- Industry: Economy; Printing & publishing
- Number of terms: 15233
- Number of blossaries: 1
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Budgetary rules agreed to by Euro zone countries as a condition of joining the Euro. The pact stipulates that all the countries will run a balanced budget in normal times. A government that runs a fiscal deficit bigger than 3% of GDP must take swift corrective action. And if any country breaches the 3% limit for more than three years in a row, it becomes liable to fines of billions of euros. The pact was supposed to be a powerful political symbol that Euro-using countries would not cheat each other. However, Portugal became the first country to break the deficit limit by notching up 4. 1% in 2001. When, in 2002, France and Germany also exceeded the 3% limit, some EU members were outraged and others lobbied for the pact to be modified or even scrapped.
Industry:Economy
A measure of how far a variable moves over time away from its average (mean) value.
Industry:Economy
There are lies, damned lies and statistics, said Benjamin Disraeli, a British prime minister. Certainly, even if the result of number crunching is statistically significant, it does not actually mean it is true. But it does mean it is much more likely to be true than false. Statistical significance means that the probability of getting that result by chance is low. The most commonly used measure of statistical significance is that there must be a 95% chance that the result is right and only a 1 in 20 chance of the result occurring randomly.
Industry:Economy
Another term for shares. What are called ordinary shares in the UK are known as common stock in the United States. It is also another word for inventories of goods held by a firm to meet future demand.
Industry:Economy
A program of policies designed to change the structure of an economy. Usually, the term refers to adjustment towards a market economy, under a program approved by the IMF and/or World Bank, which often supply structural adjustment funds to ease the pain of transition. Such policies are much criticized in the developing world, sometimes with good reason.
Industry:Economy
Money paid, usually by government, to keep prices below what they would be in a free market, or to keep alive businesses that would otherwise go bust, or to make activities happen that otherwise would not take place. Subsidies can be a form of protectionism by making domestic goods and services artificially competitive against imports. By distorting markets, they can impose large economic costs.
Industry:Economy
One of the two words economists use most, along with demand. These are the twin driving forces of the market economy. Supply is the amount of a good or service available at any particular price. The law of supply is that, other things remaining the same, the quantity supplied will increase as the price increases. The actual amount supplied will be determined, ultimately, by what the market price is, which depends on the amount demanded as well as what suppliers are willing to produce. What suppliers are willing to supply depends on several things:
* the cost of the factors of production;
* technology;
* the price of other goods and services (which, if high enough, might tempt the supplier to switch production to those products); and
* the ability of the supplier accurately to forecast demand and plan production to make the most of the opportunity.
Industry:Economy
A graph of the relationship between the price of a good and the amount supplied at different prices. (See also demand curve. )
Industry:Economy
