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The difference between what a consumer would be willing to pay for a good or service and what that consumer actually has to pay. Added to producer surplus, it provides a measure of the total economic benefit of a sale.
Industry:Economy
When there are strings attached, for example, to international aid or loans from the IMF or World Bank. The delivery of the money may be made subject to the government of the country implementing economic or political reforms desired by the donor or lender.
Industry:Economy
If a deposit account of $100 earns an interest rate of 10% a year, then at the end of the year the account will contain $110. If all of that money is left in the account, then the 10% interest will be paid on the $110, so at the end of the second year $11 of interest will be added, making $121 in all. This is known as compound interest. By contrast, simple interest pays the 10% only on the original sum in the account.
Industry:Economy
When you buy a computer, you will also need to buy software. Computer hardware and software are therefore complementary goods: two products, for which an increase (or fall) in demand for one leads to an increase (fall) in demand for the other. Complements are the opposite of substitute goods. For instance, Microsoft Windows-based personal computers and Apple Macs are substitutes.
Industry:Economy
Something that gives a firm (or a person or a country) an edge over its rivals
Industry:Economy
Paul Samuelson, one of the 20th century’s greatest economists, once remarked that the principle of comparative advantage was the only big idea that economics had produced that was both true and surprising. It is also one of the oldest theories in economics, usually ascribed to David Ricardo. The theory underpins the economic case for free trade. But it is often misunderstood or misrepresented by opponents of free trade. It shows how countries can gain from trading with each other even if one of them is more efficient – it has an absolute advantage – in every sort of economic activity. Comparative advantage is about identifying which activities a country (or firm or individual) is most efficient at doing. To see how this theory works imagine two countries, Alpha and Omega. Each country has 1,000 workers and can make two goods, computers and cars. Alpha’s economy is far more productive than Omega’s. To make a car, Alpha needs two workers, compared with Omega’s four. To make a computer, Alpha uses 10 workers, compared with Omega’s 100. If there is no trade, and in each country half the workers are in each industry, Alpha produces 250 cars and 50 computers and Omega produces 125 cars and 5 computers. What if the two countries specialize? Although Alpha makes both cars and computers more efficiently than Omega (it has an absolute advantage), it has a bigger edge in computer making. So it now devotes most of its resources to that industry, employing 700 workers to make computers and only 300 to make cars. This raises computer output to 70 and cuts car production to 150. Omega switches entirely to cars, turning out 250. World output of both goods has risen. Both countries can consume more of both if they trade, but at what price? Neither will want to import what it could make more cheaply at home. So Alpha will want at least 5 cars per computer, and Omega will not give up more than 25 cars per computer. Suppose the terms of trade are fixed at 12 cars per computer and 120 cars are exchanged for 10 computers. Then Alpha ends up with 270 cars and 60 computers, and Omega with 130 cars and 10 computers. Both are better off than they would be if they did not trade. This is true even though Alpha has an absolute advantage in making both computers and cars. The reason is that each country has a different comparative advantage. Alpha’s edge is greater in computers than in cars. Omega, although a costlier producer in both industries, is a less expensive maker of cars. If each country specializes in products in which it has a comparative advantage, both will gain from trade. In essence, the theory of comparative advantage says that it pays countries to trade because they are different. It is impossible for a country to have no comparative advantage in anything. It may be the least efficient at everything, but it will still have a comparative advantage in the industry in which it is relatively least bad. There is no reason to assume that a country’s comparative advantage will be static. If a country does what it has a comparative advantage in and sees its income grow as a result, it can afford better education and infrastructure. These, in turn, may give it a comparative advantage in other economic activities in future.
Industry:Economy
When a government controls all aspects of economic activity (see, for example, communism).
Industry:Economy
An asset pledged by a borrower that may be seized by a lender to recover the value of a loan if the borrower fails to meet the required interest charges or repayments.
Industry:Economy
The dominant theory of economics from the 18th century to the 20th century, when it evolved into Neo-classical economics. Classical economists, who included Adam Smith, David Ricardo and John Stuart Mill, believed that the pursuit of individual self-interest produced the greatest possible economic benefits for society as a whole through the power of the invisible hand. They also believed that an economy is always in equilibrium or moving towards it. Equilibrium was ensured in the labor market by movements in wages and in the capital market by changes in the rate of interest. The interest rate ensured that total savings in an economy were equal to total investment. In disequilibrium, higher interest rates encouraged more saving and less investment, and lower rates meant less saving and more investment. When the demand for labor rose or fell, wages would also rise or fall to keep the workforce at full employment. In the 1920s and 1930s, John Maynard Keynes attacked some of the main beliefs of classical and neo-classical economics, which became unfashionable. In particular, he argued that the rate of interest was determined or influenced by the speculative actions of investors in bonds and that wages were inflexible downwards, so that if demand for labor fell, the result would be higher unemployment rather than cheaper workers.
Industry:Economy
A fervently free-market economic philosophy long associated with the University of Chicago. At times, especially when Keynesian economics was the orthodoxy in much of the world, the Chicago School was regarded as a bastion of unworldly extremism. However, from the late 1970s it came to be regarded as mainstream by many and Chicago trained economists often played a crucial part in the implementation of policies of low inflation and market liberalization that swept the world during the 1980s and 1990s. By 2003, boasted the University of Chicago, some 22 of the 49 then winners of the Nobel Prize for economics had been faculty members, students or researchers there.
Industry:Economy
