(economics) The attempt to profit by manipulating the economic or political environment, for example, by seeking governmental action that restricts entry into a market.


absolute advantage

en-noun

absolute advantage (plural absolute advantages)

(economics) The capability to produce more of a given product using the same quantity or less of a given resource than a competing entity.


product differentiation

product differentiation (countable and uncountable, plural product differentiations)

(economics, marketing) Perceived differences between the product of one firm and that of its rivals so that some customers value it more.

(economics, marketing) The process of creating such differences.


beggar-thy-neighbor

From beggar-my-neighbor (“a card game”).

The traditional beggar-thy-neighbor view of older Keynesian models saw unilateral tariffs as having an expansionary effect on the domestic economy, due to their expenditure-switching effect, moving domestic demand away from foreign goods and towards domestic goods.

2025 May 18, Iván Werning, Guido Lorenzoni, Veronica Guerrieri, “Tariffs as Cost-Push Shocks: Implications for Optimal Monetary Policy”, in NBER Working Paper Series, number 33772, page 2:

(economics) An economic policy that favors domestic interests at greater total cost to the economies of trading partners.


pharmacoeconomics

(medicine, economics) The study of the economic aspects of pharmaceuticals


geoeconomics

Hidden behind thickets of acronyms and gorse bushes of detail, a new great game is under way across the globe. Some call it geoeconomics, but it's geopolitics too. The current power play consists of an extraordinary range of countries simultaneously sitting down to negotiate big free trade and investment agreements.

2013 July 19, Timothy Garton Ash, “Where Dr Pangloss meets Machiavelli”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 6, page 18:

‘Country risk’ is essentially about assessing the economic prospects of a nation holistically, within the broader legal and geopolitical soil without which institutional investors cannot grow their assets. The government of Qatar is now paying an incommensurate price for having thought it could defy forever the laws of geoeconomic gravity.

2017 June 17, M. Nicolas J. Firzli, “The Qatar Crisis and the Eastern Flank of the MENA Area”, in Asharq Al-Awsat, volume 167, number 17, page 12:

So universities like John Hopkins, Dartmouth, Kiel and Stanford are looking to expand their “geoeconomics” programmes (with the latter using machine learning for that end), along with entities such as the IMF, the Milken Institute and Atlantic Council.

2025 May 10, Gillian Tett, “Welcome to the new age of geoeconomics”, in FT Weekend, page 9:

(economics) The study of the spatial, temporal, and political aspects of economies and resources in relation to the balance of power between nation-states or trade blocs.


shadow banking

(derogatory, banking, economics, finance) Bank-like activities that are not subject to existing bank regulation.


shadow bank

The rise of unregulated “shadow banks” and the lack of restrictions on insurers and asset managers were pinpointed as concerns – as was the growth of global banks to a scale larger than 2008 and the fear that they are again “too big to fail”.

2018 October 7, Shane Hickey, “Shadow banks, trade wars, Trump … clouds gather over the IMF’s paradise”, in The Observer:

The results of the experiment show that the broad policy regime performs best, with the narrow Basel III regime actually working more procyclical than the standard regime when hit with a hypothetical shock. This is because of credit is forced through the shadow-bank channel when the standard bank channel is faced with countercyclical regulation.

2020, Jon Nævdal Johansson, Macroprudential Policy Reviewed: An Economic Assessment of Implemented Macroprudential Policy Regimes Post the Great Recession, Department of Economics, University of Oslo, November 2020

(banking, economics, finance) An entity not subject to banking regulation that performs banking functions.


measurage

measurage (usually uncountable, plural measurages)

(law, economics) A toll or duty based on the volume of a material; or, the right to collect such a toll or duty.


leading indicator

leading indicator (plural leading indicators)

(economics) A phenomenon that is predictive of the overall level of economic activity, especially one for which reliable statistics are available; a leading economic indicator.


maximax

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-maximax.wav

The first criterion is the Hurwicz criterion, often referred to the maximax criterion. […] the decision-maker is always optimistic and attempts to maximize profits by a go-for-broke strategy.

2009, Harold Kerzner, Project Management: A Systems Approach to Planning, Scheduling, and Controlling, Tenth Edition, John Wiley and Sons, →ISBN, page 749:

(economics, computer science, decision theory) A strategy or algorithm that seeks to maximize the maximum possible result (that is, that prefers the alternative with the chance of the best possible outcome, even if its expected outcome and its worst possible outcome are worse than other alternatives); often used attributively, as "maximax strategy", "maximax approach", and so on.


rent-seeker

The marginal rent-seeker may in fact have faced high information costs.

1993 Jan, Thomas W. Hazlett, Robert J. Michaels, “The Cost of Rent-Seeking: Evidence from Cellular Telephone License Lotteries”, in Southern Economic Journal, volume 59, number 3, pages 425–435:

(economics) A person who engages in rent-seeking behavior.


BRIC

Coined by British economist Jim O'Neill in 2001.

coin

Now that the financial crisis has derailed BRIC and rich country alike, there are many good reasons for pessimism.

2009 February 4, Aliza Rosenbaum, Edward Hadas, “Buffett Pays Low for Another Icon”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 2022-11-26:

(politics, economics) Initialism of Brazil, Russia, India and China: a group of countries with similarly fast-growing economies.


market discipline

Handing financial regulation back to ‘market discipline’ will nullify the progress that has been made to create a system of international regulation.

2002 June 8, John Eatwell, “Basel II: the regulators strike back”, in The Observer, →ISSN:

A “bail-in” process for bank resolution is a potentially powerful “third option” that confronts this problem head-on. […] If done correctly it should strengthen market discipline on banks and reduce the potential for systemic risk.

2010 January 28, “From bail-out to bail-in”, in The Economist, →ISSN:

The FSA believed in ‘market discipline’ and failed to get its message across. The PRA will be different, its boss promises[.]

2011 May 19, Jill Treanor, “Spotlight falls on City watchdog Sants”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:

Suppose that Greece had never adopted the Euro and the terms of its external borrowing had remained subject to “market discipline”, as it had been in the 1990s.

2011 July 4, “Was it worth it?”, in The Economist, →ISSN:

(banking, economics) The forces in a free market which tend to control and limit the riskiness of a financial institution's investment and lending activities, such as the concern of depositors for the safety of their deposits and the concern of bank investors for the safety and soundness of their institutions.


salariat

1954, J. S. Coleman, Nationalism in Tropical Africa, American Political Science Association
[…] geographical distribution of the wage-labor force and salariat?

Below that elite comes the ‘salariat’, still in stable full-time employment, some hoping to move into the elite, the majority just enjoying the trappings of their kind, with their pensions, paid holidays and enterprise benefits, often subsidised by the state.

2011, Guy Standing, chapter 1, in The Precariat, Bloomsbury Publishing, published 2016, →ISBN, page 8:

(economics) Salary earners as a class or group, often as opposed to wage earners.


From the deadline of December 31, 1992, set in the Single European Act of 1987.

ON Friday, 1992 arrives. It is a year late, but that is one of the least confusing things about '1992' , as the Single European Market process used to be called. For 1 January 1993 is in reality just one more marker in a process that started in 1985 and will continue until at least 1995.

1992 December 29, David Bowen, “Why European goats may welcome the late arrival of 1992: David Bowen examines the obvious and hidden changes due with the EC's single market”, in The Independent:

(economics) The commencement of the single market trade association of European Union countries, on January 1, 1993.

１９９２年

いっせんきゅうひゃくきゅうじゅうにねん

týsjača devjatʹsót devjanósto vtorój god

ты́сяча девятьсо́т девяно́сто второ́й год


unit cost

The cost to acquire a unit of a good or service for a specific quantity that is produced or purchased. (For example, if it costs the baker 1000 pesos to produce a batch of biscuits that weigh 50 kilos, then their unit cost per kilo is 20 pesos.)


natural price

1776, Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations: Book I: Chapter 7: Of the natural and market Price of Commodities
When the price of any commodity is neither more nor less than what is sufficient to pay the rent of the land, the wages of the labour, and the profits of the stock employed in raising, preparing, and bringing it to market, according to their natural rates, the commodity is then sold for what may be called its natural price.

(economics) A price for a good or service that is equal to the cost of production, augmented by the average profit rate.


anarcho-capitalist

From anarcho- + capitalist.
From anarcho- + capitalist. Its possible earliest appearance is in the 1971 article “Know Your Rights” by Murray Rothbard, who is credited with coining it and its cognate anarcho-capitalism; though the latter's earliest extant attestation is in Karl Hess's 1969 article “The Death of Politics”.

ancap (alternative Internet)
an-cap (alternative Internet)
anarchocapitalist (alternative)

[…] Lysander Spooner’s brilliantly hard-hitting No Treason, one of the masterpieces of anti-statism and reprinted by an anarcho-capitalist press, has had considerable influence in converting present-day youth to libertarianism.

1971, Murray Rothbard, “Know Your Rights”, in WIN: Peace and Freedom through Nonviolent Action, volume 7, number 4, pages 6–10:

Even beyond the anarcho-capitalist cryptocurrency Bitcoin, many entrepreneurs make overtly political calls for private, extranational money, for direct and disintermediated economic communication, for either total privacy or total publicity in transactions.

2020, Lana Swartz, New Money: How Payment Became Social Media, Yale University Press, →ISBN, pages 4–5:

(politics, economics) Of, relating to, or advocating anarcho-capitalism.

anarkokapitalistisk

of, supporting, relating to, or advocating anarcho-capitalism


anarcho-capitalist

anarcho-capitalists (plural)
ancap (alternative Internet)
an-cap (alternative Internet)
anarchocapitalist (alternative)

It is safe to say that the great bulk of right-libertarians are anarcho-capitalists, particularly among the youth.

But Liberland is Mecca for libertarians' more radical strands, especially ‘anarcho-capitalists’, people who believe the state should be abolished entirely, replaced by individuals clubbing together to contract services from private companies.

2017, Jamie Bartlett, chapter 8, in Radicals, William Heinemann, →ISBN:

The Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel, a self-described anarcho-capitalist, is a major supporter of the movement – which, like space colonization, seems to attract the enthusiasm of a certain kind of fantastically rich and rightwing tech baron.

2021 February 5, Matt Shaw, “Billionaire capitalists are designing humanity's future. Don't let them”, in The Guardian:

At his final campaign event in Buenos Aires on Wednesday, the 53-year-old “anarcho-capitalist” addressed a packed 15,000-capacity stadium from a stage adorned with a banner proclaiming him “The Only Solution” to Argentina’s economic malaise.

2023 October 22, Tom Phillips, Uki Goñi, “‘Bad and dangerous’: Argentina’s Trump on track to become president”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:

(politics, economics) A person who advocates anarcho-capitalism.


undermatching

(US, education, economics) The practice of accepting a match that is less than optimal, especially when accepting a slot at a college or university when a superior one is available.


nongrowth

(chiefly economics) Not of or pertaining to growth.


durable good

(economics) A good, e.g., a household appliance, that yields services or utility over time rather than being exhausted when used only once.


Lucasian

Lucas is the intellectual leader of this approach, which I shall refer to as Lucasian.

1982, Frank Hahn, Monetary and Inflation, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, page 35:

Since alternative [microfoundational] programs are not addressed here, I will simply use the word “microfoundations” instead of “Lucasian microfoundations” or “representative agent microfoundations”.

2020, Francesco Sergi, “The Standard Narrative about DSGE Models in Central Banks’ Technical Reports”, in The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, number 27, pages 163-193:

(economics) Of or pertaining to American economist Robert Lucas Jr.


Lucasian

In this, I have probably devoted too much attention to the economists whom I label Lucasians […]

1982, Frank Hahn, Monetary and Inflation, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, page x:

(economics) A follower of the theories of American economist Robert Lucas Jr.


nongoods

Nongoods sectors include transportation; communications; electric, gas, and sanitary services; trade; finance, insurance, and real estate services[…]

1988, Bruce R Guile, James Brian Quinn, Technology in services: policies for growth, trade, and employment:

(economics, business) Not of or pertaining to goods.


minimin

(economics, computer science, decision theory) A strategy or algorithm that seeks to minimize the minimum possible result.


microtransaction

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Microtransactions have created controversy among video game fans. Some people believe that games with microtransactions can be addictive. Players keep buying new items. Little by little, the charges add up.

2020, Josh Gregory, Apex Legends: Microtransactions, Cherry Lake, →ISBN, page 6:

The problem with consumers is that they are often quick to label any microtransaction as P2W, which muddies the discussion of ethical game design.

2022, Joshua Bycer, Game Design Deep Dive: Free-to-Play, CRC Press, →ISBN, page 5:

(economics, video games) A transaction for a very small amount of money (a micropayment).


silent barter

(economics, finance) A system of bartering, once common in Africa, in which traders remain silent, either because they have no language in common or because they both wish to keep secret and not discuss the origins of their goods (especially gold and salt).


metallism

(economics) Any economic system based on the value of metals (especially gold or silver).


PSDP

page 78: The current allocation from the Public Sector Development Plan (PSDP) for agriculture development projects is 0.45% only, which is less than Rs 500 million.

2001, Sohail Mahmood, The Musharraf regime and the governance crisis: a case study of the Government of Pakistan, Nova Publishers,, →ISBN:

page 88: The GOP must spend more on the public sector by increasing the allocations for the Public Sector Development Programs (PSDP). These PSDPs are financed out of the annual budget. However, the reality is different. Over the years, the PSDP has decreased rather than grown.

All these improvements gave us funds for projects in our Public Sector Development Program (PSDP). Between 1988 and 1999, PSDP remained stagnant between 90 billion and 110 billion rupees.

2006, Pervez Musharraf, In the Line of Fire: A Memoir, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 187:

pages 43–44: The outlay for the Public Sector Development Program (PSDP) for 1999-2000 was fixed at only Rs125 billion, an increase of Rs.98 billion from the previous year. The last fiscal year’s PSDP had been increased to a massive Rs272 billion with a major share earmarked for extending infrastructure facilities that provide temporary jobs countrywide, social sectors and energy sectors. The current fiscal year’s PSDP has been increased even further.

2007, Sohail Mahmood, Good Governance Reform Agenda in Pakistan: Current Challenges, Nova Publishers,, →ISBN:

page 55: The Musharraf regime must spend more on the social sector by increasing the allocations for the Public Sector Development Programs (PSDP). These PSDPs were financed out of the annual budget.

Another good scheme The Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) for the fiscal year 2004–2005 has been increased to Rs.202 billion a 26 percent increase over last years PSDP of Rs.160 billion. Increased funds for PSDP mean enhanced public sector investment to generate employment thus raising overall growth.

2009, Aqila Khawaja, “Poverty and its Management in Pakistan”, chapter 8 of Amita Singh et al. (editors), Governance and Poverty Reduction: Beyond the Cage of Best Practices, PHI Learning Private Limited, 2009, page 119

(Pakistan) Initialism of Public Sector Development Programme, a function of the Planning Commission of Pakistan.


IEA

"The European economic and welfare model – I think it's over," says Mark Littlewood, director of the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), like the CPS a veteran British free-market thinktank reinvigorated by current possibilities.

2012 August 22, Andy Beckett, “Britannia Unchained: the rise of the new Tory right”, in The Guardian:

Institute of Economic Affairs
w:Institute of Economic Affairs

(UK politics, economics) Initialism of Institute of Economic Affairs: a British neoliberal think tank.


Schumpeterian

en-adj

Schumpeterian (comparative more Schumpeterian, superlative most Schumpeterian)

more Schumpeterian (comparative)
most Schumpeterian (superlative)

Rather than simply an extension of Smithian dynamics of market expansion and labor specialization, economic growth in early modern Europe was nurtured by Schumpeterian principles in which it is not perfect markets, but rather imperfect markets, that spur innovation and economic growth.

2016, Richard von Glahn, “Introduction”, in The Economic History of China: From Antiquity to the Nineteenth Century, page 9:

(economics) Of or pertaining to the economist Joseph Alois Schumpeter (1883–1950).


utilon

However, you have to realize that you should measure the costs and payoffs in utilons, not in dollars. $1 is almost infinitesimally small (in utilons), while $1M payoff is huge - it is perfectly rational to buy the ticket.

2011 November 13, Radovan Garabík, “In support of Keith”, in rec.arts.sf.fandom (Usenet), message-ID <j9o6m2$4kf$1@speranza.aioe.org>:

A trader or trading firm having zero wealth, I've already said, should be considered infinitely bad. So therefore assign -∞ utilons to zero wealth. Conversely, infinite wealth should probably have infinity utilons, though large numbers might behave oddly.

2019 June 18, Agustin Lebron, The Laws of Trading: A Trader's Guide to Better Decision-Making for Everyone, Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN, page 63:

(economics) A hypothetical unit measuring satisfaction.


trade diversion

en-noun

trade diversion (countable and uncountable, plural trade diversions)

* Credited to Jacob Viner in his 1950 book The Customs Union Issue.

Even if trade diversion is not important in aggregate terms or in relation to trade creation between the bilateral partners, it still represents an inefficient use of global resources[…]

1987, Robert Mitchell Stern, Philip H. Trezise, John Whalley, University of Michigan, University of Western Ontario. Centre for the Study of International Economic Relations, Perspectives on a U.S.-Canadian free trade agreement:

First, the lowering of trade barriers among members leads to trade diversion from outside suppliers to firms in member countries[…]

1992, Gerhard Pohl, Piritta Sorsa, European integration and trade with the developing world:

An excessive increase in the share of intraregional flows is typically taken as an indication that trade diversion has been predominant and the regional integration programme has been welfare-reducing.

1997, Riccardo Faini, Enzo R. Grilli, Multilateralism and regionalism after the Uruguay Round:

(economics, usually negative) The changing of import sources as a result of political agreements, rather than to increase mutual benefit.


econophysicist

(economics, physics) An economist or physicist whose speciality of econophysics


econophysics

Instead, Mr. Farmer, a professor at the interdisciplinary Sante Fe Institute, is doing research on models of markets, institutions and their complex interactions, applying a hybrid discipline called econophysics.

2009 September 13, Steve Lohr, “Wall Street’s Math Wizards Forgot a Few Variables”, in New York Times:

(economics, physics) The study of economics using the techniques of physics


supercycle

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“With the volatility that we saw through the Covid supercycle, it has been hard to see through what part of this was true consumption growth versus inventory increases,” she said.

2023 November 11, Madeleine Speed, quoting Debra Crew, “Diageo tumbles after sobering Latin America sales slowdown”, in FT Weekend, page 10:

(economics) A prolonged period of growth and profitability.


economic crisis

economic crisis (plural economic crises)

A crisis caused by the general demand for goods within an economy falling below their supply, either temporarily or on a protracted basis, typically resulting in widespread bankruptcies of unproductive businesses and falling prices.

經濟危機 /经济危机

period of economic slowdown — see also financial crisis


public finance

Moreover, the formulation of the model serves as a blueprint for the incorporation of modern notions of labor economics in public finance.

2000, John M. Quigley, Eugene Smolensky, editors, Modern Public Finance, Harvard University Press, →ISBN, page 2:

A field of economics concerned with paying for collective or governmental activities, and with the administration and design of those activities.


monometallic

(economics) Of or pertaining to monometallism.


government cheese

(US, politics, economics, by extension) Welfare in general.


structural deficit

structural deficit (plural structural deficits)

Canadian Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page maintained that the government has a structural budget deficit which will only decline gradually to C$13.7 billion in 2014/15 in spite of C$17.6 billion in cost savings announced by the government last week.

2010 March 11, Nirmala Menon, “Canada Budget Officer Still Sees Structural Deficit”, in Wall Street Journal Newswire:

(economics) That portion of the public sector deficit which exists even when the economy is at potential. Government spending beyond government revenues at times of normal, predictable economic activity, as opposed to a cyclical deficit.


antiprotectionist

en-adj

antiprotectionist (comparative more antiprotectionist, superlative most antiprotectionist)

more antiprotectionist (comparative)
most antiprotectionist (superlative)
anti-protectionist (alternative)

(economics) Opposing or disliking protectionism.


excess return

(business, economics) The return that exceeds the risk-free return.


defaultable

defaultable (comparative more defaultable, superlative most defaultable)

more defaultable (comparative)
most defaultable (superlative)

[dɪˈfɔːɫtəbəɫ]


coemption

en-noun

coemption (countable and uncountable, plural coemptions)

(economics) The buying of the entire supply of a commodity.


passthrough

passthrough (countable and uncountable, plural passthroughs)

passthroughs (plural)
passthru (alternative)
pass-through (alternative)

The airlines called the fuel surcharge a passthrough, but did not rescind it until well after fuel prices had returned to previous levels.

Boston's projected $50 to $70 per thousand jump in the property tax rate, which will hit gays, poor and blacks alike with about an 8% pass-through rent increase this year.

1976 August 21, A. Nolder Gay, “Another View”, in Gay Community News, volume 4, number 8, page 4:

(business, economics) As of increased costs through a business entity to its customers through increased prices.


semidurable

semidurables (plural)
semi-durable (alternative)

(economics) A nondurable good with a somewhat limited lifetime, such as clothing.


depressionless

a depressionless transition to a new currency


AMI

(economics, public policy, US) Initialism of area median income.


IBSA

(politics, economics) Initialism of India, Brazil and South Africa.


easy money

Easy money / Rain it down on the wife and the kids / Rain it down on the house where we live / Rain until you got nothing left to give

2004, Nick Cave, “Easy Money”, in Abattoir Blues / The Lyre of Orpheus, performed by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds:

(economics) A monetary policy that makes money, credit, or both readily available to many borrowers and at relatively low interest rates.


tight money

(economics) A monetary policy that makes money, credit, or both difficult for many borrowers to obtain and only at relatively high interest rates.


fraudonomics

And it’s clear that a lot more people here are aware of how fundamentally rotten things are but they’re not willing to face the big fraudonomics bummer yet, preferring instead to stick with specific accusations.

2010, Mark Ames, Confessions of a Wall Street nihilist: forget about Goldman Sachs, our entire economy is built on fraud:

economic system as a whole based on fraud


covolatility

covolatility (countable and uncountable, plural covolatilities)

financial instrument
financial instrument

(economics) The related volatility of two or more financial instruments.


jam tomorrow

From Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass (1871), where Alice is offered “jam to-morrow and jam yesterday — but never jam to-day”. This is a pun on a mnemonic for the usage of jam, iam in Latin (note i/j conflation in Latin spelling), which means “now”, but only in the future or past tense, not in the present (which is instead nunc).

The consumption-possibilities curve illustrates the choice which must be made: more jam today means less jam tomorrow; less jam today means more jam tomorrow.

1974, Lawrence H. Officer, Lawrence Berk Smith, Issues in Canadian Economics, McGraw-Hill Ryerson, page 336:

A basic human characteristic is the preference for consumption today over consumption tomorrow. Jam today is always better than jam tomorrow, unless sufficient incentive is offered to forgo the immediate enjoyment of today's jam. This is not because of uncertainty about the likely receipt of tomorrow's jam, but merely a property of the passage of time.

1985, Phillip Crowson, Economics for Managers: A Professionals’ Guide, 3rd edition, Macmillan Press, page 26:

For one-period optimization, the obvious course of action to maximize consumption is to consume the whole of output by “eating up” the capital stock. The inapplicability of this tactic to an industrializing nation is transparent—it gets a lot of jam for today but leaves little for tomorrow. Jam today has therefore to be balanced against jam tomorrow.

1985, Joel Mokyr, The Economics of the Industrial Revolution, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, page 216:

(idiomatic, economics, by extension) The availability of a resource at a future date.


economism

economism (usually uncountable, plural economisms)

(economics) The belief that economic causes or factors have dominance over all others


European miracle

As Karl Ferdinand Werner has pointed out, the 'European miracle' 'did not take place after the 'Middle Ages' or in spite of the 'Middle Ages', but because of the existence of a Christian world dominated in the West by Catholic doctrines, a world we have become accustomed to call the Middle Ages.'

1999, Hans Albert, Between Social Science, Religion and Politics, Essays in Critical Rationalism, page 205:

(history, economics) The rise of Europe to geopolitical dominance during the modern period.


overissue

en-verb

overissue (third-person singular simple present overissues, present participle overissuing, simple past and past participle overissued)

overissues (present singular third-person)
overissuing (participle present)
overissued (participle past)
overissued (past)

(economics) To issue shares or banknotes to an extent beyond the ability to pay, or in excess of authorization


undercapitalize

undercapitalize (third-person singular simple present undercapitalizes, present participle undercapitalizing, simple past and past participle undercapitalized)

undercapitalizes (present singular third-person)
undercapitalizing (participle present)
undercapitalized (participle past)
undercapitalized (past)

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(economics) To supply with insufficient capital


If the police at the G20 protests were pumped-up, testerical, itching for a fight, it was partly because their commanding officers have spent years blurring the distinction between peaceful campaigners and terrorists.

2009 April 21, George Monbiot, “G20 videos won't change the Met”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:

(politics, economics) A group of finance ministers and central bank governors from 20 economies: 19 countries plus the European Union.


diseconomy

(economics) A financial drawback or cost arising from a process


fundholding

en-noun

fundholding (countable and uncountable, plural fundholdings)


seedcorn

(UK, economics) Financial assets set aside for the generation of future profits.


restrictionism

(economics, politics) The advocacy of restrictions on free trade, immigration etc.


underconsumption

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(economics) Insufficient consumption (for financial stability).


inflationism

(economics) A policy or belief that encourages inflation.


indifference curve

indifference curve (plural indifference curves)

(economics) a graph showing different bundles of goods, each measured as to quantity, between which a consumer is indifferent.


antirecession

(economics) Serving to counter a financial recession.

antyrecesyjny

serving to counter a financial recession


incentivization

It’s about time that the sleeping giant (the health care industry) wakes up, smells the coffee and learns from other giants (like the manufacturing industry): process improvement, incentivization and healthy competition are drivers of change to control costs in the current health care system.

2007 May 20, “Quality Control in Health Care (3 Letters)”, in New York Times:

(US, business, economics) The act or process of incentivizing.


planned economy

planned economy (plural planned economies)

(economics, politics) An economic system in which government directly manages supply and demand for goods and services by controlling production, prices, and distribution in accordance with a long-term design and schedule of objectives.


command economy

command economy (plural command economies)

Calque of German Befehlswirtschaft (“command economy”).

calque

Some scholars continue to blame the USSR's command economy for its 1991 collapse.

Following some National Socialist economists, we may distinguish three types of economies existing within Germany: a competitive economy, a monopolistic economy, and a command economy […]

1942, Franz Neumann, Behemoth: The Structure and Practice of National Socialism, New York: Harper and Row, page 291:

Willy Neuling saw three fundamental types of economic order, namely individualism, monopolism, and command economy (Befehlswirtschaft), and believed that a quite new type of economic theory, indispensable for analyzing the “command economy,” was in the offing […]

1943, Albert T. Lauterbach, Economics in Uniform: Military Economy and Social Structure, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, page 82:

Khrushchev is turning the top-heavy administrative machinery of a gigantic command economy upside down. He is breaking overnight the customary links, thus clogging the well-worn channels of command; he is driving all the most competent higher administrators into frantic opposition […]

1957 September 18, Richard Löwenthal, “Party Vs. State”, in Problems of Communism, volume 6, number 5, page 1:

An expansion of tourism [sc. in Yugoslavia] is one purpose of the measure. It is also part of another move by Yugoslavia away from the Soviet-style “command” economy. When Marshall Tito broke with Stalin, his country's economy was organized on the Russian pattern […]

1965 July 29, “Yugoslavia Tries Incentives”, in The Times, number 56386, London: News UK, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 11:

Until now, the highly centralised command economy has worked better in East Germany than in other Comecon countries, especially the Soviet Union. But now it is being called on to propel East Germany into the micro-electronics age and to close the 30 per cent gap in labour productivity compared with West germany.

1984 January 31, Leslie Colitt, “How a wage tax is really a price subsidy – Leslie Colitt in Berlin reports on an important change in the East German economy”, in Financial Times, European News, page 3:

Yet it is hard to hand out enormous sums without turning poor countries into miniature command economies. Development projects mostly attempt to build entire industries, such as dairy farming or fisheries, from scratch.

2025 March 6, “Aiding and abetting”, in The Economist (Finance & economics section), London: The Economist Group, →ISSN, →OCLC:

(economics, politics) A planned economy in which the government (or some other central authority) is solely responsible for resource allocation, distribution and the setting of prices, with little to no market influence.

kommandoøkonomi

economy directly controlled by the government


developmentalism

Most fundamentally, Sachs argues, developmentalism advocates the wrong values. Under developmentalism, the economy dominates society rather than the more rational opposite.

2006, Mark Mattern, Putting Ideas to Work, Rowman & Littlefield, →ISBN, page 325:

Nevertheless, the strong political reasons which supported developmentalism had vanished before the World Bank made its diagnosis.

2007, Costas Lapavitsas, Beyond Market-Driven Development, Routledge, →ISBN:

By invoking developmentalism as more than a statist project for economic growth and one that is also led by an imperative to generate well-being among citizens, I focus on the discursive and other practices through which developmentalism is experienced as a condition, a mode of being and a lived experience.

2014, Sumi Madhok, Rethinking Agency: Developmentalism, Gender and Rights, Routledge, →ISBN:

When President Dwight Eisenhower took office in the United States in 1953, he took a decisive stand against developmentalism, which he regarded as a threat to the commercial interests of America's multinational companies.

2017, Jason Hickel, “The Age of the Coup”, in The Divide […] , London: William Heinemann, →ISBN:

An economic theory which states that the best way for Third World countries to develop is through fostering a strong and varied internal market and imposing high tariffs on imported goods.


greater fool theory

(economics) Theory that the price of an object is determined by irrational beliefs and expectations of market participants, rather than intrinsic value; i.e. that one can make money by buying something for the sole reason of selling it to some one else for a higher price.


publicization

(economics) conversion of private entities to public ones


FTE

full-time equivalent
full-time equivalent#English

(economics) Initialism of full-time equivalent.

(economics) Initialism of full-time employee.


discretionaries

discretionary income
discretionary income

(economics) Goods and services that are not essential, bought by a customer using discretionary income.


PIGS

(economics, widely considered derogatory)

(during the 1990s) Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain, countries of Southern Europe noted for similar economic environments.

widely considered derogatory; during the 1990s; during the 1990s

(during the European debt crisis) Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain, four countries that were unable to refinance their government debt or to bail out over-indebted banks on their own.

widely considered derogatory; during the European debt crisis; during the European debt crisis


small business

en-noun

small business (countable and uncountable, plural small businesses)

(business, economics) A privately-owned and operated business with relatively small turnover and staff numbers, typically seen as constituting part of a specific commercial or economic sector.


SEZ

special economic zone
special economic zone#English

(economics) Initialism of special economic zone.

ZES

Special Economic Zone — see also special economic zone


economic rent

factor of production
factor of production

(economics) the amount of recompense paid to a factor of production on top of its transfer earnings; this does not encompass costs incurred during the process of production or service


VSL

VSL (countable and uncountable, plural VSLs)

Forbes got more granular, contrasting the value of a statistical life (VSL) with the value of quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) to arrive at a more precise figure.

2021, Meghan O'Gieblyn, chapter 13, in God, Human, Animal, Machine […] , →ISBN:

Value of Statistical Life
w:value of life

(statistics, economics) Initialism of Value of Statistical Life, a measure of the monetary value of reducing the statistical likelihood of death in a population by a given amount.


MMT

Modern Monetary Theory
Modern Monetary Theory#English

(economics) Abbreviation of Modern Monetary Theory.


United States of America
United States of America

People's Republic of China
People's Republic of China

(economics, politics) Abbreviation of Group of Two; the two leading economies of the world, the United States of America and the People's Republic of China.


SDG

SDG (countable and uncountable, plural SDGs)

The SDGs are supposed to set out how to improve the lives of the poor in emerging countries, and how to steer money and government policy towards areas where they can do the most good. But the efforts of the SDG drafting committees are so sprawling and misconceived that the entire enterprise is being set up to fail.

2015 March 26, “The 169 commandments”, in The Economist, →ISSN:

Just before the launch of the SDGs, the World Bank published fresh projections for poverty reduction towards 2030.

2017, Jason Hickel, The Divide […] , London: William Heinemann, →ISBN:

Sustainable Development Goal
w:Sustainable Development Goals

(economics, countable) Initialism of Sustainable Development Goal.


anti-inflationary

en-adj

anti-inflationary (comparative more anti-inflationary, superlative most anti-inflationary)

more anti-inflationary (comparative)
most anti-inflationary (superlative)
antiinflationary (alternative)

A number of anti-inflationary policies were discussed by the Fed.

(economics) Intended to counteract or reverse inflation or its effects.

αντιπληθωριστικός

intended to counteract or reverse inflation


trickle down

en-verb

trickle down (third-person singular simple present trickles down, present participle trickling down, simple past and past participle trickled down)

trickles down (present singular third-person)
trickling down (participle present)
trickled down (participle past)
trickled down (past)

The CEO's benefits are unlikely to trickle down to the factory workers.

(economics) To pass from high-ranked people to lower-ranked people

skapywać

to pass from high-ranked people to lower-ranked people


ECM

European Common Market
w:European Economic Community

(economics, European Union) Initialism of European Common Market.


cardinalize

cardinalize (third-person singular simple present cardinalizes, present participle cardinalizing, simple past and past participle cardinalized)

cardinalizes (present singular third-person)
cardinalizing (participle present)
cardinalized (participle past)
cardinalized (past)

(economics) to transform an ordinal measure (where distance between points doesn't matter, just the ordering) into a cardinal one (where distance matters).


superneutral

Many economic models have superneutral money, with neither inflation nor change in inflation affecting non-monetary variables.

Why do agents hold money? Is money neutral? Superneutral?

1982, Frank Hahn, Monetary and Inflation, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, page xi:

(economics) (said of money) Having no effect on an economy due to its rate of growth or a change in that rate.


semi-elasticity

semi-elasticities (plural)
semielasticity (alternative)

(economics) The change in a function relative to an absolute change in its parameter. Algebraically, the semi-elasticity of a function f at point x is f'(x) / f(x).


transversality condition

en-noun

transversality condition (plural transversality conditions)

To quote from Optimization in economics and finance
: This terminal condition on λ(T) has often been called a transversality condition, for historical reasons deriving from time-optimal problems, where the (variable) time T to reach a target is minimized. In that situation, the transversality condition appears as a description of how the optimal path crosses a terminal line (graphing state against T).

(economics) A terminal condition on a costate variable in a, usually infinite, time optimization problem.


BRICS

As shown by the BRICS expansion and the long waiting list to join, Xi’s offer of an alternative world order is finding receptive ears in the Global South, where many countries feel themselves marginalized in an international system they see as dominated by the US and its wealthy allies.

2023 August 28, “BRICS expansion is a big win for China. But can it really work as a counterweight to the West?”, in CNN:

(geopolitics, economics) Acronym of Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, an international economic organization comprising several fast-growing economies.


MOP

MOPs (plural)
MOP (plural)
MoP (alternative)

means of production
means of production#English

(economics, Marxism) Initialism of means of production.

mode of production
mode of production#English

(economics, Marxism) Initialism of mode of production.


public ownership

(economics) Ownership of an industry by the people or the state; nationalisation; state ownership.


state ownership

(economics) Ownership of an industry by the people or the state; nationalisation.

公有化

ownership of an industry by the people or the state


social credit

(politics, economics) a political and economic philosophy originated by C. H. Douglas which envisages an "aristocracy of producers, serving and accredited by a democracy of consumers".


GWP

gross world product
w:gross world product

(economics) Initialism of gross world product.


anticompetition

Overseas, it continues to face anticompetition complaints from the European Commission and Korea, industry analysts said.

2007 August 14, Matt Richtel, “Lawyer Quits Qualcomm Job as Legal Caseload Mounts”, in New York Times:

(economics, business, chiefly attributive) Anticompetitive behaviour.


antieconomic

en-adj

antieconomic (comparative more antieconomic, superlative most antieconomic)

more antieconomic (comparative)
most antieconomic (superlative)

The consumer group UFC Que Choisir said in a statement that the deal was very tough, potentially destructive of freedom, antieconomic and against digital history.

2007 November 24, Reuters, “French Pact Aims to Fight Unauthorized Downloading”, in New York Times:

(economics) Opposing or working against the economy.


supply and demand

(economics) A capitalistic model of price determination in a market, according to which, holding all else equal in a competitive market, the unit price for a particular good will eventually settle at a point where the quantity demanded will equal the quantity supplied (at the current price).

тъ́рсене и предла́гане (tǎ́rsene i predlágane, literally “seeking and offering”)

спрос и предложе́ние (spros i predložénije, literally “demand and supply”)

по́пит і пропози́ція (pópyt i propozýcija, literally “demand and supply”)


hyperinflationary

hyperinflationary (comparative more hyperinflationary, superlative most hyperinflationary)

more hyperinflationary (comparative)
most hyperinflationary (superlative)

Zimbabweans have learned to live in a hyperinflationary environment, he added, “but the question is, how long can this continue?”

2008 February 21, Agence France-Presse, “Zimbabwe: Inflation Breaks the Six-Figure Mark”, in New York Times:

(economics) Having very high levels of inflation.


Rothbardian

Rothbardian (comparative more Rothbardian, superlative most Rothbardian)

more Rothbardian (comparative)
most Rothbardian (superlative)

Economists familiar with the Rothbardian tradition have taken the analysis even further, persuasively arguing that Somalia is much better without a state than it was with one.

2011, Robert P. Murphy, Mises Daily, Anarchy in Somalia:

(politics, economics) Of or pertaining to American economist, libertarian and anarcho-capitalist political philosopher Murray N. Rothbard, his work, or his theories.

rothbardiano

of or pertaining to Murray N. Rothbard or his theories


Rothbardian

The standard statist put-down — "If you Rothbardians like anarchy so much, why don't you move to Somalia?" — misses the point.

(politics, economics) A proponent of the political and/or economic philosophy championed by Murray N. Rothbard.


purchasing power parity

en-noun

purchasing power parity (usually uncountable, plural purchasing power parities)

(economics) A theory of long-term equilibrium exchange rates based on relative price levels of two countries.


Gini coefficient

Gini coefficient (plural Gini coefficients)

/ˈdʒiːni ˌkəʊˈɪ.fɪʃn̩t/

Named after Italian statistician and sociologist Corrado Gini (1884–1965).

named-after

China is still only eighty-ninth in the world in per capita GNP, and its Gini coefficient of economic inequality is higher than those of the two other countries to which it is often compared—the United States and India.

2014, Regina M. Abrami, William C. Kirby, F. Warren McFarlan, Introduction, in Can China Lead?: Reaching the Limits of Power and Growth, Harvard Business Publishing, →ISBN, page x:

One big problem with the Gini coefficient, however, is getting an intuitive feel for what it actually means. It's easy enough to picture a country with a Gini coefficient of zero—there, everyone gets exactly the same income.

2020, Tim Harford, “Rule four”, in How to Make the World Add Up, Bridge Street Press, →ISBN:

In fact, France’s Gini coefficient, the measure of inequality in a society, is lower today than it was during les trente glorieuses (1945 to 1975), when postwar France regained confidence by helping to pioneer first Concorde, then the TGV, and then in the early 1980s the proto-internet (the Minitel).

2023 May 1, Alexander Hurst, “Has France really gone to hell? Its catastrophist discourse is at odds with the facts”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:

(statistics, economics) A measure of the inequality of a statistical distribution, ranging from 0 (total equality) to 1 (maximal inequality), used in various disciplines but especially in economics to compare incomes or wealth.

基尼係數 /基尼系数

a measure of the inequality of a statistical distribution


monopsonist

The case of a monopsonist buying from a monopolist (usually called “bi-lateral monopoly”) is not discussed in this book.

1933, Joan Robinson, The Economics of Imperfect Competition, page 218:


sovereign debt

en-noun

sovereign debt (countable and uncountable, plural sovereign debts)

(economics) The amount of money outstanding that was borrowed by a government in order to finance expenditure not covered by taxation.


waveson

(law, archaic) Goods found floating on the sea after a shipwreck.