| adjustable rate mortgage (ARM) | A home loan in which the interest rate changes in
line with current market interest rates.
|
 |
|
|
| cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) | Indexes wages to the inflation rate.
|
|
|
|
| cyclical unemployment | Unemployment resulting from business cycle fluctuations.
|
|
|
|
| distributional consequences | The costs of unemployment (recession) are borne very unevenly, namely by those people who lose their job.
|
|
|
|
| employment stability | Low rate of job layoff, turnover.
|
|
|
|
| experience rating | Setting the unemployment insurance tax higher for firms whose employees have high unemployment rates.
|
|
|
|
| frequency of unemployment | The average number of times, per period, that workers become unemployed.
|
|
|
|
| frictional unemployment | Unemployment associated with the movement of workers
in and out of jobs in "normal" times.
|
|
|
|
| indexation | Automatic adjustment of prices and wages according to inflation rate.
|
|
|
|
| indexed debt | Debt in which interest payments are adjusted upward each year to account for inflation.
|
|
|
|
| labor force | Consists of people who are working and people who are actively looking for work.
|
|
|
|
| labor market turnover | The frequency with which workers change jobs in an economy.
|
|
|
|
| layoff | A suspension without pay lasting or expected to last more than seven consecutive days, initiated by the employer without prejudice to the worker.
|
|
|
|
| menu cost | Small cost incurred when the nominal price of a good is changed; for example, the cost for a restaurant of reprinting its menus when it raises/lowers its prices.
|
|
|
|
| misery index | Index used by political analysts to measure people's unhappiness with the dual problems of inflation and unemployment; the sum of inflation and
unemployment.
|
|
|
|
| Okun's law | Empirical law relating GDP growth to changes in unemployment; named for its discoverer, the late Arthur Okun.
|
|
|
|
| perfectly/imperfectly anticipated inflation | The extent to which people have perfect foresight with regards to the inflation rate.
|
|
|
|
| political business cycle theory | Theory that politicians deliberately manipulate the economy to produce an economic boom at election time.
|
|
|
|
| replacement ratio | The ratio of after-tax income while unemployed to after-tax income while employed.
|
|
|
|
| reporting effects | Changes in the measurement of some variable due to a change in the number of people who claim to be in a certain group; unemployment can appear to rise, for example, when more people register for unemployment benefits.
|
|
|
|
| reservation wage | The lowest wage an individual is willing to accept; if you were offered a job that paid a wage lower than your reservation wage, you would turn it down.
|
|
|
|
| sacrifice ratio | During a period of anti-inflation policy, the ratio of cumulative GDP lost to reduction in the inflation rate.
|
|
|
|
| search unemployment | Unemployment that exists because people have quit one job
to search for another.
|
|
|
|
| spell of unemployment | The amount of time that the average person spends in the
unemployment pool.
|
|
|
|
| unemployed person | A person who does not have a job but is actively seeking one.
|
|
|
|
| unemployment hysteresis | Theory that argues that recessions may permanently affect
the natural rate of unemployment.
|
|
|
|
| unemployment pool | Group of individuals in transition between jobs.
|