Questions tagged [definition]
Questions about how economic terms, quantities, or ideas can be defined.
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How do you call systems in which the more you have, the more you make?
I am looking for a term for systems or dynamics in which the ability to earn a particular resource requires having a minimum of that resource available, and grows progressively or exponentially with ...
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2answers
1k views
What precisely is scarcity?
I'm aware that certain terms in economics have precise definitions that don't necessarily line up with our intuition about what they mean. I'm currently writing a paper that heavily relies on the ...
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3answers
81 views
What's the opposite of a Pareto improvement called?
Wikipedia defines a Pareto Improvement, "given a certain initial allocation of goods among a set of individuals" as:
a change to a different allocation that makes at least one individual or ...
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1answer
20 views
What does 'currency convertibility' mean?
As a student with almost zero background in economics, I've been struggling to comprehend the notion of the currency convertibility. Most of the definitons I've found online talk about the ease with ...
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2answers
102 views
Who first used the term “externality” in economics?
Who first used the term externality in economics, as the term is currently used in its modern sense?
(I believe it was already used in philosophy to mean something else and the economics version of ...
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0answers
12 views
Is there a specific term to define costs “internal” & “external” to an industry?
I'm not referring to the typical definitions of industry (internal) & societal (external) costs but rather the costs that can be reduced by a member within an industry (to be competitive) and the ...
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0answers
19 views
Is there a widely accepted definition of “asset [price] inflation”?
A bit of googling found some conflicting ones...
Capel and Houben (BIS)
Asset inflation occurs when the prices of financial assets are rising even though they are already above their intrinsic or ...
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0answers
14 views
Is there a term for revenue related to total accumulated revenue?
In a quarterly/annual report, revenue is measured per reporting period, and often there's a comparison to the previous quarter or year-over-year.
Is there a more specific term for a) the total ...
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15 views
Terminology for t statistics using cluster robust standard errors
When reporting regression results I typically have put "robust standard errors in parentheses" below or "cluster-robust standard errors in parentheses" when appropriate. In this particularly paper, we ...
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0answers
23 views
Term for a policy that focuses on minimizing risk
What is the correct economics term for a policy that is focused on containing the spread of risks in the financial sector?
I was thinking: risk-targeted policy?
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1answer
24 views
Name of phenomenon where migrant workers receive decent wage but absolutely no chance of getting any government benefits
Not sure if the title reflects the question very accurately but my question is specific to the Gulf countries which have a huge population of migrant workers, like Saudi and UAE. So, let's say Raj is ...
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20 views
What is “industrial capitalism”?
What's the difference between "industrial capitalism" and "agrarian capitalism" and "mercantilism" and the "industrial revolution" and the 20th century ideas of "Keynesianism"?
Is agrarian capitalism-...
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10 views
How to interpret the (expected) exposure and CVA of an option or a single share
I have a quick (hopefully simple) question regarding the interpretation of the expected exposure of a call option and a single share. I've done some computations on the formula for the expected ...
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3answers
76 views
Difference between shocks, innovations and disturbances
In macroeconomics and macroeconomic models, shocks, innovations, and disturbances are very prominent and often mentioned in the literature.
In general, is there a difference between macroeconomic ...
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0answers
18 views
What is meant by “resource base” in this sentence?
I read a sentence in a chapter in my book which was:
The emphasis on developing a resource base also meant that export-oriented growth was limited.
I googled the for the term "resource view". But ...
2
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1answer
211 views
What is the proper term for “contraction economics?”
By "contraction economics" I mean theories and work based on the assumption that the population of a country will decline over time.
An example might be a paper looking at the housing market for ...
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1answer
53 views
Meaning of $dF(z)$ in expected utility framework
Background: from a Microeconomics course,
$F$ is a cdf. In other words, if $F$ has a density function $f$, then
$$F(z)={\int_{-\infty}^z f(x) dx} $$
Write the Bernoulli utility function $u:...
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2answers
723 views
Are social goods and public goods the same thing?
I am confused as to they are the same or different?
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1answer
71 views
Why is it called Bayesian Persuasion?
I'm sure most of you are familiar with the paper titled "Bayesian Persuasion" by Kamenica and Gentzkow (2011), (you can find it here).
I was wondering what are your thoughts as to why it is called "...
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Is rent on a relocation — an example of unfunded liability?
I'm not too sure if the question makes much sense, but let's assume that you get a job offer in SF, and in order to accept, you basically have to sign a 6- or 12-month contract for rent in order to be ...
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0answers
14 views
Lifeboat vs bailout
I have encountered the term lifeboat in these two contexts:
Floating a “lifeboat”: The Banque de France and the crisis of 1889
The 1974 rescue in the UK's secondary-banking crisis.
Is the term ...
3
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2answers
90 views
Preference relations defined by $x_1^n + x_2^n$ converge to $\max\{x_1, x_2\}$
In the problem set 2 of Rubinsteins Microeconomics (btw is there a comparably nice written book on macroeconomics?) there is the following question:
Let $\succ_n$ be the preference relations defined ...
6
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1answer
869 views
Is there a general name for the setup in which payoffs are not known exactly but players try to influence each other's perception of the payoffs?
A recent question elsewhere made me look at the "madman strategy" which actually consists of trying to make the opposite player think that he is playing a game of chicken instead of prisoner's dilemma....
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150 views
What is the opposite of debt?
In trade, the opposite of trade deficit is trade surplus. In other words, the negative deficit is called surplus.
And then, what is the term for negative debt?
Say for example Bank A owes 5 million ...
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2answers
63 views
Is there a term for the personal wealth that is not used to generate income?
A rich person can own companies, shares, houses used for renting etc. that are worth billions of $US. That is the wealth that is generating income. I would call it income-generating wealth or income+...
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2answers
33 views
What's the term for the debt you have to pay today?
Say that a company has a debt of 10 million $US
But from that debt, the company has to pay 2 million $US today. The rest of the debt has to be payed next year and later.
Is there a term for the debt ...
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1answer
75 views
In the context of banking, how (if at all) do the terms 'capital', 'net worth', and 'equity' differ?
In banking, are the three terms capital, net worth, and equity simply identical and exact synonyms?
If not, how do they differ?
(Aside: And what about in other contexts? For example, does the same ...
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2answers
595 views
What would you call a real market that is close to perfect competition?
I want to explain perfect competition to students using a few practical examples without going into much of the theory. But I want it to be theoretically accurate and I don't want to claim that those ...
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0answers
24 views
What are the definitions of the terms value, wealth, and utility in economics?
Are there any definitions for the following three terms that are widely agreed upon in economics?
Value
Wealth
Utility
In particular, are these terms identical? If not, what differentiates them?
I ...
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0answers
35 views
What is the difference between personal consumption expenditure price and PCE quantity?
What is the difference between these two things? How is PCE price different from PCE quantity? Also, I am confused about the difference between PCE quantity and measure of real output. For example, ...
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0answers
23 views
Why is a call option called 'call', and put option called 'put'? [closed]
I'm asking about etymology, and not what these options are. The answers beneath don't feel convincing; can't 'call' and 'put' be interchanged in them? I'll abbreviate Call Option to CO, and Put Option ...
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2answers
52 views
Is there a super term for goods/products and services?
A business can sell "goods" (/"products") and "services".
Is there a term that encompasses both of these?
Various words may fit (e.g. "offering"), but I'm looking for the technical term, if there is ...
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1answer
31 views
What are 'Symmetric Agents' vs. 'Asymmetric Agents'?
Here is a contextual example from Landry et. al. 2006 :
We concentrate on an economy with n symmetric agents who
derive utility from consuming a numeraire good, yi, a public good
at level G, ...
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0answers
24 views
Synonyms for One-to-One Matching Mechanisms
I am trying to find a more elegant usage of wording for one-to-one matching and I am need of some thoughts from others. Bilateral matching? Any help would be respected.
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1answer
558 views
Is there any formal definition of a relationship between resource availability and demand?
I do not have any background on economics. So my question might sound too simple and I hope it to be clear enough. I am curious about the following:
Is there any formal definition of a relationship ...
3
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1answer
294 views
What is the definition of distributionally neutral tax?
On the website https://www.core-econ.org/ in the book provided, there is an exercise 19.10. It asks whether poll tax is progressive, regressive or distributionally neutral. To answer this question of ...
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1answer
553 views
What is the “entry price” in relation to tariffs?
I see the term “entry price” and “price entry system” in relation to tariffs.
What do these means?
For example this document: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/bitstream/10095/1/sp06go22.pdf
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1answer
45 views
What is a digital platform?
In context of European research projects, they invest into development of digital platforms.
Here is a source to give a definition but not really, and every time people refer directly or indirectly ...
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2answers
65 views
Why was the term 'Economic Rent' chosen? How does it relate to the ordinary meaning of 'rent'?
Pindyck, Rubinfeld. Microeconomics (2017 9 ed). pp. 314-315.
Etymonline substantiates that 'rent' originally didn't mean the microeconomics meaning overhead: no surprise, as microeconomics is a ...
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1answer
86 views
Explain some All countries excluding residents in BIS Debt Securities Data
In the BIS Debt Securities statistics:
In both column "issueresidence" and column "issuenationality" there is a category called "All countries excluding residents". I do not understand what it means. ...
0
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1answer
53 views
When can a person be called rich?
What is the common definition for economic richness of a person?
When can you say John Doe (hypothetical name) is rich (objectively)?
Strictly economically speaking, no philosophical debate.
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2answers
501 views
What does Marx mean by “the division between capital and labor”?
I am reading an eight page piece called "Labor Alienation" by Karl Marx for my Literature class. Here's a link to it if you would like to read it:
http://www.yavanika.org/classes/reader/marx1.pdf
In ...
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2answers
1k views
what is the difference between microeconomics and microfinance?
what is the difference between microeconomics and microfinance?
I cannot understand the difference between the two terms
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1answer
57 views
Economics term for unfavorable goods
What are called goods, whose maintenance expenses are higher than initial price tag. There is a specific term for that, but I can't find it.
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2answers
56 views
What's the term for an economic policy that has negligible effect for most, but a significant effect for a few?
I remember this came up around tariffs in the US on aluminum. They have a negligible effect on the price of an aluminum can, but aggregated across all the aluminum cans sold, it can have a significant ...
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3answers
3k views
What is Opportunity Cost?
Suppose you have 2 activities, A and B. Doing activity A gives a return of 100 dollars, doing activity B gives a return of -50 dollars. What would be the opportunity cost of choosing activity B? 100 ...
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1answer
342 views
Intuition Behind the Definition of Prudence?
I'm having trouble seeing why an agent is said to exhibit "prudence" when u'''($\cdot$) > 0. How does having a utility function with a strictly positive third derivative make an agent act "prudently"? ...
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2answers
531 views
Why are simple returns additive over securities?
I've found a few sources for instance this one, that makes the claim that over a portfolio, simple returns are additive. I can see why it doesn't make a difference if we use net or gross returns as ...
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4answers
216 views
Definition of capitalism
Does the discipline of economics have an accepted rigorous definition of capitalism?
I.e. not something like "some economists would quote Hayek and say that so and so constitutes capitalism" but an ...
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1answer
43 views
Is there a term for the indirect sponsorship of large corporates by the state?
For example, unemployment welfare payments could be argued to be ameliorating the negative externalities of large corporates hiring newly arrived unskilled migrants.
Is there a term that covers this?
