View all terms
balloon payment
(en)
a repayment of the outstanding principal sum made at the end of a loan period, interest only having been paid hitherto
basis point
(en)
(noun) one hundredth of one percent (as in the yield of an investment)
demand theory
(en)
the doctrine in neoclassical economics that markets will function perfectly in the absence of interference
financialization
(en)
the process whereby the financial industry becomes more prominent
Fordism
(en)
the use in manufacturing industry of the methods pioneered by Henry Ford, typified by large-scale mechanized mass production
inflationary bias
(en)
the outcome of discretionary government policy that, under perfect foresight in the labor market, leads to a higher than optimal level of inflation and no transitory income increase
insuperable
(en)
(adjective) incapable of being surmounted, overcome, passed over, or solved
a domestic tax measure implemented by U.S. President John F. Kennedy in July 1963 and lasting until 1974; meant to make it less profitable for U.S. investors to invest abroad by taxing the purchase of foreign securities
Jevonian revolution
(en)
named after William Stanley Jevons, though referring to a shift in economic thought to which many contributed; switch from a focus to class-based analysis to using individual consumers as the basis
liquidity preference
(en)
propensity to hold assets in liquid form (defined by Keynes in The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money)
Minsky moment
(en)
a sudden major collapse of asset values which is part of the credit cycle or business cycle, which will occur because long periods of prosperity lead to increasing speculation using borrowed money; named after 20th century economist Hyman Minsky
monetarism
(en)
(noun) a theory in economics that stable economic growth can be assured only by control of the rate of increase of the money supply to match the capacity for growth of real productivity
naked shorting
(en)
the practice of short-selling a tradable asset of any kind without first borrowing the security or ensuring that the security can be borrowed, as is conventionally done in a short sale
a mainstream approach to economics focusing on the determination of goods, outputs, and income distributions in markets through supply and demand; contrast with heterodox economics
neoliberalism
(en)
the postulate that markets are organised most effectively by private enterprise and that the private pursuit of accumulation will generate the most common good; accomplished by opening international markets and financial networks, and downsizing the welfare state
neoliberalism
(en)
the postulate that markets are organised most effectively by private enterprise and that the private pursuit of accumulation will generate the most common good; accomplished by opening international markets and financial networks, and downsizing the welfare state
Physiocrat
(en)
(noun) a member of a school of political economists founded in 18th century France and characterized chiefly by a belief that government policy should not interfere with the operation of natural economic laws and that land is the source of all wealth
PIIGS
(en)
the five eurozone nations that were considered weaker economically following the financial crisis: Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain
Regulation Q
(en)
Federal Reserve regulation. from 1933 until 2011: imposed various restrictions on the payment of interest on deposit accounts; after 2013: slightly different version setting capital requirements for US banks
Say's Law
(en)
an economic law stating that supply creates its own demand (named after eighteenth-century French economist Jean-Baptiste Say)
sovereign bond
(en)
a government-backed bond denominated in a foreign currency, usally a widely-trusted "reserve" currency like the US dollar (contrast with "government bonds" which are in the home currency)
Tomás de Torquemada
(en)
a Castilian Dominican friar, and the first Grand Inquisitor in Spain's movement to homogenize religious practices with those of the Catholic Church in the late 15th century, otherwise known as "The Spanish Inquisition
Walrasian
(en)
referring to the theories of 19th-century Swiss economist Leon Walras (that relative prices can find a system-wide or general equilibrium)
yield curve
(en)
a curve on a graph in which the yield of fixed-interest securities is plotted against the length of time they have to run to maturity
zero-coupon bond
(en)
a bond that is issued at a deep discount to its face value but pays no interest