| financial asset | A claim against the income or wealth of a business firm, household, or unit of government usually represented by a certificate, receipt, or other legal document.
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| money | A financial asset that serves as a medium of exchange and standard of value for purchases of goods and services.
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| equities | Shares of common or preferred stock, with each share representing a certificate of ownership in a business corporation.
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| debt securities | Financial claims against the assets of a business firm, individual, or unit of government, represented by bonds and other contracts evidencing a loan of money.
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| derivatives | Financial instruments (such as swaps, financial futures, and options) whose value depends upon an underlying financial instrument (such as a stock or a bond).
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| internal financing | The use of saving by an economic unit, rather than debt, to support the acquisition of real and/or financial assets.
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| external financing | Drawing upon sources of funding, such as the money and capital markets, that lie outside a business firm or other economic unit.
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| deficit-budget unit (DBU) | An individual, business firm, or unit of government whose current expenditures exceed its current receipts of income, forcing it to become a net borrower in the money and capital markets.
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| surplus-budget unit (SBU) | An individual, business, or unit of government whose current income receipts exceed its current expenditures and, therefore, is a net lender of funds to the money and capital markets.
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| balanced-budget unit (BBU) | An individual, business firm, or unit of government whose current expenditures equal its current receipt of income.
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| inflation | A rise in the average level of all prices of goods and services traded in the economy over any given period of time.
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| deflation | A fall in the average price level for all goods and services.
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| price idexes | A measure of the cost of a market basket of goods and services which provides an indicator of inflation or deflation in the whole economy or a sector of the economy.
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| real value | The purchasing-power inflation-adjusted price of assets, services, or other items held or available for sale.
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| nominal value | The price of assets or other purchasable items measured in terms of their current market price or face value; the price of assets or other items not adjusted for the effects of inflation.
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| direct finance | Any financial transaction in which a borrower and a lender of funds communicate directly and mutually agree on the terms of a loan.
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| semidirect finance | Any financial transaction (especially the borrowing and lending of money) that is assisted by a security broker or dealer.
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| indirect finance | Also known as financial intermediation, in which financial transactions (especially the borrowing and lending of money) are carried out through a financial intermediary.
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| secondary securities | Financial claims, such as deposits, issued by a financial intermediary to raise loanable funds.
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| primary securities | The IOUs issued by borrowers from a financial intermediary and held by the intermediary as interest-bearing assets.
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| depository institutions | Financial institutions that raise loanable funds by selling deposits to the public.
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| contractual institutions | Financial institutions that attract savings from the public by offering contracts that protect the saver against risk in the future, such as insurance policies and pension plans.
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| investment institutions | Financial intermediaries selling their customers financial assets in order to build up savings for retirement or for other customer uses.
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| disintermediation | The withdrawal of funds from a financial intermediary by ultimate lenders (savers) and the lending of those funds directly to ultimate borrowers.
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