- Industry: Economy; Printing & publishing
- Number of terms: 15233
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How much it costs to change prices. Just as a restaurant has to print a new menu when it changes the price of its food, so many other firms face a substantial outlay each time they cut or raise what they charge. Such menu costs mean that firms may be reluctant to change their prices every time there is a shift in the balance of supply and demand, so there will be sticky prices and the market for their output will be in disequilibrium. The Internet may sharply reduce menu costs as it allows prices to be changed at the click of a mouse, which may improve efficiency by keeping markets more often in equilibrium.
Industry:Economy
A euphemism for the world’s poor countries, also known, often optimistically, as emerging economies. Some four-fifths of the world’s 6 billion people already live in developing countries, many of them in abject poverty. Developing countries account for less than one-fifth of total world GDP. Economists disagree about how likely--and how fast--developing countries are to become developed. Neo-classical economics predicts that poor countries will grow faster than richer ones. The reason is diminishing returns on capital. Since poor countries start with less capital, they should reap higher returns than a richer country with more capital from each slice of new investment. But this catch-up effect (or convergence) is not supported by the data. For one thing, there is, in fact, no such thing as a typical developing country. The official developing world includes the (sometimes) fast-growing Asian tigers and the poorest nations in Africa. Studies of the relationship between growth and GDP per head in rich and poor countries found no evidence that poorer countries grew faster. Indeed, if anything, poorer countries have grown more slowly. Development economics has argued that this is because poor countries have unique problems that require different policy solutions from those offered by conventional developed-world economics. But new endogenous growth theory instead argues that there is conditional convergence. Hold constant such factors as a country’s fertility rate, its human capital and its government policies (proxied by the share of current government spending in GDP), and poorer countries generally grow faster than richer ones. Since, in reality, other factors are not constant (not all countries have the same level of human capital or the same government policies), absolute convergence does not happen. Government policies seem to be crucial. Countries with broadly free-market policies – in particular, free trade and the maintenance of secure property rights--have raised their growth rates. (Although some economists argue that the Asian tigers are an exception to this free-market rule. ) Open economies have grown much faster on average than closed economies. Higher public spending relative to GDP is usually associated with slower growth. Furthermore, high inflation is bad for growth and so is political instability. The poorest countries can indeed catch up. Their chances of doing so are maximized by policies that give a greater role to competition and incentives, at home and abroad. Despite starting with a big disadvantage, there is evidence that some developing countries do not help themselves because they squander the resources they have. Institutions that produce effective governance of an economy are crucial. Those countries that use their resources well can grow quickly. Indeed, the world’s fastest-growing economies are a small subgroup of exceptional performers among the poor countries.
Industry:Economy
Goods for which an increase (or fall) in demand for one leads to a fall (or increase) in demand for the other – Coca-Cola and Pepsi, perhaps.
Industry:Economy
Somewhere between short-termism, which is bad, and the long run, lies the hallowed ground of the medium term – far enough away to discourage myopic behavior by decision makers but close enough to be meaningful. But not many governments say exactly how long they think the medium term is.
Industry:Economy
A sudden fall in the value of a currency against other currencies. Strictly, devaluation refers only to sharp falls in a currency within a fixed exchange rate system. Also it usually refers to a deliberate act of government policy, although in recent years reluctant devaluers have blamed financial speculation. Most studies of devaluation suggest that its beneficial effects on competitiveness are only temporary; over time they are eroded by higher prices (see j-curve).
Industry:Economy
When the price of petrol falls people buy more of it. There are two reasons. * The income effect: cheaper petrol means that real purchasing power rises, so consumers have more to spend on everything, including petrol. * The substitution effect: petrol has become cheaper relative to everything else, so people switch some of their consumption out of goods that are now relatively more expensive and buy more petrol instead.
Industry:Economy
The tendency for subsequent observations of a random variable to be closer to its mean than the current observation. For example, if the current number is 7, the average is 5, and there is mean reversion, then the next observation is likelier to be 6 than 8.
Industry:Economy
Financial assets that “derive” their value from other assets. For example, an option to buy a share is derived from the share. Some politicians and others responsible for financial regulation blame the growing use of derivatives for increasing volatility in asset prices, and for being a source of danger to their users. Economists mostly regard derivatives as a good thing, allowing more precise pricing of financial risk and better risk management. However, they concede that when derivatives are misused the leverage that is often an integral part of them can have devastating consequences. So they come with an economists’ health warning: if you don’t understand it, don’t use it. The world of derivatives is riddled with jargon. Here are translations of the most important bits. * A forward contract commits the user to buying or selling an asset at a specific price on a specific date in the future. * A future is a forward contract that is traded on an exchange. * A swap is a contract by which two parties exchange the cashflow linked to a liability or an asset. For example, two companies, one with a loan on a fixed interest rate over ten years and the other with a similar loan on a floating interest rate over the same period, may agree to take over each other’s obligations, so that the first pays the floating rate and the second the fixed rate. * An option is a contract that gives the buyer the right, but not the obligation, to sell or buy a particular asset at a particular price, on or before a specified date. * An over-the-counter is a derivative that is not traded on an exchange but is purchased from, say, an investment bank. * Exotics are derivatives that are complex or are available in emerging economies. * Plain-vanilla derivatives, in contrast to exotics, are typically exchange-traded, relate to developed economies and are comparatively uncomplicated.
Industry:Economy
When what is done cannot be undone. Sunk costs are costs that have been incurred and cannot be reversed, for example, spending on advertising or researching a product idea. They can be a barrier to entry. If potential entrants would have to incur similar costs, which would not be recoverable if the entry failed, they may be scared off.
Industry:Economy
Probably the most successful program of international aid and nation building in history. It was named after General George Marshall, an American secretary of state, who at the end of the second world war proposed giving aid to Western Europe to rebuild its war-torn economies. North America gave around 1% of its GDP in total between 1948 and 1952; most of it came from the United States and the rest from Canada. The Americans left it to the Europeans to work out the details on allocating aid, which may be why, according to most economic analyses, it achieved more success than latter day aid programs in which most of the decisions on how the money is spent are made by the donors. The main institution through which aid was administered was the Organization for European Economic Co-operation (OEEC), which in 1961 became the OECD. Nowadays, whenever there is a proposal for the international community to rebuild an economy damaged by war, such as Iraq's in 2003, you are sure to hear the phrase “new Marshall Plan”.
Industry:Economy
