land tax

(economics) A levy on the value of land without regard to buildings, personal property and other improvements.


utilities tax

(economics) A tax on public service businesses, including ones that engage in transportation, communications, and the supply of energy, natural gas, and water.


Google tax

(economics, finance) An anti-avoidance tax provision introduced in a certain jurisdiction dealing with the practice of profits or royalties being diverted to other jurisdictions that have reduced or zero tax rates.


shadow real wage

en-noun

shadow real wage (plural shadow real wages)

Lucas has said that he finds [involuntary unemployment] a mysterious notion, but in fact it is crystal clear: the shadow real wage of the unemployed is below the prevailing real wage.

1982, Frank Hahn, Monetary and Inflation, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, page 49:

(economics) A shadow price of labor, i. e. a real wage which is not based on actual market exchanges.


shadow banker

In addition, attention has been given to shadow-banking in the post crisis debate. The shadow-bankers are the investors who trades asset-backed securities, and finances them through short term funding.

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 agent connected to a shadow banking.


Samuelsonian

en-adj

Samuelsonian (comparative more Samuelsonian, superlative most Samuelsonian)

more Samuelsonian (comparative)
most Samuelsonian (superlative)

Samuelsonian economics

Our usual ploy to be used in the face of ambiguity, the Samuelsonian correspondence principle […], does not help to resolve this issue because the model is stable for all parameter values.

2017, Ben J. Heidra, Foundations of Modern Macroeconomics, third edition, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 378:

(economics) Of or pertaining to the economist Paul Samuelson (1915–2009)


Ken and Eddie Show

Chancellor of the Exchequer
Chancellor of the Exchequer

(UK politics, economics, historical, informal) The minutes of the monthly meetings between Chancellor of the Exchequer Kenneth Clarke and Edward George, Baron George during which interest rates were set, published regularly during the 1990s.


Bidenflation

(informal, derogatory, humorous) The intense inflation or stagflation in the United States experienced during the Joe Biden presidency.


demand destruction

en-noun

demand destruction (countable and uncountable, plural demand destructions)

(economics) A permanent or sustained decline in the demand for a good in response to persistent high prices or limited supply.


skimpflation

We propose a new word to describe this stealth-ninja kind of inflation: skimpflation. It's when, instead of simply raising prices, companies skimp on the goods and services they provide.

2021 October 26, Greg Rosalsky, “Meet skimpflation: A reason inflation is worse than the government says it is”, in Planet Money:

Some economists have pegged a new word to this phenomenon where, rather than raise prices, companies cut services previously provided: skimpflation. Skimpflation could mean reduced staff, thus longer lines or phone hold times.

2022 March 17, Sally French, “One of the most basic hotel amenities is disappearing”, in Honolulu Star-Advertiser:

Companies face an appalling dilemma, said Laith Al-Khalaf in The Sunday Times – pass on increased costs to consumers “and risk losing them to rivals”, or “absorb the hit”. No wonder many are opting for a third path: “skimpflation”. The trick is to erode “the quality of their goods” – say, by “menu engineering” to focus on cheaper foods – in the hope that “hoodwinked” consumers either don't notice or don't care.

2022 April 30, “Netflix et al.: the great cancellation”, in The Week, Bath, page 41:

Sadly it's a sign of the times, and consumers will have to get used to this practice of skimpflation, where brands reduce the value of their services to remain profitable.

2022 September 2, Nicholas Dawson, quoting David Beard, “Blow for Sainsbury's Bank customers with huge Nectar points change - 'really unfair!'”, in Express:

"This is now called Skimpflation, which means a manufacturer has reformulated one of its products, usually with cheaper ingredients," says Dworsky, a former Massachusetts Assistant Attorney General in consumer protection.

[2022 November 2, Leslie Gaydos, quoting Edgar Dworsky, “Skimpflation: Brands May Be Changing Their Recipes to Cut Costs – But It's Hard to Tell”, in NBC Boston:

How To Be A Savvy Shopper Amidst Skimpflation […] And while it might require a little more time and energy in the aisles, there are ways to prevent your diet from suffering amidst inflation.

2022 November 9, “How Skimpflation May Be Affecting Your Diet”, in Henry Ford Health:

(economics, informal, neologism) The practice of reducing the quality of products while continuing to market them at the same price.


Gibson's paradox

First used by John Maynard Keynes in A Treatise on Money (1930). Named after British economist Arthur Herbert Gibson, who noted the correlation in a 1923 article for Banker's Magazine (though it had previously been noted by Thomas Tooke).

(economics) The observation that the rate of interest and the general level of prices are positively correlated.


market clearing

market clearing (countable and uncountable, plural market clearings)

(economics) The process of clearing the market.


clear the market

en-verb

clear the market (third-person singular simple present clears the market, present participle clearing the market, simple past and past participle cleared the market)

clears the market (present singular third-person)
clearing the market (participle present)
cleared the market (participle past)
cleared the market (past)

(economics) To equate the supply of traded goods with the demand, so that there is no excess.


friendshoring

Christine Lagarde, president of the European Central Bank (ECB), noted that the governments of Western countries are increasingly adopting industrial policies that promote “friendshoring” of strategic industries.

2023 August 30, “What is “friendshoring”?”, in The Economist, →ISSN:

(business, economics, finance, politics, diplomacy) The process of moving production to diplomatically friendly or allied foreign locations which have lower production costs.


market equilibrium

en-noun

market equilibrium (plural market equilibriums)

(economics) A condition where a market price is established through competition such that the amount of goods or services sought by buyers is equal to the amount of goods or services produced by sellers.


Great Resignation

Coined by professor of management Anthony Klotz in May 2021.

coin

On the other hand, the Great Resignation — the emergence of what look like labor shortages even though employment is still five million below its prepandemic level, and even further below its previous trend — remains somewhat mysterious.

2021 November 5, Paul Krugman, “Wonking Out: Is the Great Resignation a Great Rethink?”, in New York Times (subscriber-only newsletter):

In fact, accommodation and food services, which has been hardest hit by the Great Resignation, has also created one out of every three net new jobs in 2021. Does that make any sense? Only if you think about this as a job-switching revolution.

2021 December 8, Derek Thompson, “Three Myths of the Great Resignation”, in The Atlantic:

There certainly is a ‘great resignation’ but we don't know if people are throwing in the towel because they are burnt out or because they are proactively taking charge. The truth is it's probably a mix of both. There are positive resignations and negative ones.

2022 August 20, John Perry, quotee, “The great resignation: A lifestyle choice or an effect of burnout?”, in The Irish Times, Dublin, page 9:

His [Ranjay Gulati’s] research on how companies energize employees is even more vital during this era of the so-called Great Resignation.

2022 December 4, Shirley Leung, “Great Resignation? No, it's the ‘Great Rethink’”, in Boston Globe, page R29:

(economics) An ongoing economic trend in which employees have voluntarily resigned from their jobs en masse, beginning in early 2021.


greedflation

Echoes her colleague Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.): “The problem is not inflation. The problem is corporate greed.” Their evidence for the greedflation theory was that prices companies charge had risen faster than input costs, which meant (at least for a while) that profits were growing.

2022 June 14, Catherine Rampell, “Greed is dead. Long live greed!”, in Washington Post (subscription required):

In fact, evidence of ‘greedflation’ in food retail in Canada is weak at best. But prices in some food categories have behaved unreasonably in recent years, so we shouldn't think greedflation doesn't exist.

2022 July 13, “Has ‘greedflation’ driven up Canadian food prices? Evidence of ‘greedflation’ is weak at best”, in Thunder Bay Chronicle Journal:

Excuseflation is also known as greedflation.

[2023 March 24, Daily Mail City, Finance Reporter, “INVESTING EXPLAINED: What you need to know about Excuseflation – a ploy by companies to hike prices, also known as greedflation”, in Mail Online:

The “greedflation” thesis is in part a reaction against another common explanation for inflation: that it is driven by fast-growing wages.

2023 July 6, ““Greedflation” is a nonsense idea”, in The Economist, →ISSN:

If a company could manage to raise its price by a big percentage and have its volume go down by only a small percentage, it would increase its revenue, offsetting its higher costs. Some people called that profiteering or greedflation, but to Rines it was just good business.

2023 July 26, Peter Coy, “Companies Aren’t Eager to Cut Their Prices as Costs Fall”, in The New York Times, Peter Coy Newsletter:

(economics, neologism) Price gouging by corporations during an inflationary period, especially when the underlying cost of production has not risen accordingly; price increases ostensibly inflated solely by underlying fundamental factors but really in excess of that level.


profit motive

(economics) The pursuit of financial gain as a motivation for individuals and firms to conduct business.


Okunian

en-adj

Okunian (comparative more Okunian, superlative most Okunian)

more Okunian (comparative)
most Okunian (superlative)

Confining to the difference version of Okun's law, the paper demonstrates that if a trade-off between output fluctuations and fluctuations in the labour market is to hold on an economy-wide level, a completely different specification of Okunian equations ensues for regions than is currently considered in research studies on the topic.

2020, Martin Boďa, Mariana Považanová, Formal and statistical aspects of estimating Okun's law at a regional level, Papers in Regional Science, volume 99, number 4:

(economics) Of or relating to Arthur Melvin Okun (1928–1980), American economist


Hitlernomics

Blend of Hitler + economics, compared to Adolf Hitler.

(derogatory, slang, very rare) Extremely authoritarian and unlikeable economic policy or philosophy.


Pollyanna creep

Coined by the economic analyst and statistician John Williams, from Pollyanna (“one who is persistently cheerful and optimistic”).

(economics) The practice of a government modifying the way that economic measures are calculated, in order to give a more optimistic impression of economic development.


rational choice theory

(social sciences, economics, political science, sociology) A theory that argues individual decisions are based on that individual's understanding of the costs and benefits of a given action, shaped throughout the assumptions of self-interest and rational actors.


polycrisis

From poly- + crisis. Attested at least since the 2010s.

South Africa finds itself in a polycrisis in terms of dealing with economic development, to alleviate poverty, within water and energy constraints (see fig. 2).

2011, Y. Villacampa Esteve, C. A. Brebbia, Andrea Alberto Mammoli, Energy and Sustainability III, WIT Press, →ISBN, page 16:

The first implies an ethics of sufficiency and cooperation which undercut the capitalist values of individualism and crass materialism that are of little use when it comes to considering alternatives to the polycrises we now face.

2012, Mark Swilling, Eve Annecke, Just Transitions: Explorations of Sustainability in an Unfair World, United Nations Univ:

If cities are to have a sustainable future, are to respond to the poly-crises and are to provide the necessary opportunities for future populations, the governance roles in responding and adapting to all aspects demand a very different view of governance and leadership within the city.

2013 March 1, Bruce Frayne, Caroline Moser, Gina Ziervogel, Climate Change, Assets and Food Security in Southern African Cities, Routledge, →ISBN:

It should also be said that the economic sphere is increasingly understood to be intricately connected to the ecological – as two sides of the same coin – and in many ways community development, deeply influenced by the broader 'development literature', has been reconstructed by the ecological polycrises upon us […].

2016 February 17, Peter Westoby, Theorising the Practice of Community Development: A South African Perspective, Routledge, →ISBN:

In Palestine, polycrises constitute the everyday rhythm of life; cityscapes are saturated with colonial social relations across all scales; and othering and socio-spatial disconnects have become the channels through which economic exploitation, the furthering of dependencies, and the Israeli colonial project are enabled.

2021 August 9, Linda Peake, Elsa Koleth, Gokboru Sarp Tanyildiz, Rajyashree N. Reddy, darren patrick/dp, A Feminist Urban Theory for Our Time: Rethinking Social Reproduction and the Urban, John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN, page 187:

But the exchange feeds into an ever-more-common discourse: that the UK is facing “polycrisis” in almost every facet of life in Britain. From courts to the cost of living, transport to healthcare, environment to the asylum system – everywhere appears to be affected.

2022 December 30, Pamela Duncan, Carmen Aguilar García, Michael Goodier, “Inflation, waiting lists, strikes, rail chaos, climate emergency: the 2022 polycrisis”, in The Guardian:

(economics, neologism) A series of crises occurring at the same time.


loanable funds

(economics) A theory of the market interest rate, where the interest rate is determined by the demand for and supply of all forms of credit (including loans, bonds, and savings deposits).


infant industry

en-noun

infant industry (plural infant industries)

(economics) A new industry, one in its earlier stages unable to keep up or compete against global competitors.


policy rate

“What is the Central Bank policy rate?”, in IMF, (Can we date this quote?): “The central bank policy rate (CBPR) is the rate that is used by central bank to implement or signal its monetary policy stance.”

“The policy rate”, in Norges Bank, (Can we date this quote?): “The policy rate is Norges Bank's main instrument for stabilising inflation and developments in the Norwegian economy.”

An interest rate set by a central bank to conduct monetary policy (often implemented as the bank's discount rate/bank rate or its repurchase agreement rate)


policy interest rate

policy interest rate (plural policy interest rates)


key interest rate

key interest rate (plural key interest rates)


stable marriage problem

stable marriage problem (plural stable marriage problems)

(mathematics, economics, computer science) The problem of finding a stable matching between two equal-sized sets of elements, given an ordering of preferences for each element.


neutral money

neutral money (usually uncountable, plural neutral moneys)

(economics) Money which functions in a manner as to render the economic results unchanged from those of a barter economy.


necessity money

necessity money (usually uncountable, plural necessity moneys)

(economics) A type of temporary coinage, issued in places where regular coinage is unavailable, sometimes consisting of leather or wood.


full-bodied money

full-bodied money (usually uncountable, plural full-bodied moneys)

(economics) A form of money which has a face value which is not in excess of its intrinsic value as a commodity.


token money

token money (countable and uncountable, plural token moneys)

(economics) A type of regular money issued by the government, such as paper currency or coins, which has a greater face value than its intrinsic value.


representative money

representative money (plural representative moneys)

(economics) Any medium of exchange, printed or digital, that represents something of value, but has little or no intrinsic value of its own.


side money

side money (countable and uncountable, plural side moneys)

(economics) Any money earned on the side of a regular job in order to earn additional income.


dispatch money

dispatch money (countable and uncountable, plural dispatch moneys)

(nautical, economics) A type of allowance given to a ship's charterer by the owner, in order to shorten the lay days stipulated in their mutual contract.


money economy

(economics) A stage or system in an economy in which lawful money replaces barter in the exchange of goods.


Trussonomics

For quotations using this term, see Citations:Trussonomics.

(UK politics, economics, neologism) The economic policies and theories of former UK prime minister Liz Truss.


EROI

(economics, electricity) Initialism of energy return on investment.


new drachma

new drachma (plural new drachmas or new drachmae or new drachmai)

new drachmas (plural)
new drachmae (plural)
new drachmai (plural)

(economics) A proposed or theoretical currency of Greece which would replace the euro.


tax wedge

(economics) difference between the price that includes all taxes and the untaxed price of a good, particularly the difference between the employer's labour cost and the employee's take-home pay

verokiila

difference between taxed and untaxed price


Hayekism

From Hayek + -ism. Named after Friedrich Hayek (1899–1992), Austrian-British economist, legal theorist and philosopher.

The vision was of a low tax, low regulation society where the richest are freed to unleash their awesome talents and make themselves even richer. According to this vision – whether you call it Hayekism, ultra-Thatcherism, Reaganism or economic libertarianism – when the fortunate few at the top soar ever upwards, some of their wealth trickles down to those at the bottom.

2022 October 20, Jonathan Freedland, “Truss has discredited high-octane, free-market economics - perhaps for ever”, in The Guardian:

(politics, economics) An economic ideology that emphasizes unregulated markets and the abandonment of welfare.


Singapore-on-the-Thames

(UK politics, economics) Alternative form of Singapore-on-Thames.


free silverite

free silverites (plural)
free-silverite (alternative)

They may be as little appreciated on monetary as on political subjects, but an outsider may be permitted to note the significant fact that Mr. Bryan's personal platform seems to go far beyond the party platform on which he stands. Officially he is a free Silverite; actually he is a free Silverite and something more.

1896 November, W. R. Lawson, “American Currency Cranks”, in The Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art, volume 64, number 5, New York: E. R. Pelton, page 590:

(US, economics, historical) An advocate of the free silver movement.


shrinkflate

en-verb

shrinkflate (third-person singular simple present shrinkflates, present participle shrinkflating, simple past and past participle shrinkflated)

shrinkflates (present singular third-person)
shrinkflating (participle present)
shrinkflated (participle past)
shrinkflated (past)

Back-formation from shrinkflation. Equivalent to a blend of shrink + inflate.

Lately, Mr. Dworsky has had his work cut out for him. With inflation at a 40-year high, business owners have been increasingly shrinkflating their products in an attempt to hide price increases.

2022 November 26, Clare Toeniskoetter, “Meet the Man on a Mission to Expose Sneaky Price Increases”, in The New York Times:

(ambitransitive, economics, informal) To make a product smaller while continuing to market it at the same price.


scissors crisis

en-noun

scissors crisis (plural scissors crises)

Meanwhile, real commodity prices were falling sharply for most non-oil products as the world economy moved into its deepest recession since the 1930s. With the debtor countries also facing a strong and ever-strengthening US dollar in the early-mid 1980s, it is perhaps not surprising that Brazil and Venezuela (in 1983) followed Mexico (August 1982) into default on their debt repayments. All of these countries were caught in a scissors crisis not apparently of their own making.

1993, Stuart Corbridge, “Ethics in Development Studies: The Example of Debt”, in Frans J. Schuurman, editor, Beyond the Impasse: New Directions in Development Theory, →ISBN, page 126:

(economics) An economic crisis caused by price scissors, that is, an unfavourable divergence in the prices paid by a particular group or country for products that it needs as against the prices of the products that it produces.


government failure

government failure (countable and uncountable, plural government failures)

(economics) A situation in which a government intervention causes an economic inefficiency that would not exist in a true free market.

Staatsversagen

a situation in which a government intervention causes an economic inefficiency that would not exist in a true free market


Harberger triangle

Harberger triangle (plural Harberger triangles)

Harberger triangles (plural)
Harberger's triangle (alternative)

Named after Arnold Harberger (born 1924), American economist.

“It takes a heap of Harberger triangles to fill an Okun gap,” wrote James Tobin in 1977, four years before winning the Nobel Prize in economics. He meant that the big issue in economics was not battling against monopolists but preventing recessions and promoting recovery. […] The Harberger triangle is the loss to society as monopolists raise their prices, and it is named after Arnold Harberger, who 60 years ago discovered that the costs of monopoly were about 0.1 per cent of US gross domestic product […]

2014 August 12, Tim Harford, “Monopoly is a bureaucrat’s friend but a democrat’s foe”, in Financial Times:

(economics) A graphical representation of the deadweight loss (as measured on a supply and demand graph) in the trade of a given product or service caused by market failure or government failure.


Habakkuk thesis

Proposed by John Habakkuk (1915–2002), British economic historian, in his 1962 work American and British Technology in the Nineteenth Century: The Search for Labour-Saving Inventions.

(economics) The theory that land abundance and labor scarcity in the 19th-century United States led to high wages, which resulted in labor-saving technological innovations and the development of the American system of manufacturing based on the extensive use of machinery and interchangeable parts.


Harbergerian

We share with the earlier Harbergerian approach a concern for general-equilibrium price effects—a concern which was explored only under very special assumptions in the recent literature on optimal taxation.

1992, Raaj K. Sah, Joseph E. Stiglitz, “An Approach to Applied Welfare Economics”, in Peasants versus City-Dwellers: Taxation and the Burden of Economic Development, Oxford: Oxford University Press, published 2005, →ISBN, page 33:

(economics) Of or pertaining to Arnold Harberger (born 1924), American economist.


general equilibrium

(economics) A state of simultaneous equilibrium as analysed in several or many interacting markets in an economy.


partial equilibrium

(economics) A state of equilibrium as analysed in a specific part of an economy while ignoring the possible effects of changes in this part on the rest of the economy.


K-wave

(economics) Abbreviation of Kondratiev wave.


Justinflation

“JustinFlation is coming to a grocery store near you,” Pierre Poilievre, the Conservative Shadow Minister for Finance, said in a statement.

2021 December 9, Gabrielle Piché, “We’ll pay more to eat less”, in Winnipeg Free Press:

Instead, the Poilievre who is available to us is the one who snarls ceaselessly about Justinflation, lobs bombs just to bask in the glow of the blast and throws in his lot with protesters terrorizing ordinary citizens because—well, frankly, it’s hard to fathom why.

2022 March 10, Shannon Proudfoot, “Why is Pierre Poilievre so angry?”, in Maclean's:

Barrett and Gourde said: "While people in this country are struggling to afford to live and provide for their family because of the crushing costs of Justinflation and higher taxes, the Liberals are helping their friends get rich on the backs of hardworking Canadians."

2022 December 17, Mary Ng, “Another Liberal minister found guilty of breaking ethics laws must resign: Conservatives”, in Indo-Canadian Voice, page 18:

(Canada, politics, derogatory) Inflation attributed to the economic policies or spending of the government of Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau.


multimetallism

(economics) The use of a monetary standard based upon multiple different metals.


unit of account

unit of account (plural units of account)

(economics, finance, accounting) A standard numerical monetary unit of measurement of the market value of goods, services, and other transactions.

laskentayksikkö

a standard numerical monetary unit of measurement of the market value of goods, services, and other transactions


micro-retailing

From micro- + retailing. Grew in popularity as ecommerce merchants experiment with opening lower-risk physical retail spaces.

Micro-retailing helps create unique, in-person customer experiences. It can drive your brand’s convenience and make the most of the modern omnichannel shopping world. It even makes it easier for retailers to create physical human connections (all while staying within budget).

2020 November 11, “What Is Micro-Retailing? Why & How Retailers Are Going Small”, in Shopify:

(economics, marketing, business, finance, technology, neologism) A retail model including things like small-scale pop-up shops and boutique storefronts that leverage a variety of innovative downsized activities.

(economics, marketing, business, neologism) A small, demographically targeted store with a focus on a small selection of popular products.

(economics, marketing, business, neologism) Small, independent, family owned business in a developing nation.


Smithianism

(economics) The theories of the political economist Adam Smith.


JustinFlation

(Canada, politics, derogatory) Alternative letter-case form of Justinflation.


fixed capital

Turning to the between regressions, the elasticity on fixed capital is particularly high (0.63) in the between-time […] The between-time estimate of capital of agricultural origin is significantly positive, though more modest in value (0.25).

2012, Keith O. Fuglie, V. Eldon Ball, Sun Ling Wang, Productivity Growth in Agriculture:

(economics) Any kind of real, physical asset that is used in the operation of a business but which is not consumed by that use.


foreign aid

foreign aid (countable and uncountable, plural foreign aids)

Then the Republican-controlled Congress maintained foreign aid at $35bn, as in 2017, with funding for health and food largely unchanged.

2018 September 6, “America’s foreign-aid budget has proved surprisingly resilient”, in The Economist, →ISSN:

(economics, geopolitics) A voluntary transfer of resources from one country to another.


austerianism

(economics) Support for fiscal conservatism and austerity.


excuseflation

Coined by journalists Tracy Alloway and Joe Weisenthal in 2023 (see quotations below). Blend of excuse + inflation.

coinage

The key question is, in an economy where the consumer continues to spend freely, how sticky this “excuseflation” proves to be and how high the Federal Reserve will have to drive up interest rates to prompt businesses to lower prices, or at least stop raising them.

2023 March 9, Tracy Alloway, Joe Weisenthal, “‘Excuseflation’ keeps prices and corporate profits high”, in Bloomberg:

The power of excuseflation is that it allows apologists to, well, make excuses. When egg prices shot up in January, Big Egg was able to blame it all on bird-flu.

2023 March 11, Cory Doctrow, “Excuseflation”, in Medium:

It's called, ‘Excuse-flation’, because most of the big brands are using inflation as an excuse, to keep their prices high.

2023 March 18, B.D. Hobbs, ““Excuseflation” Is The New “Shrinkflation””, in KTRH Newsradio:

These may be entirely legitimate reasons to raise prices but the companies engaging in excuseflation are seen as exploiting the situation.

2023 March 24, Daily Mail City, Finance Reporter, “INVESTING EXPLAINED: What you need to know about Excuseflation – a ploy by companies to hike prices, also known as greedflation”, in Mail Online:

Excuseflation
The pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine both had material impacts on the availability of goods and services. […] Executives say they needed to pass along their own increased costs to protect their margins. Skeptics see excuses at play.

2024 March 7, Enda Curran, “‘Shrinkflation’ and Other Terms for Inflationary Times”, in Bloomberg:

2020 was the first year that a lot of people saw shortage problems in supermarkets. In that situation we are also more likely to accept price increases. So yes, I think there is some excuseflation in that, in a context of shocks and emergencies, it changes the mindset of consumers.

2024 March 12, Isabella Weber, quotee, “Isabella Weber: ‘It’s time to lower rates’”, in CE Noticias Financieras, English edition, Miami, translation of El Pais by Ignacio Fariza, “Isabella Weber: ‘Es hora de bajar tipos’”:

(business, finance, economics, neologism) The raising of the price of a good or service in the wake of an economic, political, or other social change that serves as a justification for the rise.


Kaldor-Hicks efficient

Kaldor-Hicks improvement
Kaldor-Hicks improvement

(economics) Such that no Kaldor-Hicks improvement is possible.


Kaldor-Hicks efficiency

Kaldor-Hicks efficient
Kaldor-Hicks efficient

(economics) The property of being Kaldor-Hicks efficient.


Kaldor-Hicks criterion

(economics) The criterion of being Kaldor-Hicks efficient.


Kaldor-Hicks improvement

en-noun

Kaldor-Hicks improvement (plural Kaldor-Hicks improvements)

Named for Nicholas Kaldor and John Hicks.

(economics) An economic reallocation of resources among people, such that those who are made better off could hypothetically compensate those who are made worse off and lead to a Pareto-improving outcome.


exorbitant privilege

(economics) The benefits afforded to the United States due to its currency (the United States dollar) being the favored international reserve currency.


FANGAM

(economics) Six large technology companies, or (metonymically) their stock: Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Google, Apple, Microsoft.


destructionism

(economics) A policy of consuming capital without accumulating it, according to Ludwig Von Mises.


uraniumaire

A millionaire whose wealth was acquired through uranium mining.


ambiguity aversion

probability distribution
probability distribution

(economics, decision theory) A preference for known risks over unknown risks: that is, favoring an option where the probability distribution of the outcomes is known over one where the probabilities are unknown.


Schachtism

From Schacht + -ism, after Hjalmar Schacht.

(economics) Economic policies and agreements that provide unfair benefits to one of the involved nations, associated with Nazi Germany.


Schachtian

en-adj

Schachtian (comparative more Schachtian, superlative most Schachtian)

more Schachtian (comparative)
most Schachtian (superlative)

(economics) Of or relating to Schachtism.


unstylized fact

en-noun

unstylized fact (plural unstylized facts)

The unstylized facts will hardly justify anything more than an agnostic conclusion.

1970, Robert M. Solow, Growth Theory: An Exposition, Oxford University Press, page 6:

(social sciences, especially economics) An fact that is empirically observed rather than a stylized fact.


home market effect

home market effect (plural home market effects)

(economics) A hypothesized concentration of certain industries in large markets, based on the idea that a country with significant sales of a product internally will tend to have significant sales of the same product abroad.


securonomics

From secure + -o- + -nomics, coined by British politician Rachel Reeves in 2023.

coin

She [Rachel Reeves] told the FT her ‘securonomics’ had to be based on ‘the rock of fiscal responsibility’ and that Britain was at risk of being ‘sidelined’ unless it accepted that the rules of the global economy had changed.

2023 May 24, “Reeves makes case for UK version of ‘Bidenomics’”, in Financial Times, page 1:

It’s to be funded by taxing private schools, although whether Reeves’s “securonomics” has the capacity to respond to what teachers want more broadly, is another matter.

2023 July 7-13, Andrew Marr, “Politics: In an era of political fatalism, Labour must use its education plan to inspire hope”, in New Statesman, volume 152, page 14:

Done without careful planning, it could increase reliance on imported virgin steel and recycled scrap metal. It will also test the government’s commitment to “securonomics” which involves safeguarding the supply of key goods and services to the UK.

2024 September 26, “Why £500m for Port Talbot is not enough to secure steel industry”, in Western Mail, Cardiff, page 23:

supply-side economics
supply-side economics

(UK politics, economics) A modern form of supply-side economics inspired by US president Joe Biden's economic policy, particularly his Inflation Reduction Act, and based on the belief that globalisation has failed to achieve its stated aims.


VCM

“We cannot afford to waste any more time on false solutions. The issues are far-reaching and pervasive, extending well beyond specific verifiers. The VCM is actively exacerbating the climate emergency.”

2023 September 19, Nina Lakhani, quoting Anuradha Mittal, “Revealed: top carbon offset projects may not cut planet-heating emissions”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:

(economics, environment) Initialism of voluntary carbon market.


market force

Few players are a guarantee at £105m - an excessive fee admittedly but the result of market forces - but Rice is one and he has been demonstrating how significant he will be even as Arsenal's early-season form was tentative.

2023 September 3, Phil McNulty, “Declan Rice: The game-changing midfielder Arsenal need for title challenge”, in BBC Sport:

The absence of a national rail manufacturer is the result of a long-term British phenomenon of bowing to market forces without regard for national interest.

2023 November 1, Christian Wolmar, “Feast or famine endangers future of UK production plants”, in RAIL, number 995, page 49:

(chiefly in the plural) Any factor affecting the price of, demand for, and availability of a commodity.


second-round effect

en-noun

second-round effect (plural second-round effects)

There is a second-round effect of crowding in higher private investment as public sector contractors tool up to meet the public contracts, and then a third – as all firms adjust to the higher level of demand by raising business investment levels – of more crowding in and so-called “multiplier effects”.

2024 November 3, Will Hutton, “Investment drives growth. That’s why gloomy forecasters are so wrong about the budget”, in The Guardian:

(economics) The situation where inflation starts to have an indirect impact, affecting wages and prices.


infocommunist

From info + communist, possibly derived from infoanarchist.

So far, I have made two arguments. One is that you can’t justify an opposition to proprietary information solely on an ethical imperative to share, unless you are willing to extend that ethical imperative to all resources and thus embrace true communism. Second, an appeal to the non–rival nature of digital information can’t get you off the slippery slope to info–communism if your case is built entirely around a deontological appeal to the value of sharing and cooperation.

2008, Milton Mueller, “Info-communism? Ownership and freedom in the digital economy”, in First Monday, volume 13, number 4, →DOI:

In contrast to the capitalist mode of production, in the info-communist mode of production both the relations of production and the productive forces are fully socialized—they are based on common ownership of the means of production and collaborative work.

2014, Sylvain Firer-Blaess, Christian Fuchs, “Wikipedia: An Info-Communist Manifesto”, in Television & New Media, volume 15, number 2, →DOI:

(politics, economics) A person who supports commons in information and communications.


stabilization fund

stabilization fund (plural stabilization funds)

(economics) A mechanism set up by a government or central bank to insulate the domestic economy from large influxes of revenue, as from commodities such as oil.


degrowther

Degrowthers insist that we must find ways of living and working that do not require our economies to endlessly expand.

2020 April 24, Lola Seaton, “In the midst of an economic crisis, can 'degrowth' provide an answer?”, in The Guardian:

In the view of degrowthers, humanity simply does not have the capacity to phase out fossil fuels and meet the ever-growing demand of rich economies.

2021 September 16, Spencer Bokat-Lindell, “Do We Need to Shrink the Economy to Stop Climate Change?”, in The New York Times:

Its reliance on anecdotes and inspirational stories invites the unflattering assessment of the book as a kind of ‘chicken-soup for the degrowther’s soul’ rather than a serious analysis of how degrowth would actually work in terms of major shifts in the economic system.

2023 February, Larry Alan Busk, “Degrowth and the Future of Capitalism: A Critical Review of Recent Literature”, in Emancipations: A Journal of Critical Social Analysis, volume 2, number 1, page 4:


behavioral economics

Now Canada is looking into this growing field of behavioural economics. […] Supporters view behavioural economics as a complement to classical economics, which assumes people make rational, well-informed decisions that are in their best interest.

2013 August 1, Bill Curry, “Canada studies Britain’s ‘nudge unit’ for ways to give the public a push”, in The Globe and Mail:

(economics, psychology) A field of economic analysis concerned with the influence of psychological factors on the economic decision making of individuals or institutions.


behavioral economist

behavioral economist (plural behavioral economists)

behavioral economists (plural)
behavioural economist (alternative)

behavioral economics
behavioral economics

(economics, psychology) A person who studies behavioral economics.


RONA

(economics, accounting) Acronym of return on net assets.


Fordize

en-verb

Fordize (third-person singular simple present Fordizes, present participle Fordizing, simple past and past participle Fordized)

Fordizes (present singular third-person)
Fordizing (participle present)
Fordized (participle past)
Fordized (past)

From Ford + -ize, named after American industrialist Henry Ford (1863–1947).

named-after

(transitive) To convert (an industry, etc.) to Fordism.


Kuznets swing

(economics) A claimed medium-range economic wave with a period of 15–25 years, associated with demographic processes such as the effect of immigration on construction rates.


Mirrleesian

en-adj

Mirrleesian (comparative more Mirrleesian, superlative most Mirrleesian)

more Mirrleesian (comparative)
most Mirrleesian (superlative)

The Mirrleesian approach posed a serious challenge to the Ramsey tax framework and the lessons drawn from it.

2017, Helmuth Cremer, Firouz Gahvari, “Restoring Ramsey tax lessons to Mirrleesian tax settings: Atkinson-Stiglitz and Ramsey reconciled”, in Social Choice and Welfare, volume 49, page 12:

Most of the papers on Mirrleesian optimal taxation have a theoretical focus and devote relatively little space to discussing how to produce an accurate numerical solution to the Mirrlees problem.

2025 January 15, Jonathan Heathcote, Hitoshi Tsujiyama, “Practical Optimal Income Taxation”, in CEPR Discussion Papers, number 19857, page 1:

(economics) Of or relating to James Mirrlees (1936–2018), Scottish economist.


Sraffian

Sraffian (comparative more Sraffian, superlative most Sraffian)

more Sraffian (comparative)
most Sraffian (superlative)

(economics) Of or relating to Piero Sraffa (1898–1983), Italian economist.


Kaleckian

Kaleckian (comparative more Kaleckian, superlative most Kaleckian)

more Kaleckian (comparative)
most Kaleckian (superlative)

(economics) Of or relating to Michał Kalecki (1899–1970), Polish economist.


Kaldorian

Kaldorian (comparative more Kaldorian, superlative most Kaldorian)

more Kaldorian (comparative)
most Kaldorian (superlative)

(economics) Of or relating to Nicholas Kaldor (1908–1986), Hungarian economist.


Hurwiczian

Hurwiczian (comparative more Hurwiczian, superlative most Hurwiczian)

more Hurwiczian (comparative)
most Hurwiczian (superlative)

(economics, mathematics) Of or relating to Leonid Hurwicz (1917-2008), Polish-American economist and mathematician.


economic substance

(US, economics, law) A substantial purpose (aside from reduction of tax liability) and an economic effect (aside from the tax effect), which a transaction must have in order to qualify for any tax benefits.


financial repression

en-noun

financial repression (plural financial repressions)

Introduced in 1973 by Stanford economists Edward S. Shaw and Ronald I. McKinnon.

Ms Reinhart and Ms Sbrancia argue the world has forgotten that the widespread system of financial repression “played an instrumental role in reducing or ‘liquidating’ the massive stocks of debt accumulated during World War II”.

2011 May 9, Gillian Tett, “Policymakers learn a new and alarming catchphrase”, in Financial Times:

Two main features of the 1950s were inflation and financial repression. […] Financial repression was used in the 1950s to prevent people and companies from using their financial assets as they chose. Although there is no precise definition of financial repression, one aspect of it is the imposition of restraints on financial institutions which go beyond those that are required to ensure that they are prudently managed.

2014, William A. Allen, Monetary Policy and Financial Repression in Britain, 1951–59, Springer, →ISBN:

(economics, finance) A set of government policies to reduce the real burden of government debt, such as capital controls or interest rate caps.


capital control

capital control (plural capital controls)

(finance, economics) A measure implemented by a government or monetary authority to regulate and control the movement of capital across its borders.


potato paradox

potato paradox (plural potato paradoxes)

(economics): In reference to the 1845 Irish famine, when potatoes became expensive. It has been argued that poorer families, who habitually ate more potatoes, ended up having to consume even more of them, since the higher prices made it even harder to afford any other goods.

(economics) The paradoxical nature of Giffen goods, where people consume more as the price rises.


Engel's law

Proposed by the statistician Ernst Engel in 1857.

(economics) The relationship whereby, as family income increases, the percentage spent on food decreases, even though the total amount of food expenditure increases.


single-taxism

(politics, economics) Support for a system of taxation based mainly or exclusively on one tax, typically chosen for its special properties, often being a tax on land value.


MONIAC

An amusing invention was the MONIAC (MOnetary National Income Analogue Computer) hydraulic macroeconomic machine where flows of investment or export were represented by streaming coloured water in transparent tubes, and the stock of money by a water tank, whereas taxation was controlled through a valve.

2018, Tönu Puu, Disequilibrium Economics: Oligopoly, Trade, and Macrodynamics, Springer, →ISBN, page 204:

(economics) Acronym of Monetary National Income Analogue Computer.


sexual division of labour

sexual division of labor (alternative US)

(economics) The delegation of different tasks between the male and female members of a species.


closed currency

closed currency (plural closed currencies)

(banking, economics) A currency that is not freely available outside the country of origin and must be exchanged upon arrival.


key currency

(economics) A currency that is reliable, has little volatility, and widely used in trade and commerce on a worldwide scale.


polyopsony

(economics) The presence of a few large buyers but many small ones, which may affect the price of commodities


controligarch

Blend of control + oligarch, coined by Seamus Bruner in 2023.

It should come as no surprise that while the peasants are expected to eat fermented fungi, lab-grown meats and maggot milkshakes, the Controligarchs — with their private chefs — have no intention of doing the same.

2023, Seamus Bruner, Controligarchs: Exposing the Billionaire Class, Their Secret Deals, and the Globalist Plot to Dominate Your Life:

The Controligarchs share an ambition to reshape the world, and their wealth gives them the influence to do it. […] Bruner asks if the current global financial system, which is built upon an exchange network of national currencies backed by their respective governments, seems to work well. Why would one central entity need to control currency? The reason, as with many other Controligarch schemes, is that a centralised digital currency also is put forward as the solution to many nonfinancial problems— from climate change to cyberattacks to the rise of so-called disinformation.

2024 April 22, “BOOK REVIEW: Controligarchs”, in TheGeoPolity:

(economics, neologism) An oligarch who has a desire to control people's individual lives.


use value

use values (plural)
use-value (alternative)

(economics, especially Marxism) The ability of an object (not necessarily a commodity) to satisfy a human need; a utility.

The utility of a thing makes it a use-value. But this utility is not a thing of air. Being limited by the physical properties of the commodity, it has no existence apart from that commodity. A commodity, such as iron, corn, or a diamond, is therefore, so far as it is a material thing, a use-value, something useful. This property of a commodity is independent of the amount of labour required to appropriate its useful qualities.

1887, Karl Marx, “Commodities”, in Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling, transl., edited by Frederick [i.e., Friedrich] Engels, Capital: A Critical Analysis of Capitalist Production: Translated from the Third German Edition, volume I, London: Swan Sonnenschein, Lowrey, & Co., […], →OCLC, part I (Commodities and Money), section 1 (The Two Factors of a Commodity: Use-Value and Value (The Substance of Value and the Magnitude of Value)), page 2:

A commodity is, in the first place, a thing that satisfies a human want; in the second place, it is a thing that can be exchanged for another thing. The utility of a thing makes it a use-value. Exchange-value (or simply, value) presents itself first of all as the ratio, the proportion, in which a certain number of use-values of one sort are exchanged for a certain number of use-values of another sort.

1970 [1915], Vladimir Lenin, “Marx's Economic Doctrine”, in Karl Marx: A Brief Biographical Sketch with an Exposition of Marxism, Foreign Languages Press, page 19:

(economics, especially Marxism) An object with such ability.


undercapacity

Undercapacity means more production is being demanded than is able to be produced.

2015, CIMA - E1 Organisational Management:

(economics) The situation where companies' supply is less than the customer demand.


zombie state

(economics, geopolitics, uncommon) A country or nation that is entirely dependent on foreign aid or assistance in order to survive.


printing-press money

(economics) Money printed by the government.


pen-and-ink money

(economics) Money "created" by a commercial bank when it issues a loan or buys an asset.


dynamic inconsistency

(economics, game theory) A situation in which a decision maker's preferences change over time in such a way that a preference can become inconsistent at another point in time.


time-based currency

time-based currency (plural time-based currencies)

(economics) An alternative currency or exchange system where the unit of account is the person-hour or some other time unit.


bottleneck inflation

bottleneck inflation (plural bottleneck inflations)

bottleneck inflations (plural)
bottle neck inflation (alternative)

(economics) A type of inflation in which the supply falls drastically while demand remains constant.


circulation time

circulation time (countable and uncountable, plural circulation times)

tracing the precise circulation routes and circulation time of exchange goods may offer finer detail on social questions, cf. Frankenstein and Rowlands ( 1978 ).

1984, John L. Bintliff, European Social Evolution: Archaeological Perspectives, page 28:

This would seem to confirm our hypothesis that increasing circulation time reflects periods of declining supplies of bronze.

1984, Matthew Spriggs, Marxist Perspectives in Archaeology, page 92:

Swords were classified according to degree of wear—that is, circulation time.

2005, Kristian Kristiansen, Michael Rowlands, Social Transformations in Archaeology, page 93:

During its circulation time, capital does not function as productive capital, and therefore produces neither commodities nor surplus-value.

We can think of the capitalist's desire to reduce circulation time in terms of turnover time.

Industrial capital requires —to a greater or lesser degree—time (circulation time) and costs (circulation costs) for the sale.

2018, Teinosuke Otani, A Guide to Marxian Political Economy, page 295:

(economics, archaeology) The time in which capital is bound up the form of a commodity; the time in which a manufactured item is in use.


demand-side economics

(economics) A branch of economics that focuses on the demand side of the economy.


demand side

(economics) In a market trade, the side where the demand comes from.


Nordic model

collective bargaining
collective bargaining

The economic and social policies and cultural practices common in the Nordic countries, typically including a comprehensive welfare state and multilevel collective bargaining based on the foundations of social corporatism, and a commitment to private ownership within a market-based mixed economy.


Bewlian

en-adj

Bewlian (comparative more Bewlian, superlative most Bewlian)

more Bewlian (comparative)
most Bewlian (superlative)

(economics) Of or relating to Truman Bewley (*1941), American economist.


Ramseyan

Ramseyan (comparative more Ramseyan, superlative most Ramseyan)

more Ramseyan (comparative)
most Ramseyan (superlative)

Ramseyan taxation

(economics, mathematics, philosophy) Of or relating to Frank Ramsey (1903-1930), British economist, mathematician, and philosopher.


Prescottian

Prescottian (comparative more Prescottian, superlative most Prescottian)

more Prescottian (comparative)
most Prescottian (superlative)

(economics) Of or relating to Edward C. Prescott (1940-2022), American economist.


basket of goods

en-noun

basket of goods (plural baskets of goods)

The rising cost of the basket of goods hints at inflation.

consumer price index
consumer price index

(economics) A standard set of hypothetical consumer purchases used to measure a consumer price index.


hard landing

hard landing (countable and uncountable, plural hard landings)

(economics) A marked economic slowdown or downturn following a period of rapid growth.


trade barrier

(economics, business, trading) A government-induced restriction on international trade.


first best

Here the government should avoid any policy that affects the workers' decision rules since it would harm efficiency, and the first-best way of pursuing distributional goals is through lump-sum transfers.

2018, Lars Ljungqvist and Thomas J. Sargent, Recursive macroeconomic theory, 4th edition, MIT Press, page 200:

Without a tariff, the competitive equilibrium outcome coincides with the first best allocation.

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 5:

(economics) Characterized by all optimality conditions being satisfiable.


first best

first bests (plural)
first-best (alternative)

(economics) A situation where all optimality conditions are satisfied.


Arrovian

en-adj

Arrovian (comparative more Arrovian, superlative most Arrovian)

more Arrovian (comparative)
most Arrovian (superlative)

The chapter proves Arrow's theorem and investigates the possibility of uncovering a satisfactory social choice rule by relaxing the conditions while remaining within the Arrovian framework[.]

2002, Donald E. Campbell and Jerry S. Kelly, Impossibility theorems in the arrovian framework, p. 36, in: Kenneth J. Arrow, Amartya K. Sen and Kotaro Suzumura (eds.), Handbook of Social Choice and Welfare (Volume 1), Elsevier 2002

(economics) Of or relating to Kenneth Arrow (1921–2017), American economist.


divine coincidence

en-noun

divine coincidence (countable and uncountable, plural divine coincidences)

In [the standard new Keynesian framework], stabilizing inflation is equivalent to stabilizing the welfare-relevant output gap. In this paper, we argue that this property of the new Keynesian framework, which we call the divine coincidence, is due to a special feature of the model […]

2007, Oliver Blanchard and Jordi Galí, Real Wage Rigidities and the New Keynesian Model, Journal of Money, Credit and Banking 39(s1), pp. 35--65

Because credit shocks appear in the Phillips curve, the so-called divine coincidence […] does not hold, and it is not possible to achieve the global minimum of the loss function with just one policy instrument.

2023, Eric Sims, Jing Cynthia Wu, and Ji Zhang, The Four-Equation New Keynesian Model, The Review of Economics and Statistics 105(4), pp. 931--947

(economics) The property of a (New Keynesian) macroeconomic model that stabilizing inflation and stabilizing the (relevant) output gap is equivalent.


Wicksellian

en-adj

Wicksellian (comparative more Wicksellian, superlative most Wicksellian)

more Wicksellian (comparative)
most Wicksellian (superlative)

Woodford […] labeled #92;tilder#95;t the Wicksellian real interest rate. [original emphasis deleted]

2018, Carl E. Walsh, Monetary Theory and Policy, 4th edition, MIT Press, page 337:

(economics) Of or relating to Knut Wicksell (1851–1926), Swedish economist.


CIVETS

(geopolitics, economics) Acronym of Colombia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt, Turkey, and South Africa, an international economic organization comprising these fast-growing economies.


Sunakonomics

But this latest Sunakonomics rescue is a sticking-plaster on a bullethole.

2020 September 25, “The Sun says: A new lifeline”, in The Sun, London, archived from the original on 2020-09-25, page 10:

Advanced students can take classes in Sunakonomics, which supersedes traditional economics in favour of a novel theory allowing Professor Rishi to buy the premiership with voters’ money.

2020 October 14, Paul Routledge, “Keep calm… We can beat this: Crash course in art of emulating PM’s grade-A twerps”, in Daily Mirror, London, page 15:

2021 March 11, David Runciman, “Sunakonomics”, in Catherine Carr, director, Talking Politics, episode 310, archived from the original on 2022-10-25

In the era of Sunakonomics, our hedge fund veteran-turned chancellor owes a lot to the work of John Maynard Keynes, but then again we all do.

2021 November 26, Ollie Smith, “Keynes Goes Shopping: 10 Things We Learned This Week”, in Morningstar, archived from the original on 2021-11-27:

One of the more interesting aspects of the battle between Trussonomics and Sunakonomics has been the debate over the Monetary Policy Committee’s efforts to control inflation.

2022 July 26, William Atkinson, “Is it time to look again at the Bank of England’s independence?”, in CapX, archived from the original on 2022-07-26:

Next door in Number 11, though, there was a degree of ideology at the heart of Sunakonomics.

2022 August 18, “Standing up for the city: Desperate need for growth writ large in UK’s interest payments”, in City A.M., London, archived from the original on 2022-08-18, page 2:

Sunakonomics / Sunak's time as chancellor was marred by the pandemic.

2022 October 30, Ryan Hogg, Beatrice Nolan, “Rishi Sunak is worth almost $850 million, making him Britain's richest prime minister. Here's why that could be a big problem.”, in Business Insider, New York, N.Y., archived from the original on 2022-10-30:

The multiple tailwinds of a successful Refinitiv acquisition, rising high margin services, and economic outlook under Sunakonomics all allow LSEG to have slight advantages over peers, especially European ones such as the Deutsche Borse (OTCPK:DBOEY).

2022 December 1, “London Stock Exchange Group: Positive Sentiment At Early Stages Of 'Sunakonomics'”, in Seeking Alpha, archived from the original on 2022-12-01:

2024 March 1, Roy C. Perez, Rishi Sunak: Sunakonomics: Decoding the Economic Philosophy of Rishi Sunak - A Comprehensive Analysis of the Chancellor's Fiscal Vision, →ISBN

(UK politics) The economic ideas and policies of Rishi Sunak (born 1980), British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from October 2022 to July 2024.


retail apocalypse

en-noun

retail apocalypse (usually uncountable, plural retail apocalypses)

First appeared in print in an essay titled It's Not My Department! in the early 1990s by author Peter Glen.

Toys “R” Us is hardly the only retail operation to learn this lesson the hard way. The so-called retail apocalypse felled roughly 7,000 stores and eliminated more than 50,000 jobs in 2017.

2018 June 13, Bryce Covert, “The Demise of Toys 'R' Us Is a Warning”, in The Atlantic, →ISSN:

The threat of a retail apocalypse coming for your business depends on the specific retail category and your current operations.

2023 March 12, Jake Rheude, “Retail Apocalypse: What Is It and Should You Follow the Trend?”, in Loss Prevention Magazine:

(US, economics, urban studies) The closing of numerous brick-and-mortar retail stores in the United States, especially those of large chains, beginning around 2010.


Great Wealth Transfer

In a paper titled “Planning For The Great Wealth Transfer,” David L. Babson & Co. Inc. points out the transfer may not go as smoothly as expected unless those passing the money down prove to be as adept at unloading money as they were at making and saving it.

[1992 July 5, Dick Marlowe, “Tax Bite Threatens Americans’ Inheritance”, in Orlando Sentinel, page D1:

The Great Wealth Transfer – as it is breathlessly called by financial advisers, estate lawyers, tax collectors, philanthropy directors and assorted “wealth counselors” – will be a steady, soaking rain for decades. A 1999 report by the Social Welfare Research Institute at Boston College estimated that at least $41 trillion, and quite possibly double or triple that amount, will change hands by 2052.

2003 June 8, Stephen Dubner, “Suddenly Popular”, in New York Times Magazine, page 68:

John Havens and Paul Schervish note that over the next 55 years America will experience a “great wealth transfer” where $41 trillion will likely be passed on from one generation to the next—through bequest, philanthropy, and taxes.

2006 November, Noah Drezner, “Recessions and Tax-Cuts: Economic Cycles’ Impact on Individual Giving, Philanthropy, and Higher Education”, in International Journal of Educational Advancement, volume 6, number 4, →DOI:

Whether you are the direct recipient in the Great Wealth Transfer, or not, this shifting of assets has the potential to impact you, your business and those around you.

2023 December 5, Jennifer Wines, “How Might the Great Wealth Transfer Change Society?”, in Kiplinger:

(economics, US) The gradual movement of money from baby boomers (people born in the mid-1940s to mid-1960s) to younger generations, either given as gifts or passed on through inheritance.


time value of money

(economics, business, finance) A widely accepted conjecture that there is greater benefit to receiving a sum of money now rather than an identical sum later.


time-use research

(economics) An interdisciplinary field of study dedicated to learning how people allocate their time during an average day.


time-use survey

time-use survey (plural time-use surveys)

(economics, statistics) A statistical survey which aims to report data, on average, on the manners and ways of people spending their time.


socially necessary labour time

socially necessary labour time (countable and uncountable, plural socially necessary labour times)

socially necessary labour times (plural)

(Marxism, economics) The average quantity of labour time that must be performed under currently prevailing conditions to produce a commodity.


immaculate disinflation

immaculate disinflation (usually uncountable, plural immaculate disinflations)

So, although the Steelers’ Immaculate Reception took mere seconds, the Fed’s attempt at an Immaculate Disinflation will take many more months to play out.

2022 September 1, Matthew Slaughter, Matthew Rees, “The Quest for the Immaculate Disinflation”, in Center for Business, Government & Society, archived from the original on 2024-05-04:

The window for a soft landing caused by “immaculate disinflation” appears to be closing rapidly, with the odds of a hard landing or recession climbing with each successive Fed rate hike. Market participants should not assume disinflation will be a straight downward line but rather a longer, slower grind toward the Fed’s preferred inflation target of 2%.

2023 February 22, Mark Hackett, Ben Ayers, “Immaculate disinflation: A long way to lower inflation”, in Nationwide Financial, archived from the original on 2024-05-04:

While some have labeled this unusual pattern “immaculate disinflation,” CEA has argued that a likely explanation is straightforward: normalization of the economy’s supply side. The rise in inflation earlier in the pandemic was driven by two primary factors: pandemic-driven supply-chain bottlenecks and strong consumer demand, which includes compositional shifts in demand from goods to services.

2023 November 30, “Disinflation Explanation: Supply, Demand, and their Interaction”, in White House, archived from the original on 2024-01-23:

He added that immaculate disinflation wrongly suggested that the trend was unexplainable, when “disinflation is primarily due to the fading economic fallout from the pandemic and Russian war in Ukraine”. That, he said, “was predictable”.

2024 March 19, Valentina Romei, “Central bankers see ‘immaculate disinflation’ within reach”, in Financial Times, archived from the original on 2024-03-20:

(economics) A situation where inflation decreases without a corresponding increase in unemployment or a slowdown in economic growth.


accelerator effect

accelerator effect (usually uncountable, plural accelerator effects)

gross domestic product
gross domestic product

(economics) The positive effect on private fixed investment of the growth of the market economy, commonly measured by a change in gross domestic product.


Averch-Johnson effect

Averch-Johnson effect (plural Averch-Johnson effects)

Named after Harvey Averch and Leland L. Johnson who proposed the idea.

(economics) The tendency of regulated companies to engage in excessive amounts of capital accumulation in order to expand the volume of their profits.


Balassa-Samuelson effect

Balassa-Samuelson effect (plural Balassa-Samuelson effects)

Named after Béla Balassa and Paul Samuelson.

(economics) The tendency for consumer prices to be systematically higher in more developed countries than in less developed countries.


Penn effect

Named after the University of Pennsylvania.

(economics) The finding that commodity prices are higher in countries with higher income.


clientele effect

clientele effect (plural clientele effects)

(economics, finance) The idea that the set of investors attracted to a particular kind of security will affect the price of the security when policies or circumstances change.


embedding effect

embedding effect (plural embedding effects)

contingent valuation
contingent valuation

(economics) The inconsistency in the value of a specific public good by using a contingent valuation or willingness-to-pay method due to the difficulty for individuals to identify the particular value that they attach to one particular thing which is embedded in a collection of similar things; these resulting problems are called the part-whole bias and sequencing and nesting.


part-whole bias

part-whole bias (plural part-whole biases)

(economics) The empirical finding that a good is perceived to have greater value when assessed individually rather than as part of a larger group, often related to contingent valuation.


contingent valuation

contingent valuation (plural contingent valuations)

(economics) A survey-based technique for the valuation of non-market resources, such as environmental preservation or the impact of externalities like pollution.


Epps effect

Named after T. W. Epps, who proposed the effect.

(economics) The phenomenon that the empirical correlation between the returns of two different stocks decreases with the length of the interval for which the price changes are measured.


Florence Nightingale effect

Florence Nightingale effect (uncountable)

Named after English social reformer, statistician and the founder of modern nursing Florence Nightingale.

(economics) A trope where a caregiver falls in love with their patient, even if very little communication or contact takes place outside of basic care.


Gerschenkron effect

Gerschenkron effect (plural Gerschenkron effects)

Named after Alexander Gerschenkron who developed the idea.

(economics, statistics) The theory that changing the base year for an index determines the growth rate of the index.


Keynes effect

Named after English economist John Maynard Keynes.

(economics) The phenomenon in which a decrease in price level leads to a decrease in interest rates, provided there's no liquidity trap or interest-unresponsive expenditure.


lead-lag

lead-lag (usually uncountable, plural lead-lags)

Some of these studies, based on behavioural finance, state that the information diffusion process is relevant in the predictability of stock prices. The rate of reaction to news plays an important role in the lead-lag effect.

2017 July 26, María Isabel Cambóna, Maria Andreea Vaduva, “Lead-lag patterns in the Spanish and other European equity markets”, in The Spanish Review of Financial Economics, volume 15, number 2, →DOI, pages 63-77:

We utilize robust lead-lag indicators to uncover the origin of price discovery and we propose an econometric model exploiting that effect with level 1 data of limit order books (LOB).

2022 September 30, Cédric Poutré, Georges Dionne, Gabriel Yergeau, “The Profitability of Lead-Lag Arbitrage at High-Frequency”, in Social Science Research Network, →DOI:

Whereas industry lead-lag effects were stronger among small, thinly traded stocks with low analyst coverage, geographic lead-lags were unrelated to these proxies for investor scrutiny.

2023 January 17, Ana Monteiro, Nuno Silva, Helder Sebastião, “Industry return lead-lag relationships between the US and other major countries”, in Financial Innovation, volume 9, number 40, →DOI:

We realize that the lead-lag relationship is a "strategy-enhancer," but not a strategy in itself.

2023 December 11, Aarush Pratik Sheth, Jonah Riley Weinbaum, Kevin Javier Zvonarek, “A Decadal Analysis of the Lead-Lag Effect in the NYSE”, in ArXiv, →DOI:

(economics, often attributive) A cross-correlation of one leading variable with the values of another lagging variable at later times.


Peltzman effect

Peltzman effect (plural Peltzman effects)

(economics) The reduction of predicted benefit from regulations that intend to increase safety.


Pigou effect

Coined by American economist Don Patinkin in 1948 after English economist Arthur Cecil Pigou.

coin

(economics) The stimulation of output and employment caused by increasing consumption due to a rise in real balances of wealth, particularly during deflation.


Tanzi effect

Named after Italian economist Vito Tanzi who explained the effect in 1977.

(economics) A phenomenon in which a period of high inflation in a country which results in a decline in the volume of tax collection and a deterioration of real tax proceeds being collected by the government of that country.


Olivera-Tanzi effect

en-noun

Olivera-Tanzi effect (plural Olivera-Tanzi effects)

Named after Julio H. G. Olivera and Vito Tanzi.


value in exchange

value in exchange (plural values in exchange)


pancession

Uncertainties persist around our scenarios for post-pancession recovery. An inclusive & transformative recovery is the most equitable and desirable, but how feasible is it? What are the legislative, litigative and political obstacles to phasing out fossil fuels and governing stranded assets in the midst of a pancession?

2021 June 26, Arthur Rempel, Joyeeta Gupta, “Fossil fuels, stranded assets and COVID-19: Imagining an inclusive & transformative recovery”, in World Development, volume 146, Amsterdam: Elsevier, →DOI, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 10, column 2:

(neologism) The economic recession caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.


human development

human development (countable and uncountable, plural human developments)

(economics) The process of enlarging the freedoms and opportunities of people and improving their well-being.


transaction cost

transaction cost (plural transaction costs)

(economics) A cost in making any economic trade when participating in a market.


family wage

family wage (countable and uncountable, plural family wages)

(economics) A wage that is sufficient to raise or support a family.


wage moderation

wage moderation (plural wage moderations)

(finance, economics) A method of devaluing a real exchange rate internally, as a way of regaining competitiveness when a nation's nominal exchange rate is fixed.


hourly wage

hourly wage (countable and uncountable, plural hourly wages)

(economics) The amount that an employee is paid per hour of work.


quality-adjusted

Quality-adjusted life expectancy is a preferred outcome measure because it takes into account the patient's preferences for the quality of life in each outcome state.

2007, Harold C. Sox, Medical Decision Making, page 300:

In tandem with efforts to improve governance systems and enhance participation, accountability and the rule of law, this appears the most appropriate approach for advancing quality-adjusted human development.

2021, What Drives Quality-adjusted Human Development Achievements?:

Adjusted to take into account differences in quality.

(medicine, economics) Adjusted to take into account certain negative factors affecting a person's overall well-being.


economic corridor

economic corridor (plural economic corridors)

Coined by Asian Development Bank in 1998.

coinage

An Economic Corridor is a geographically defined network connecting economic agents and activities to overcome frictions and unleash efficiencies

2020 March 31, Arianna Legovini, Alice Duhaut, Theophile Bougna, “Economic Corridors”, in thedocs.worldbank.org:

In November 2016, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) was declared open as the first truckload of Chinese goods reached Gwadar Port for international shipment. […] In response, India and Japan have teamed up to develop an ambitious economic corridor of their own: the Asia-Africa Growth Corridor.

2018 March 27, Stephanie Petrella, “What Is an Economic Corridor?”, in reconasia.csis.org:

Economic corridors connect economic agents along a defined geography. They provide important connections between economic nodes or hubs that are usually centered in urban landscapes.

2013, Asian Development Bank, “What is Economic Corridor Development and What Can It Achieve in Asia’s Subregions?”, in adb.org:

(economics) A geographically linked area with integrated infrastructure, aiming to enhance economic development.


currency crisis

en-noun

currency crisis (plural currency crises)

(economics, finance) A type of financial crisis during which the value of foreign denominated debt will rise drastically relative to the declining value of the home currency.


European debt crisis

(economics, finance) A multiyear debt crisis that took place in the European Union from 2009 until the mid to late 2010s.


LMIC

Near-synonym: developing country

(economics) Initialism of low- or middle-income country.


coincident indicator

coincident indicator (plural coincident indicators)

(economics) A metric showing the contemporaneous state of economic activity within a particular area.


microsubscription

(economics) A subscription costing very small amounts of money (micropayments).


reverse of trade

reverse of trade (plural reverses of trade)

In the commencement of the winter, by a sudden reverse of trade, more than 20,000 weavers in the liberty were thrown out of employment.

1830, Lancet Publications (publisher), The Lancet, page 574:

How frequently is it not the case, that private Banks in districts where capital is redundant, invest in mortgages and dead loans, and trade upon circulation? which on any reverse of trade or convulsion in credit, they are unable to redeem

1837, H. Leggatt and Company (publisher), John Horsley Palmer, Esq.'s Pamphlet on " The Causes and Consequences of the Pressure Upon the Money Market" Considered To which are Added, a Few Remarks Upon the Establishement of Joint Stock Banks ..., page 20:

whenever there comes a reverse of trade in those parishes (though very possibly there is not a single person connected with the railway residing in the parish, or who can get a settlement in the parish)

1850, Great Britain, Parliament, House of Commons, Reports from Committees, Volume 16, page 96:

(business, economics, trading) A downturn or disruption of economic conditions rendering much trade unprofitable.


trade standard

In this, the IOOC cooperated with the Joint FAO/WHO Codex Alimentarius Commission to develop the Codex standard for table olives, as well as producing its own trade standard, the Unified Quality Standard Applying to Table Olives in International Trade.

1997, A. Garrido Fernandez, M.J. Fernandez-Diez, M.R. Adams, Table Olives - Production and Processing, page 47:

(business, economics, trading) A commonly agreed upon description of an expected quality of a product.


lifestyle creep

(economics) The phenomenon whereby, as more resources are spent on one's standard of living, former luxuries come to be perceived as necessities.


high-growth

en-adj

high-growth (comparative higher-growth, superlative highest-growth)

higher-growth (comparative)
highest-growth (superlative)

(business, finance, economics) That is increasing in size or value quickly.


Balassa index

Named after Hungarian economist Béla Balassa.

named-after

(economics) An index used to calculate the relative advantage or disadvantage of a country in a certain class of goods.


U-shaped recession

en-noun

U-shaped recession (countable and uncountable, plural U-shaped recessions)

(economics) An economic decline of a prolonged period of little or no growth, and one that requires a long time from which to recover.


bubble era

(economics) An unsustainable period of economic growth and rapid asset price increases that may eventually lead to a crash or a bubble burst.


housing bubble

(business, economics) A temporary period when home prices increase rapidly due to high demand and low supply.


economic indicator

economic indicator (plural economic indicators)

(economics) A statistic regarding a particular economic activity.


substantivism

An approach to economics that distinguishes between two forms of economics: the rational choice between uses of limited resources; and the way in which humans make a living interacting within their social and natural environments.


supply shock

(economics) An event that suddenly increases or decreases the supply of a commodity or service, or of commodities and services in general.


cheapflation

Blend of cheap + inflation. Coined in 2021.

(economics, informal, neologism) The practice of decreasing the main ingredient of a product or replacing it altogether with a less costly one but continuing to market it at the same price and size.


sushi terrorism

Compound of sushi + terrorism Coined in early 2023.

Several acts of what is being called “sushi terrorism” have emerged on Twitter and other social media in recent days, although some apparently date back weeks, and even years.

2023 February 3, Justin McCurry, “Wave of ‘sushi terrorism’ grips Japan’s restaurant world”, in The Guardian:

(economics, food, neologism) Any of a series of unhygienic pranks committed at conveyor belt sushi restaurants in Japan. The pranks include licking shared soy sauce bottles, spitting on food, and touching other diners' sushi.

sushiterrorismi

unhygienic pranks towards Japanese sushi restaurants


foreign exchange control

foreign exchange control (plural foreign exchange controls)

(economics, usually in the plural) A form of capital control imposed by a government to restrict the purchase/sale of foreign currencies by residents, the purchase/sale of local currency by nonresidents, or the transfers of any currency across national borders.


free trade zone

free trade zone (plural free trade zones)

free trade zones (plural)
free-trade zone (alternative)

(economics) A designated area where goods can be imported, stored, and reexported without customs restrictions.

zona mercantil libre

a designated area where goods can be imported, stored, and reexported without customs restrictions


attention economy

(neologism, economics) An economic system where human attention is a scarce and monetized resource, driving competition among businesses, media, and digital platforms.


Keynesian cross

Keynesian cross (plural Keynesian crosses)

(economics) A kind of diagram that plots aggregate income against planned total spending or aggregate expenditure.


dependency theory

dependency theory (countable and uncountable, plural dependency theories)

Dependency theory is a body of ideas about the role of developing countries within the global economic system, about the nature of development, and about patterns of unequal power. It dominated much Latin American social science (including the analysis of the region's international role) in the 1960s and 1970s.

2010, Mark Bevir, editor, Encyclopedia of Political Theory, A–E, SAGE, →ISBN, page 370:

(economics, political science) A set of ideas to explain the inequalities between developed countries and developing countries, originally conceived in the context of Latin America in the 1960s and 1970s, stressing the interdependence of those countries in a capitalist global economy.


Trumpflation

(informal, US politics, economics) Inflation caused by the policies of United States president Donald Trump.


bullshit job

(labour, economics, vulgar, derogatory) Meaningless or unnecessary wage labor which the worker is obliged to pretend to have a purpose.


Asian Tiger

(economics) Any of four Asian economies that have experienced rapid industrialization and growth: Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan.


eggflation

(economics, informal) A rise in the price of eggs due to inflation.


China shock

World Trade Organization
World Trade Organization

(economics) The negative impact of rising Chinese exports on manufacturing employment in the United States and Europe after China's accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001.


headline inflation

headline inflation (usually uncountable, plural headline inflations)

(economics) A measure of the total inflation within an economy, including commercial products such as food and energy prices (e.g. oil and gas), which are often prone to fluctuations and inflationary spikes.


exclusive economic zone

exclusive economic zone (plural exclusive economic zones)

exclusive economic zones (plural)
EEZ (alternative initialism)

(economics) a sea zone over which a state has special rights over the exploration and use of marine resources


Pigouvian tax

Pigouvian taxes (plural)
Pigovian tax (alternative)

Named after economist A.C. Pigou, a Pigouvian tax is a tax levied per unit of pollution emitted. Pigouvian taxes are meant to internalize ‘externalities’, generally understood to be positive or negative side-effects from economic production that are not reflected in the price of production.

2016, Cinnamon P. Carlarne, Kevin R. Gray, Richard Tarasofsky, editors, The Oxford Handbook of International Climate Change Law, Oxford University Press, →ISBN:

A tax on any market activity that generates negative externalities.


spaghetti bowl effect

spaghetti bowl effect (plural spaghetti bowl effects)

First used by Jagdish Bhagwati in a 1995 paper: "US Trade policy: The infatuation with free trade agreements".

(economics) A multiplication of free trade agreements, supplanting multilateral World Trade Organization negotiations as an alternative path toward globalization.