- Industry: Economy; Printing & publishing
- Number of terms: 15233
- Number of blossaries: 1
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Paying for goods or services with other goods or services, instead of with money. It is often popular when the quality of money is low or uncertain, perhaps because of high inflation or counterfeiting, or when people are asset-rich but cash-poor, or when taxation or extortion by criminals is high. Little wonder, then, that barter became popular in Russia during the late 1990s.
Industry:Economy
How firms keep out competition--an important source of incumbent advantage. There are four main sorts of barriers. * A firm may own a crucial resource, such as an oil well, or it may have an exclusive operating license, for instance, to broadcast on a particular radio wavelength. * A big firm with economies of scale may have a significant competitive advantage because it can produce a large output at lower costs than can a smaller potential rival. * An incumbent firm may make it hard for a would-be entrant by incurring huge sunk costs, spending lots of money on things such as advertising, which any rival must match to compete effectively but which have no value if the attempt to compete should fail. * Powerful firms can discourage entry by raising exit costs, for example, by making it an industry norm to hire workers on long-term contracts, which make firing an expensive process.
Industry:Economy
When something unexpected happens that affects one economy (or part of an economy) more than the rest. This can create big problems for policymakers if they are trying to set a macroeconomic policy that works for both the area affected by the shock and the unaffected area. For instance, some economic areas may be oil exporters and thus highly dependent on the price of oil, but other areas are not. If the oil price plunges, the oil-dependent area would benefit from policies designed to boost demand that might be unsuited to the needs of the rest of the economy. This may be a constant problem for those responsible for setting the interest rate for the Euro given the big differences--and different potential exposures to shocks--among the economies within the Euro zone.
Industry:Economy
When somebody knows more than somebody else. Such asymmetric information can make it difficult for the two people to do business together, which is why economists, especially those practicing game theory, are interested in it. Transactions involving asymmetric (or private) information are everywhere. A government selling broadcasting licenses does not know what buyers are prepared to pay for them; a lender does not know how likely a borrower is to repay; a used-car seller knows more about the quality of the car being sold than do potential buyers. This kind of asymmetry can distort people's incentives and result in significant inefficiencies.
Industry:Economy
This is one of two influential economic theories of how assets are priced in the financial markets. The other is the capital asset pricing model. The arbitrage pricing theory says that the price of a financial asset reflects a few key risk factors, such as the expected rate of interest, and how the price of the asset changes relative to the price of a portfolio of assets. If the price of an asset happens to diverge from what the theory says it should be, arbitrage by investors should bring it back into line.
Industry:Economy
Buying an asset in one market and simultaneously selling an identical asset in another market at a higher price. Sometimes these will be identical assets in different markets, for instance, shares in a company listed on both the London Stock Exchange and New York Stock Exchange. Often the assets being arbitraged will be identical in a more complicated way, for example, they will be different sorts of financial securities that are each exposed to identical risks. Some kinds of arbitrage are completely risk-free—this is pure arbitrage. For instance, if Euros are available more cheaply in dollars in London than in New York, arbitrageurs (also known as arbs) can make a risk-free profit by buying euros in London and selling an identical amount of them in New York. Opportunities for pure arbitrage have become rare in recent years, partly because of the globalization of financial markets. Today, a lot of so called arbitrage, much of it done by hedge funds, involves assets that have some similarities but are not identical. This is not pure arbitrage and can be far from risk free.
Industry:Economy
A rise in the value of an asset and the opposite of depreciation. When the value of a currency rises relative to another, it appreciates.
Industry:Economy
The most famous of all central bank bosses, so far. A former jazz musician turned economist, he became chairman of the board of governors of America's Federal Reserve in 1987, shortly before Wall Street crashed. In 2003, he was reappointed until 2005. He won admirers for delivering monetary policy that helped to bring down inflation and create the conditions for strong economic growth. Some people considered him the nearest thing capitalism had to God. In 1996, he famously wondered aloud whether rising share prices were the result of "irrational exuberance". Economists debate whether history will judge him a failure because he did not prevent the growth of a huge bubble in America's economy
Industry:Economy
Policies to pump up demand and thus boost the level of economic activity. Monetarists fear that such policies may simply result in higher inflation.
Industry:Economy
Number-crunching to discover the relationship between different economic variables. The findings of this statistical technique should always be taken with a pinch of salt. How big a pinch can vary considerably and is indicated by the degree of statistical significance and r squared. The relationship between a dependent variable (GDP, say) and a set of explanatory variables (demand, interest rates, capital, unemployment, and so on) is expressed as a regression equation.
Industry:Economy
