- Industry: Economy; Printing & publishing
- Number of terms: 15233
- Number of blossaries: 1
- Company Profile:
Best guesses about the future. Despite complex economic theories and cutting-edge econometrics, the forecasts economists make are often badly wrong. Indeed, following economic forecasts has been likened to driving a car blindfolded, following directions given by a person who is looking out of the back window. Some of the inaccuracies in forecasts reflect badly designed models; often, the problem is that the future actually is unpredictable. Maybe it would be better to take the advice of Sam Goldwyn, a movie mogul, "Never prophesy, especially about the future. "
Industry:Economy
Going public. When shares in a company are sold to the public for the first time through an initial public offering. The number of shares sold by the original private investors is called the "float". Also, when a bond issue is sold in the financial markets.
Industry:Economy
Production costs that do not change when the quantity of output produced changes, for instance, the cost of renting an office or factory space. Contrast with variable costs.
Industry:Economy
One of the two instruments of macroeconomic policy; monetary policy's side-kick. It comprises public spending and taxation, and any other government income or assistance to the private sector (such as tax breaks). It can be used to influence the level of demand in the economy, usually with the twin goals of getting unemployment as low as possible without triggering excessive inflation. At times it has been deployed to manage short-term demand through fine tuning, although since the end of the Keynesian era it has more often been targeted on long-term goals, with monetary policy more often used for shorter-term adjustments. For a government, there are two main issues in setting fiscal policy: what should be the overall stance of policy, and what form should its individual parts take?
Some economists and policymakers argue for a balanced budget. Others say that a persistent deficit (public spending exceeding revenue) is acceptable provided, in accordance with the golden rule, the deficit is used for investment (in infrastructure, say) rather than consumption. However, there may be a danger that public-sector investment will result in the crowding out of more productive private investment. Whatever the overall stance on average over an economic cycle, most economists agree that fiscal policy should be counter-cyclical, aiming to automatically stabilize demand by increasing public spending relative to revenue when the economy is struggling and increasing taxes relative to spending towards the top of the cycle. For instance, social (welfare) handouts from the state usually increase during tough times, and fiscal drag boosts government revenue when the economy is growing. As for the bits and pieces making up fiscal policy, one debate is about how high public spending should be relative to GDP. In the United States and many Asian countries, public spending is less than 30% of GDP; in European countries, such as Germany and Sweden, it has been as high as 40-50%. Some economic studies suggest that lower public spending relative to GDP results in higher rates of growth, though this conclusion is controversial. Certainly, over the years, much public spending has been highly inefficient. Another issue is the form that taxation should take, especially the split between direct taxation and indirect taxation and between capital, income and expenditure tax.
Industry:Economy
When the net effect of taxation and public spending is neutral, neither stimulating nor dampening demand. The term can be used to describe the overall stance of fiscal policy: a balanced budget is neutral, as total tax revenue equals total public spending. It can also refer more narrowly to the combined impact of new measures introduced in an annual budget: the budget can be fiscally neutral if any new taxes equal any new spending, even if the overall stance of the budget either boosts or slows demand.
Industry:Economy
A nice little earner for the state. Fiscal drag is the tendency of revenue from taxation to rise as a share of GDP in a growing economy. Tax allowances, progressive tax rates and the threshold above which a particular rate of tax applies usually remain constant or are changed only gradually. By contrast, when the economy grows, income, spending and corporate profit rise. So the tax-take increases too, without any need for government action. This helps slow the rate of increase in demand, reducing the pace of growth, making it less likely to result in higher inflation. Thus fiscal drag is an automatic stabilizer, as it acts naturally to keep demand stable.
Industry:Economy
The early bird gets the worm. Game theory shows that being the first to enter a market or to introduce an innovation can be a huge advantage, not just because the first firm in can erect barriers to entry, but also because potential rivals may be discouraged from committing the resources necessary to compete successfully. However, this advantage may sometimes be cancelled out by the benefits enjoyed by followers, such as the chance to avoid--and learn from--the mistakes made by the first mover. (See incumbent advantage. )
Industry:Economy
For many years, economists had little interest in what happened inside firms, preferring instead to examine the workings of the different sorts of industries in which firms operate, ranging from perfect competition to monopoly. Since the 1960s, however, sophisticated economic theories of how firms work have been developed. These have examined why firms grow at different rates and tried to model the normal life cycle of a company, from fast-growing start-up to lumbering mature business. The aim is to explain when it pays to conduct an activity within a firm and when it pays to externalize it through short- or long-term arrangements with outsiders, be they individuals, exchanges or other companies. The theories also look at the economic consequences of the different incentives influencing individuals working within companies, tackling issues such as pay, agency costs and corporate governance structures.
Industry:Economy
A favorite government policy in the Keynesian-dominated 1950s and 1960s, involving frequent adjustments to fiscal policy and/or monetary policy to alter the level of demand to keep the economy growing at a steady rate. The trouble was and is, partly because of the inadequacies of economic forecasting, that these frequent adjustments were and are often mistaken, making the economy's growth path more, rather than less, erratic. In the 1990s, fine tuning was increasingly shunned by central banks and governments, which stopped trying to manage short-term demand and instead aimed to pursue long-term macroeconomic goals, which required fewer adjustments to policy. Or so they claimed. In practice, there continued to be some attempted fine tuning.
Industry:Economy
The firms and institutions that together make it possible for money to make the world go round. This includes financial markets, securities exchanges, banks, pension funds, mutual funds, insurers, national regulators, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in the United States, central banks, governments and multinational institutions, such as the IMF and World Bank.
Industry:Economy
