| Absolute Advantage | A country that can produce a good at a lower cost than another country is said to have an absolute advantage in the production of that good. When two countries have absolute advantages in different goods, there are gains of trade to be had.
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| Adaptive Expectations | Expectations based in some way on the past.
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| Aggregate Demand (AD) Curve | A curve that shows how a change in the price level will change aggregate expenditures on all goods and services in an economy.
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| Aggregate Demand Management | Government's attempt to control the aggregate level of spending in the economy.
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| Aggregate Expenditures | The total amount of spending on final goods and services in the economy; consumption (spending by consumers), investment (spending by business), spending by government, and net foreign spending on U.S. goods (the difference between U.S. exports and U.S. imports).
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| Aggregate Production (AP) | The total amount of goods and services produced in every industry in an economy.
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| Annuity Rule | The present value of any annuity is the annual income it yields divided by the interest rate.
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| Approximate Real-World Money Multiplier | One divided by the sum of the percentage of deposits banks hold in reserve (r) and the ratio of money people hold in currency to the money they hold as deposits (c) (1/(r + c)).
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| Art of Economics | The application of the knowledge learned in positive economics to the achievement of the goals one has determined in normative economics.
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| Asset Management | How a bank handles its loans and other assets.
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| Automatic Stabilizer | Any government program or policy that will counteract the business cycle without any new government action.
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| Autonomous Expenditures | Expenditures that do not systematically vary with income.
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| Balance of Merchandise Trade | The difference between the value of goods exported and the value of goods imported.
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| Balance of Payments | A country's record of all transactions between its residents and the residents of all foreign nations.
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| Balance of Payments Constraint | Limitations on expansionary domestic macroeconomic policy due to a shortage of international reserves.
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| Balance of Trade | The difference between the value of the goods and services a country imports and the value of the goods and services it exports.
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| Bank | A financial institution whose primary function is accepting deposits for, and lending money to, individuals and firms.
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| Bar Graph | A graph where the area under each point is filled in to look like a bar.
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| Basic Needs | Adequate food, clothing, and shelter.
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| Bilateral Monopoly | A market with only a single seller and a single buyer.
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| Bond | A promise to pay a certain amount plus interest in the future.
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| Brain Drain | The outflow of the best and brightest students from developing countries to developed countries.
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| Bretton Woods System | An agreement about fixed exchange rates that governed international financial relationships from the period after the end of World War II until 1971.
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| Business | A private producing unit in our society.
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| Business Cycle | The upward or downward movement of economic activity, or real GDP, that occurs around the growth trend.
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| Capital Markets | Markets in which financial assets having a maturity of more than one year are bought and sold.
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| Capitalism | An economic system based on the market in which the ownership of the means of production resides with a small group of individuals called capitalists.
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| Cash Flow Accounting System | An accounting system entering expenses and revenues only when cash is received or paid out.
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| Central Bank | A type of bankers' bank.
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| Certificate of Deposit (CD) | A piece of paper certifying that you have a sum of money in a savings account in the bank for a specified period of time.
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| Classical Growth Model | A model of growth that focuses on the role of capital accumulation in the growth process.
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| Classicals | Macroeconomists who generally favor laissez-faire or nonactivist policies.
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| Commercial Paper | Short-term promissory note issued by a large corporation that a certain amount of money plus interest will be paid back on demand.
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| Comparative Advantage | The ability to be better suited to the production of one good than to the production of another good.
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| Competitiveness | The ability of a country to sell its goods to other countries.
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| Conditionality | The making of loans that are subject to specific conditions.
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| Constant Returns to Scale | A situation in which long-run average total costs do not change with an increase in output. Also: Output will rise by the same proportionate increase as all inputs.
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| Consumer Price Index (CPI) | A measure of prices of a fixed basket of consumer goods, weighted according to each component's share of an average consumer's expenditures.
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| Consumer Sovereignty | The principle that the consumer's wishes determine what's produced.
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| Contractionary Monetary Policy | Monetary policy that tends to raise interest rates and lower income.
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| Contractual Intermediary | A financial institution that holds and stores individuals' financial assets.
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| Convergence Hypothesis | The hypothesis that per capita income in countries with similar institutional structures will converge to the higher level.
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| Convertibility on the Current Account | An exchange rate system that allows people to exchange currencies freely to buy goods and services, but not to buy assets in other countries.
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| Coordinate System | A two-dimensional space in which one point represents two numbers.
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| Corporation | A business that is treated as a person, legally owned by its stockholders. Its stockholders are not liable for the actions of the corporate "person."
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| Cost-Push Inflation | Inflation that occurs when the economy is below potential output.
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| Countercyclical Fiscal Policy | Fiscal policy in which the government offsets any change in aggregate expenditures that would create a business cycle.
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| Credentialism | When the academic degrees, or credentials, become more important than the knowledge learned.
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| Crowding Out | The offsetting of a change in government expenditures by a change in private expenditures in the opposite direction.
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| Currency Stabilization | Buying and selling of a currency by the government to offset temporary fluctuations in supply and demand for currencies.
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| Currency Support | Buying of a currency by a government to maintain its value at above its long-run equilibrium value.
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| Current Account | The part of the balance of payments account in which all short-term flows of payments are listed.
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| Cyclical Unemployment | Unemployment resulting from fluctuations in economic activity.
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| Debt | Accumulated deficits minus accumulated surpluses.
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| Debt Service | The interest rate on debt times the total debt.
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| Decision Tree | A visual description of sequential choices.
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| Decreasing Returns to Scale | A situation when output rises by a smaller proportionate increase than all inputs.
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| Deficit | A shortfall of revenues under payments.
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| Deflation | A continual fall in the price level. (The opposite of inflation.)
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| Demand | A schedule of quantities of a good that will be bought per unit of time at various prices, other things constant.
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| Demand Curve | The graphic representation of the relationship between price and quantity demanded.
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| Demand-Pull Inflation | Inflation that occurs when the economy is at or above potential output.
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| Demerit Goods or Activities | Goods or activities that government believes are bad for people even though they choose to use the goods or engage in the activities.
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| Depository Institution | A financial institution whose primary financial liability is deposits in checking or savings accounts.
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| Depreciation | A measure of the decline in value of an asset that occurs over time through use. Also: A decrease in the value of a currency.
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| Depression | A large recession.
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| Derived Demand | The demand for factors of production by firms, which depends on consumers' demands.
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| Discount Rate | The rate of interest the Fed charges for loans it makes to banks.
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| Disintermediation | The process of lending directly and not going through a financial intermediary.
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| Disposable Personal Income | Personal income minus personal income taxes and other personal taxes.
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| Diversification | Spreading the risks by holding many different types of financial assets.
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| Division of Labor | The splitting up of a task to allow for specialization of production.
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| Dual Economy | The existence of two sectors: a traditional sector and an internationally oriented modern market sector.
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| E-commerce | Buying and selling over the Internet.
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| Economic Decision Rule | If the marginal benefits of doing something exceed the marginal costs, do it. If the marginal costs of doing something exceed the marginal benefits, don't do it.
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| Economic Forces | The necessary reactions to scarcity.
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| Economic Model | A framework that places the generalized insights of a theory in a more specific contextual setting.
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| Economic Policy | An action (or inaction) taken by government to influence economic actions.
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| Economic Principle | A commonly held economic insight stated as a law or general assumption.
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| Economic Profit | Explicit and implicit revenue minus explicit and implicit cost.
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| Economic Takeoff | A stage when the development process becomes self-sustaining.
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| Economies of Scale | Situation when long-run average total costs decrease as output increases.
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| Efficiency | Achieving a goal as cheaply as possible. Also: using as few inputs as possible.
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| Embargo | A total restriction on the import or export of a good.
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| Employment Rate | The number of people who are working as a percentage of the labor force.
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| Equation of Exchange | An equation stating that the quantity of money times the velocity of money equals the price level times the quantity of real goods sold.
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| Equilibrium | A concept in which opposing dynamic forces cancel each other out.
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| Equilibrium Income | The level of income toward which the economy gravitates in the short run.
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| Equilibrium Price | The price toward which the invisible hand drives the market.
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| Equilibrium Quantity | The amount bought and sold at the equilibrium price.
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| Excess Demand | Situation when quantity demanded is greater than quantity supplied.
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| Excess Reserves | Reserves held by banks in excess of what banks are required to hold.
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| Excess Supply | Situation when quantity supplied is greater than quantity demanded.
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| Exchange Rate | The price of one country's currency in terms of another currency.
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| Exchange Rate Policy | Buying and selling foreign currencies in order to help stabilize the exchange rate. Also: Policy of deliberately affecting a country's exchange rate in order to affect its trade balance.
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| Excise Tax | A tax that is levied on a specific good.
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| Expansion | An upturn that lasts for at least two consecutive quarters of a year.
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| Expansionary Monetary Policy | Monetary policy that tends to reduce interest rates and raise income.
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| Expected Inflation | Inflation people expect to occur.
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| Expenditures Multiplier | A number that tells how much income will change in response to a change in autonomous expenditures.
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| Export-Led Growth Policies | Policies designed to stimulate U.S. exports and increase aggregate expenditures on U.S. goods, and hence to have a multiplied effect on U.S. income.
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| External Debt | Government debt owed to individuals in foreign countries.
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| Externality | An effect of a decision on a third party not taken into account by the decision maker.
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| Extrapolative Expectations | Expectations that a trend will continue.
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| Fallacy of Composition | The false assumption that what is true for a part will also be true for the whole.
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| Fed Funds | Loans of excess reserves banks make to one another.
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| Federal Funds Market | The market in which banks lend and borrow reserves.
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| Federal Funds Rate | The interest rate banks charge one another for Fed funds.
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| Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) | The Fed's chief policymaking body.
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| Federal Reserve Bank (the Fed) | The U.S. central bank whose liabilities (Federal Reserve notes) serve as cash in the United States.
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| Feudalism | An economic system in which traditions rule.
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| Final Output | Goods and services purchased for their final use.
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| Financial and Capital Account | The part of the balance of payments account in which all long-term flows of payments are listed.
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| Financial Assets | Assets such as stocks or bonds, whose benefit to the owner depends on the issuer of the asset meeting certain obligations.
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| Financial Institution | A business whose primary activity is buying, selling, or holding financial assets.
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| Financial Liabilities | Liabilities incurred by the issuer of a financial asset to stand behind the issued asset.
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| Financial Market | The market where financial assets and financial liabilities are bought and sold.
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| Fine-Tuning | Fiscal policy designed to keep the economy always at its target or potential level of income.
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| Fiscal Policy | The deliberate change in either government spending or taxes to stimulate or slow down the economy.
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| Fixed Exchange Rate | When government chooses a particular exchange rate and offers to buy and sell its currency at that price.
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| Flexible Exchange Rate | When government does not enter into foreign exchange markets at all, but leaves the determination of exchange rates totally up to market forces.
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| Foreign Aid | Funds that developed countries lend or give to developing countries.
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| Forex Market | The foreign exchange market.
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| Free Rider | A person who participates in something for free because others have paid for it.
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| Free Trade Association | A group of countries that have reduced or eliminated trade barriers among themselves.
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| Frictional Unemployment | Unemployment caused by new entrants into the job market and people quitting a job just long enough to look for and find another one.
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| Full Convertibility | An exchange rate system in which individuals may change dollars into any currency they want for whatever legal purpose they want.
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| GDP Deflator | An index of the price level of aggregate output, or the average price of the components of GDP, relative to a base year.
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| General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) | A regular international conference to reduce trade barriers held from 1947 to 1995. It has been replaced by the World Trade Organization (WTO).
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| Global Corporations | Corporations with substantial operations on both the production and sales sides in more than one country.
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| Gold Specie Flow Mechanism | The long-run adjustment mechanism that maintained the gold standard.
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| Gold Standard | The system of fixed exchange rates in which the value of currencies was fixed relative to the value of gold and gold was used as the primary reserve asset.
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| Government Failure | A situation in which the government intervention in the market to improve market failure actually makes the situation worse.
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| Government Purchases | Government payments for goods and services and investment in equipment and structures.
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| Graph | A picture of points in a coordinate system in which points denote relationships between numbers.
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| Gross Domestic Product (GDP) | The total market value of all final goods and services produced in an economy in a one-year period.
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| Gross National Product (GNP) | The aggregate final output of citizens and businesses of an economy in a one-year period.
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| Gross Private Investment | Business spending on equipment, structures, and inventories and household spending on new owner-occupied housing.
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| Growth | An increase in the amount of goods and services an economy produces.
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| Households | Groups of individuals living together and making joint decisions.
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| Human Capital | The skills that are embodied in workers through experience, education, and on-the-job training, or, more simply, people's knowledge.
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| Hyperinflation | Inflation that hits triple digits—100 percent or more per year.
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| Incomes Policy | A policy that places direct pressure on individuals to hold down their nominal wages and prices.
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| Increasing Returns to Scale | A situation when output rises by a greater proportionate increase than all inputs.
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| Induced Expenditures | Expenditures that change as income changes.
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| Industrial Revolution | A time when technology and machines rapidly modernized industrial production and mass-produced goods replaced handmade goods.
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| Inefficiency | Getting less output from inputs that, if devoted to some other activity, would produce more output.
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| Infant Industry Argument | The argument that with initial protection, an industry will be able to become competitive.
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| Inflation | A continual rise in the price level.
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| Inflation Tax | An implicit tax on the holders of cash and the holders of any obligations specified in nominal terms.
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| Inflationary Gap | A difference between equilibrium income and potential income when equilibrium income exceeds potential income.
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| Infrastructure Investment | Investment in the underlying structure of the economy.
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| Inherent Comparative Advantage | Comparative advantage that is based on factors that are relatively unchangeable.
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| Input | What is put into a production process to achieve an output.
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| Insider/Outsider Model | An institutionalist story of inflation where insiders bid up wages and outsiders are unemployed.
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| Interest Rate | The price paid for the use of a financial asset.
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| Interest Rate Effect | The effect that a lower price level has on investment expenditures through the effect that a change in the price level has on interest rates.
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| Intermediate Products | Products used as inputs in the production of some other product.
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| Internal Debt | Government debt owed to other governmental agencies or to its own citizens.
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| International Effect | As the price level falls (assuming the exchange rate does not change), net exports will rise.
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| Interpolation Assumption | The assumption that the relationship between variables is the same between points as it is at the points.
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| Inverse Relationship | A relationship between two variables in which when one goes up, the other goes down.
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| Invisible Hand | The price mechanism; the rise and fall of prices that guides our actions in a market.
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| Invisible Hand Theory | A market economy, through the price mechanism, will tend to allocate resources efficiently.
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| Keynesians | Macroeconomists who generally favor activist government policy.
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| L | The broadest measure of money.
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| Labor Force | Those people in an economy who are willing and able to work.
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| Labor Force Participation Rate | The percentage of the total population at least 16 years old who either work or are actively looking for work.
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| Laissez-Faire | An economic policy of leaving coordination of individuals' actions to the market.
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| Law of Demand | Quantity demanded rises as price falls, other things constant. Also can be stated as: Quantity demanded falls as price rises, other things constant.
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| Law of Diminishing Marginal Productivity | As more and more of a variable input is added to an existing fixed input, eventually the additional output one gets from that additional input is going to fall.
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| Law of One Price | The wages of workers in one country will not differ significantly from the wages of (equal) workers in another institutionally similar country.
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| Law of Supply | Quantity supplied rises as price rises, other things constant. Also can be stated as: Quantity supplied falls as price falls, other things constant.
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| Learning by Doing | As we do something, we learn what works and what doesn't, and over time we become more proficient at it. Also: To improve the methods of production through experience.
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| Liability Management | How a bank attracts deposits and what it pays for them.
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| Limited Capital Account Convertibility | An exchange rate system that allows full current account convertibility and partial capital account convertibility.
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| Limited Liability | The liability of a stockholder (owner) in a corporation; it is limited to the amount the stockholder has invested in the company.
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| Line Graph | A graph where the data are connected by a continuous line.
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| Linear Curve | A curve that is drawn as a straight line.
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| Liquidity | The ability to turn an asset into cash quickly.
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| Liquidity Trap | A situation in which increasing reserves does not increase the money supply but simply causes excess reserves.
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| Long-Run Aggregate Supply (LAS) Curve | A curve that shows the long-run relationship between output and the price level.
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| Long-Run Phillips Curve | A vertical curve at the unemployment rate consistent with potential output. (It shows the trade-off [or complete lack thereof] when expectations of inflation equal actual inflation.)
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| M1 | Currency in the hands of the public, checking account balances, and traveler's checks.
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| M2 | M1 plus savings deposits, small-denomination time deposits, and money market mutual fund shares, along with some esoteric financial instruments.
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| Macroeconomic Externality | An externality that affects the levels of unemployment, inflation, or growth in the economy as a whole.
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| Macroeconomics | The study of the economy as a whole, which includes inflation, unemployment, business cycles, and growth.
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| Marginal Benefit | Additional benefit above the benefits already derived.
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| Marginal Cost (MC) | Additional cost over and above the costs already incurred. Also: Increase (decrease) in total cost from increasing (or decreasing) the level of output by one unit. Also: The change in total cost associated with a change in quantity.
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| Marginal Propensity to Expend (mpe) | The ratio of the change in aggregate expenditures to a change in income.
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| Market Demand Curve | The horizontal sum of all individual demand curves.
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| Market Failure | A situation in which the invisible hand pushes in such a way that individual decisions do not lead to socially desirable outcomes.
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| Market Force | An economic force that is given relatively free rein by society to work through the market.
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| Market Supply Curve | The horizontal sum of all individual supply curves. Also: Horizontal sum of all the firms' marginal cost curves, taking account of any changes in input prices that might occur.
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| Mercantilism | An economic system in which government determines the what, how, and for whom decisions by doling out the rights to undertake certain economic activities.
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| Merit Good or Activity | A good or activity that government believes is good for you, even though you may not choose to consume the good or engage in the activity.
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| Microeconomics | The study of individual choice, and how that choice is influenced by economic forces.
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| Minimum Wage Law | A law specifying the lowest wage a firm can legally pay an employee.
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| Monetary Base | Vault cash, deposits at the Fed, plus currency in circulation.
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| Monetary Policy | A policy of influencing the economy through changes in the banking system's reserves that influence the money supply and credit availability in the economy.
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| Monetary Regime | A predetermined statement of the policy that will be followed in various situations.
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| Money | A highly liquid financial asset that's generally accepted in exchange for other goods, is used as a reference in valuing other goods, and can be stored as wealth.
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| Money Markets | Markets in which financial assets having a maturity of less than one year are bought and sold.
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| Monopoly Power | The ability of individuals or firms currently in business to prevent other individuals or firms from entering the same kind of business.
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| Mortgage | A special name for a secured loan on real estate.
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| Most-Favored Nation | A country that will be charged as low a tariff on its exports as any other country.
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| Movement along a Demand Curve | The graphical representation of the effect of a change in price on the quantity demanded.
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| Movement along a Supply Curve | The graphical representation of the effect of a change in price on the quantity supplied.
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| Multiplier Effect | The amplification of initial changes in expenditures.
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| Multiplier Equation | An equation that tells us that income equals the multiplier times autonomous expenditures.
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| National Income (NI) | The total income earned by citizens and businesses of a country.
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| National Income Accounting | A set of rules and definitions for measuring economic activity in the aggregate economy— that is, in the economy as a whole.
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| Net Domestic Product (NDP) | The sum of consumption expenditures, government expenditures, net exports, and investment less depreciation.
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| Net Exports | Exports minus imports.
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| Net Foreign Factor Income | Income from foreign domestic factor sources minus foreign factor income earned domestically.
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| Net Private Investment | Gross private domestic investment minus depreciation.
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| New Growth Theory | A theory that emphasizes the role of technology rather than capital in the growth process.
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| Nominal Deficit | The deficit determined by looking at the difference between expenditures and receipts.
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| Nominal GDP | GDP calculated at existing prices.
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| Nominal Interest Rate | The interest rate you actually see and pay when borrowing, or receive when lending.
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| Nominal Output | The total amount of goods and services measured at current prices.
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| Nonlinear Curve | A curve that is drawn as a curved line.
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| Normative Economics | The study of what the goals of the economy should be.
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| Official Reserves | Government holdings of foreign currencies.
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| Okun's Rule of Thumb (sometimes called Okun's Law) | A 1 percentage-point change in the unemployment rate will be associated with a 2 percent change in output in the opposite direction.
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| Open Market Operations | The Fed's buying and selling of government securities.
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| Opportunity Cost | The benefit you might have gained from choosing the next-best alternative.
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| Output | A result of a productive activity.
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| Outsourcing | The relocation of production once done in the United States to foreign countries.
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| Partially Flexible Exchange Rate | When the government sometimes buys and sells currencies to influence the exchange rate, while at other times the government simply accepts the exchange rate determined by supply and demand forces, that is, letting private market forces operate.
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| Partnership | A business with two or more owners.
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| Passive Deficit | The part of the deficit that exists because the economy is operating below its potential level of output.
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| Patent | The legal protection of a technical innovation that gives the person holding it sole right to use that innovation. (Note: A patent is good for only a limited time.)
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| Pay-as-You-Go System | A system in which payments to current beneficiaries are funded through current payroll taxes.
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| Per Capita Growth | Producing more goods and services per person.
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| Per Capita Real Output | Real GDP divided by the total population.
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| Permanent Income Hypothesis | A proposition that expenditures are determined by permanent or lifetime income.
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| Personal Consumption Expenditure (PCE) Deflator | A measure of prices of goods that consumers buy that allows yearly changes in the basket of goods that reflect actual consumer purchasing habits.
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| Personal Consumption Expenditures | Payments by households for goods and services.
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| Personal Income (PI) | National income plus net transfer payments from government minus amounts attributed but not received.
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| Phillips Curve | A representation of the relationship between inflation and unemployment. (Note: There is both a short-run and a long-run relationship.)
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| Pie Chart | A circle divided into "pie pieces," where the undivided pie represents the total amount and the pie pieces reflect the percentage of the whole pie that the various components make up.
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| Policy | A one-time reaction to a problem.
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| Policy Change | A change in one aspect of government's actions, such as monetary policy or fiscal policy.
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| Policy Coordination | The integration of a country's policies to take account of their global effects.
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| Policy Regime | A predetermined statement of the policy that will be followed in various circumstances.
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| Positive Economics | The study of what is, and how the economy works.
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| Positive Externality | The positive effect of a decision on others not taken into account by the decision maker.
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| Potential Income | The level of income that the economy technically is capable of producing without generating accelerating inflation.
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| Potential Output | Output that would materialize at the target rate of unemployment and the target rate of capacity utilization. Also: The highest amount of output an economy can produce from the existing production function and the existing resources.
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| Present Value | A method of translating a flow of future income or savings into its current worth.
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| Price Ceiling | A government-imposed limit on how high a price can be charged. In other words, a government-set price below the market equilibrium price.
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| Price Floor | A government-imposed limit on how low a price can be charged. In other words, a government-set price above equilibrium price.
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| Price Index | A number set at 100 in the base year that summarizes what happens to a weighted composite of prices of a selection of goods (often called a market basket of goods) over time.
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| Primary Financial Market | A market in which newly issued financial assets are sold.
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| Principle of Increasing Marginal Opportunity Cost | In order to get more of something, one must give up ever increasing quantities of something else.
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| Private Good | A good that, when consumed by one individual, cannot be consumed by another individual.
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| Private Property Rights | Control a private individual or firm has over an asset.
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| Procyclical Fiscal Policy | Changes in government spending and taxes that increase the cyclical fluctuations in the economy instead of reducing them.
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| Producer Price Index (PPI) | An index of prices that measures average change in the selling prices received by domestic producers of goods and services over time.
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| Production Function | The relationship between the inputs (factors of production) and outputs.
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| Production Possibility Curve | A curve measuring the maximum combination of outputs that can be obtained from a given number of inputs.
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| Production Possibility Table | A table that lists a choice's opportunity costs by summarizing what alternative outputs can be achieved with given inputs.
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| Productive Efficiency | Achieving as much output as possible from a given amount of inputs or resources.
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| Productivity | Output per unit of input.
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| Profit | What's left over from total revenues after all the appropriate costs have been subtracted.
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| Progressive Tax | A tax whose rates increase as a person's income increases.
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| Proportional Tax | A tax whose rates are constant at all income levels, no matter what a taxpayer's total annual income is.
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| Public Good | A good that if supplied to one person must be supplied to all and whose consumption by one individual does not prevent its consumption by another individual. That is, a good that is nonexclusive and nonrival.
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| Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) | A method of calculating exchange rates that attempts to value currencies at rates such that each currency will buy an equal basket of goods.
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| Quantity-Adjusting Markets | Markets in which firms respond to changes in demand primarily by modifying their output instead of changing their prices.
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| Quantity Demanded | A specific amount that will be demanded per unit of time at a specific price, other things constant.
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| Quantity Supplied | A specific amount that will be supplied at a specific price.
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| Quantity Theory of Money | A theory that the price level varies in response to changes in the quantity of money.
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| Quota | Quantity limit placed on imports.
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| Rational Expectations | Expectations that the economists' model predicts. Also: Forward-looking expectations that use available information.
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| Rational Expectations Model | A model in which all decisions are based on the expected equilibrium in the economy.
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| Real-Business-Cycle Theory | A theory that fluctuations in the economy reflect real phenomena—simultaneous shifts in supply and demand, not simply supply responses to demand shifts.
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| Real Deficit | The nominal deficit adjusted for inflation.
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| Real Exchange Rate | The nominal exchange rate adjusted for differential inflation or differential changes in the price level.
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| Real Gross Domestic Product (real GDP) | The market value of final goods and services produced in an economy, stated in the prices of a given year. Also: Nominal GDP adjusted for inflation.
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| Real Interest Rate | Nominal interest rate adjusted for the expected inflation.
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| Real Output | The total amount of goods and services produced, adjusted for price-level changes.
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| Recession | A decline in real output that persists for more than two consecutive quarters of a year.
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| Recessionary Gap | The amount by which equilibrium output is below potential output.
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| Regime Change | A change in the entire atmosphere within which the government and the economy interrelate.
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| Regressive Tax | A tax whose rates decrease as income rises.
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| Regulatory Trade Restrictions | Government-imposed procedural rules that limit imports.
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| Rent Control | A price ceiling on rents, set by government.
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| Reserve Ratio | The ratio of reserves to total deposits.
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| Reserve Requirement | The percentage the Federal Reserve System sets as the minimum amount of reserves a bank must have.
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| Reserves | Currency and deposits a bank keeps on hand or at the Fed or central bank, enough to manage the normal cash inflows and outflows.
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| Restructuring | Changing the underlying economic institutions.
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| Rosy Scenario Policy | A government policy of making optimistic predictions and never making gloomy predictions.
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| Rule of 72 | The number of years it takes for a certain amount to double in value is equal to 72 divided by its annual rate of increase.
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| Say's Law | A law that states that supply creates its own demand.
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| Scarcity | The goods available are too few to satisfy individuals' desires.
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| Secondary Financial Market | A market in which previously issued financial assets can be bought and sold.
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| Shift Factor of Demand | The effect of anything other than price on demand.
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| Shift in Supply | The graphical representation of the effect of a change in a factor other than price on supply.
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| Short-Run Aggregate Supply (SAS) Curve | A curve that specifies how a shift in the aggregate demand curve affects the price level and real output in the short run, other things constant.
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| Short-Run Phillips Curve | A downward-sloping curve showing the relationship between inflation and unemployment when expectations of inflation are constant.
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| Signaling | An action taken by an informed party that reveals information to an uninformed party and thereby partially offsets adverse selection.
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| Simple Money Multiplier | The measure of the amount of money ultimately created per dollar deposited in the banking system, when people hold no currency.
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| Slope | The change in the value on the vertical axis divided by the change in the value on the horizontal axis.
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| Social Capital | The habitual way of doing things that guides people in how they approach production.
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| Social Security System | A social insurance program that provides financial benefits to the elderly and disabled and to their eligible dependents and/or survivors.
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| Socialism | An economic system based on individuals' goodwill toward others, not on their own self-interest, and in which, in principle, society decides what, how, and for whom to produce.
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| Sole Proprietorship | A business that has only one owner.
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| Soviet-Style Socialist Economy | An economic system that uses administrative control or central planning to solve the coordination problems: what, how, and for whom.
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| Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) | A type of international money.
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| Specialization | The concentration of individuals in certain aspects of production.
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| Stagflation | The combination of high and accelerating inflation and high unemployment.
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| Stock | A financial asset that conveys ownership rights in a corporation. Also, certificates of ownership in a company.
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| Strategic Bargaining | Demanding a larger share of the gains from trade than you can reasonably expect.
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| Strategic Trade Policies | Threatening to implement tariffs to bring about a reduction in tariffs or some other concession from the other country.
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| Structural Deficit | The part of a budget deficit that would exist even if the economy were at its potential level of income.
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| Structural Unemployment | Unemployment caused by the institutional structure of an economy or by economic restructuring making some skills obsolete.
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| Sunk Costs | Costs that have already been incurred and cannot be recovered.
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| Supplemental Security Income (SSI) | A federal program that pays benefits, based on need, to the elderly, blind, and disabled.
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| Supply | A schedule of quantities a seller is willing to sell per unit of time at various prices, other things constant.
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| Supply Curve | A graphical representation of the relationship between price and quantity supplied.
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| Surplus | An excess of revenues over payments.
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| Target Rate of Unemployment | The lowest sustainable rate of unemployment that policymakers believe is achievable given existing demographics and the economy's institutional structure.
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| Tariff | An excise tax on an imported (internationally traded) good.
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| Taylor Rule | The rule is: Set the Fed funds rate at 2 percent plus current inflation if the economy is at desired output and desired inflation. If the inflation rate is higher than desired, increase the Fed funds rate by 0.5 times the difference between desired and actual inflation. Similarly, if output is higher than desired, increase the Fed funds rate by 0.5 times the percentage deviation.
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| Technological Agglomeration | The tendency of technological advance to spawn further technological advances, creating a concentration of new technologies in a specific location.
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| Technology | The way we make goods and supply services.
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| Third-Party-Payer Market | A market in which the person who receives the good differs from the person paying for the good.
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| Trade Adjustment Assistance Programs | Programs designed to compensate losers for reductions in trade restrictions.
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| Transferable Comparative Advantage | Comparative advantage based on factors that can change relatively easily.
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| Unemployment Compensation | Short-term financial assistance, regardless of need, to eligible individuals who are temporarily out of work.
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| Unemployment Rate | The percentage of people in the economy who are willing and able to work but who are not working.
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| Unexpected Inflation | Inflation that surprises people.
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| Value Added | The increase in value that a firm contributes to a product or service.
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| Velocity of Money | The number of times per year, on average, a dollar goes around to generate a dollar's worth of income.
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| Wealth Accounts | A balance sheet of an economy's stock of assets and liabilities.
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| Wealth Effect | A fall in the price level will make the holders of money and of other financial assets richer, so they buy more.
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| World Trade Organization (WTO) | Organization committed to getting countries to agree not to impose new tariffs or other trade restrictions except under certain limited conditions. See also General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.
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