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The Economist Newspaper Ltd
行业: Economy; Printing & publishing
Number of terms: 15233
Number of blossaries: 1
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Vous ne pouvez pas les distinguer. Quelque chose est fongible, quand tout un spécimen unique ne se distingue pas d'une autre. Quelqu'un qui est due à 1 $ ne se soucie pas quel dollar particulière qu'il obtient. Tout ce que les gens veulent faire de l'argent doit être fongible, que ce soit des lingots d'or, des perles ou des coquilles.
Industry:Economy
Bigger is better. In many industries, as output increases, the average cost of each unit produced falls. One reason is that overheads and other fixed costs can be spread over more units of output. However, getting bigger can also increase average costs (diseconomies of scale) because it is more difficult to manage a big operation, for instance.
Industry:Economy
People are better off specializing than trying to be jacks of all trades and ending up masters of none. The logic of dividing the workforce into different crafts and professions is the same as that underpinning the case for free trade: everybody benefits from doing those things in which they have a comparative advantage and using income from doing so to meet their other needs.
Industry:Economy
Vendre quelque chose pour moins que le coût de production. Ceci peut servir par une entreprise dominante à attaquer ses rivaux, une stratégie connue des autorités anti-Trust comme prix d'éviction. Participants au commerce international sont souvent accusés de dumping par les entreprises nationales en charge plus d'importations rivales. Pays peuvent frapper fonctions sur des importations à bas prix qu'ils jugent sont déversés dans leurs marchés. Souvent, cela revient à peine déguisé de protectionnisme contre les entreprises étrangères plus efficaces. Dans la pratique, véritable bradage est rare – certainement beaucoup plus rares que les procédures antidumping – car elle s'appuie sur la capacité peu probable d'un seul producteur de dominer un marché mondial. Dans tous les cas, tirer les consommateurs de la baisse des prix ; alors faire des entreprises qui peuvent acheter leurs fournitures moins cher à l'étranger.
Industry:Economy
Not putting all your eggs in one basket. Investors are encouraged to do this by modern portfolio theory, as holding several different shares and other assets helps to reduce risk. At the sharp end of business, however, diversification is somewhat out of fashion. Economic studies of diversifying corporate mergers have found that these often hurt the shareholders of the acquiring firm; by contrast, diversified firms that have sold off non-core businesses have typically made their shareholders much better off.
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
Une chute de la valeur d'un actif ou d'une monnaie ; le contraire d'appréciation.
Industry:Economy
Cancelling or rescheduling a borrower’s debts to lessen the pain of the debt burden. Debt forgiveness is increasingly viewed as the best way to relieve the financial problems facing poorer countries. Some of these countries have to pay so much in interest each year to foreign lenders that they have little money left to spend on the long-term solutions to their poverty, such as educating their workers and building a modern infrastructure. In 1998 the World Bank calculated that around 40 of the world’s poorest countries had an “unsustainably high” debt burden: the present value of their total debts was more than 220% of their exports. Debt forgiveness has potential drawbacks. For instance, there is a risk of moral hazard. If countries that borrow too much are let off their financial obligations, poor countries may feel they have nothing to lose by borrowing as much as they can. This is why policymakers often argue that debt forgiveness should come with a conditionality clause, for instance, a requirement that countries have a track record of implementing economic reforms designed to prevent a repeat of the errors that first created the need for debt forgiveness. This is the approach taken by the World Bank's HIPC (highly indebted poor country) initiative, launched in 1996 and expanded in 1999. However, by 2003, only eight of the 38 poor countries eligible under the program had made enough progress in reform to have some debt forgiven.
Industry:Economy
If you pay your cleaner or builder in cash, or for some reason neglect to tell the taxman that you were paid for a service rendered, you participate in the black or underground economy. Such transactions do not normally show up in the figures for GDP, so the black economy may mean that a country is much richer than the official data suggest. In the United States and the UK, the black economy adds an estimated 5—10% to GDP; in Italy, it may add 30%. As for Russia, in the late 1990s estimates of the black economy ranged as high as 50% of GDP.
Industry:Economy
When banks suddenly stop lending, or bond market liquidity evaporates, usually because creditors have become extremely risk averse.
Industry:Economy