Category: Economic Dictionary

grade : Also slope, incline, gradient, pitch, rise, or mainfall.

A physical surface that is inclined with respect to the horizontal, or the angle between that surface and the horizontal, typically expressed in degrees, or calculated as a ratio of “rise” (vertical distance) to “run” (horizontal distance) and expressed as a fraction or percentage; a larger number indicates a steeper incline. The term “grade” is often used to describe the incline of man-made surfaces such as roads and the roofs of buildings, whereas the term “slope” is more commonly used to describe natural surfaces such as the sides of hills or mountains or the beds and banks of watercourses.

Value Added Tax (VAT) : A tax on consumption, which is paid to the tax authorities by the seller on behalf of the consumer. It is not levied on goods used as intermediate consumption.

Unit labour costs : Reflect total labour costs, including social security and employers’ pension contributions, and including the costs of self-employed labour, incurred in the production of a unit of economic output.

ILO unemployment : The International Labour Organisation’s measure of unemployment defined as a person who is either out of work and actively looking for a job or out of work and waiting to start a job in the next two weeks.

Structural unemployment: Reflects the mismatch of skills and job opportunities as the pattern of demand and supply changes.

Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) : The industrial classification applied to the collection and publication of a wide range of economic statistics.

Services Producer Prices Index (SPPI) : Contains individual price indices that provide information on price change for a limited range of service industries.

Services : A large and diverse grouping of industries that produce intangible economic output.

Seasonally adjusted : A widely used technique for removing seasonal or calendar effects from time series data.

Seasonally adjusted : A widely used technique for removing seasonal or calendar effects from time series data.

Saving ratio : The ratio of personal saving to disposable income.

RPI, RPI(X), RPI(Y), RPI(J) : The Retail Prices Index (RPI) is a measure of inflation, but unlike the CPI, it incorporates housing costs. RPI(X) excludes mortgage interest payments, RPI(Y) is adjusted for changes in interest rate and indirect taxes, and RPI(J) uses an alternative calculation method for some prices that is in line with international standards. The RPI is not a National Statistic.

Retail prices : The price of goods offered to the consumer.

Real interest rate : The real rate of return on an asset, calculated by adjusting the interest received by the rate of inflation.

Real household disposable income:The amount of income available for a household after taxes and subsidies, adjusted to remove the effects of inflation.

Real exchange rate : A country’s exchange rate adjusted for the relative price movements of tradable goods and services.

Quarterly National Accounts (QNA) : The third estimate of UK GDP based on around 92% of all survey data.

Quantitative Easing (QE) : A form of monetary policy in which a Central Bank buys financial assets – usually government bonds – to raise the money supply in an economy.

Purchasing Power Parity (PPP): The path of the nominal exchange rate that would maintain a constant real exchange rate. Nominal exchange rate changes offset inflation differentials between countries.

Productivity : A measure of the efficiency of output relative to inputs. For example, productivity will have increased if more is produced with the same amount of inputs. It can be applied to the individual factors of production – most commonly labour – or collectively.

Producer prices : The prices faced by producers. The input price is the cost of goods bought by UK manufacturers for use in manufacturing. The output price (factory gate price) is the price of goods sold by UK manufacturers.

Potential output : Output when all inputs are fully employed.

Output gap : The difference between actual and potential output.

Opportunity cost of a good : The quantity of other goods sacrificed to get another unit of that good.

Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) : Created in 2010 to produce official independent forecasts of the UK economy as well as authoritative analysis of the UK’s public finances.

Non seasonally adjusted : A series that includes seasonal or calendar effects.

Non-profit institutions serving households (NPISH) : An institutional sector consisting of non-profit institutions that are not mainly financed and controlled by government and provide goods or services to households for free or at prices that are not economically significant. These include bodies such as charities, universities, churches and trade unions.

Natural rate of unemployment : The lowest rate of unemployment at which job markets can be in stable equilibrium.

National income : Everything produced, earned and spent in a country. An economy’s net national product, subtracting depreciation from GNP at basic prices.

National debt : The accumulated effect of budget deficits (less surpluses): the total stock of outstanding government debt.

National accounts : An integrated description of all economic activity within the economic territory of the UK, including activity involving both domestic units (i.e. individuals and institutions resident in the UK) and external units (those resident in other countries)

Multiplier effect : A measure of how one economic action influences other economic activities. The fiscal multiplier, for instance, is the amount that GDP increases for each extra pound of expenditure. For example, government spending on a new hospital could also see businesses benefit that supply the hospital and local retail outlets for the staff.

Multi-factor productivity (MFP) : The difference between the rate of change of output and the rate of change of total inputs. It is calculated as a residual, which can be thought of as capturing technological progress, including the effect of changes in management techniques and business processes or more efficient use of factor inputs.

Money supply : The amount of money available in an economy.

Monetary policy : Policy to affect the supply or cost of money (rate of interest).

Mixed income : The balancing item in the income account for unincorporated businesses owned by households. The owner or members of the same household often provide unpaid labour inputs to the business. The surplus is therefore a mixture of remuneration for such labour and return to the owner as entrepreneur.

Microeconomics : The branch of economics that studies individual economic agents and units: individuals, households, firms and industries.

Market failure : Instances when a market outcome delivers a suboptimal or inefficient allocation of resources. These include situations of imperfect information, barriers to entry or natural monopoly.

Manufacturing : As a general rule, activities in the manufacturing section involve the transformation of materials into new products. Their output is a new product.

Macroeconomics : The branch of economics that deals with the whole economy in terms of aggregated variables such as output, consumption, investment, government spending and net trade.

Liquidity : The ease with which a financial instrument can be exchanged for goods and services. Cash is very liquid whereas a life assurance policy is less so.

Liabilities : A claim on an institutional unit by another body that gives rise to a payment or other transaction transferring assets to the other body.

Inventories (also known as stocks) : Consist of finished goods (held by the producer prior to sale, further processing or other use) and products (materials and fuel) acquired from other producers to be used for intermediate consumption or resold without further processing.

International Monetary Fund (IMF) : A Fund set up as a result of the Bretton Woods Conference of 1944 and that began operations in 1947. It includes most of the major economies of the world. The Fund was set up to supervise the fixed exchange rate system agreed at Bretton Woods and to make available to its members a pool of foreign exchange resources to assist them when they have balance of payments difficulties.

Intermediate consumption : The consumption of goods and services in the production process. It may be contrasted with final consumption and capital formation.

Interest rate : The cost of borrowing expressed at an annual rate: the amount of interest that would be paid during a year divided by the amount of money loaned.

Intangible assets : Intangible fixed assets include mineral exploration, computer software and entertainment, and literary and artistic originals. Expenditure on them is part of gross fixed capital formation. They exclude non-produced intangible assets such as patented entities, leases, transferable contracts and purchased goodwill, expenditure on which would be intermediate consumption.

Inflation rate : The annual rate of change of the average price of goods and services.

Indirect taxation : Taxes on expenditure (e.g. VAT). They are paid to the tax authorities, not by the consumer, but indirectly by the suppliers of the goods or services.

Index numbers : Data relative to a given base value, which typically refers to a year.

Income tax : A tax on earnings.

Imports : Purchases of foreign goods and services; the opposite of exports.

Hyper-inflation : A period of very high rates of inflation, usually leading to a loss of confidence in an economy’s currency.

Human Development Index (HDI) : A composite statistic based on healthcare, education and economic statistics designed to rank countries by their level of development.

Gross Value Added (GVA) : The value generated by any unit engaged in production and the contributions of individual sectors or industries to Gross Domestic Product.

Gross National Product (GNP) : GDP plus net income from abroad.

Gross Fixed Capital Formation (GFCF) : Acquisitions less the disposals of fixed assets and the improvement of land.

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) : A measure of the economic activity produced by a country or region.

Gross Capital Formation (GCF) : The sum of the value of gross fixed capital formation, changes in inventories and acquisitions less disposals of valuables for a unit or sector.

Government revenue : The money government receives from taxation, plus non-tax revenues such as money from government-owned firms.

Government expenditure : Spending by national and local government and some government-backed institutions.

Government debt :The accumulated borrowing of central and local government.

Gilt-edged securities (shortened to gilts) : Bonds issued by the UK government. These assets usually offer a low but certain return. Gilts are equivalent to US Treasuries and German Bunds.

GDP(O), GDP(E), GDP(I) : These are 3 different methods of calculating gross domestic product (GDP) – a measure of economic activity. In theory, these 3 measures should equal each other. GDP(O) is the sum of all production activity with the economy (the output approach), as estimated using gross value added (GVA). GDP(E) is the sum of all final expenditures by the economy (the expenditure approach). GDP(I) is the sum of all income generated by production within the economy (the income approach).

Full employment : A state of the labour market in which everyone who is willing and able to work at the current wage rate is in employment, excluding those who are frictionally unemployed.

Frictional unemployment : The number of people who are classed as unemployed while they are moving between jobs.

Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) : Investment by firms in another country. Outward FDI is investment by UK-based firms overseas. Inward FDI is investment by overseas firms in the UK. This is usually achieved through the purchase of a different firm or the establishment of new operations.

Fiscal policy : Taxation and spending measures that allow the government to guide the economy.

Financial Intermediation Services Indirectly Measured (FISIM) : This represents the implicit charge for the service provided by monetary financial institutions paid for by the interest differential between borrowing and lending rather than through fees and commissions.

Final consumption expenditure : The expenditure on those goods and services used for the direct satisfaction of individual or collective needs, as distinct from their purchase for use in business processes.

Factory gate prices : Also known as output prices, these are the prices of goods sold by UK manufacturers. They include costs such as labour, raw materials and energy, as well as costs such as interest on loans, site maintenance or rent.

Exports : Goods or services sold to agents in other countries; the opposite of imports.

Exchange rate : The value of one currency in terms of a second currency.

European System of Accounts (ESA) : An integrated system of economic accounts. The United Kingdom National Accounts have been based on ESA 1995 since September 1998.

European Central Bank (ECB): The central bank for the economies that are using the Euro currency, responsible for conducting monetary policy in the euro area.

Euro area : The group of European countries that have officially adopted the euro (€) as their currency.

Economics : The study of the allocation of scarce resources to satisfy individual and collective wants.

Dividend : A payment made to company shareholders from current or previously retained profits.

Disposable income : Household income after the deduction of taxes and the addition of benefits.

Direct taxation : Taxes on income, profits and wealth, paid directly by the bearer to the tax authorities.

Depreciation : A fall in the value of an asset or currency relative to another asset or currency.

Deflator (implied) : A series that shows changes in price and can be used to convert nominal values into “real” values, which are adjusted for the effects of inflation. An implied deflator is a series that shows the implied change in average prices for a variable by dividing the current price series by the real or volume series.

Deflation : A decline in the general price level in an economy, signified by an annual inflation rate below 0% (negative).

Deficit : Occurs when outward financial flows exceed inward financial flows. A “government deficit” occurs when expenditure exceeds the value of tax revenues and asset sales in a given period.

Debt : An obligation or liability to make a payment or a payment in kind.

Current price (CP) series : These series include the effects of inflation.

Current account : Details the UK’s trade in goods and services with the rest of the world, as well as current transfers and income flows in to and out of the UK from cross-border investments.

Cost-benefit analysis : The identification, measurement and comparison of the costs and benefits associated with a specific project or intervention to determine its net value.

Contagion : The transmission of an economic shock in one economy to other nearby or linked economies.

Consumption : Expenditure on goods and services designed to satisfy individual or collective wants, as distinct from their purchase for use in business processes.

Consumer Prices Index (CPI) : A measure of the price level in the economy based on the prices of a collection of goods that are designed to reflect the consumption basket of the average consumer.

Consumer prices : Prices offered to the public at the point of sale.

Constant Price (KP) series : These series have the effects of inflation removed by holding prices throughout the series at the level in a chosen base year (also known as “real terms” series).

Compensation of employees : Total remuneration payable to employees in cash or in kind, including the value of social contributions payable by the employer.

Claimant count : The total number of individuals claiming Job Seekers Allowance (JSA).

Chained Volume Measures (CVM) : These time series have the effects of inflation removed by considering changes in quantity between consecutive periods, holding prices from previous periods constant.

Central Bank : The national institution that oversees the monetary system, ensures the health of the financial system and acts as lender of last resort.

Blue Book : The familiar name of the ‘United Kingdom National Accounts’ produced annually by ONS. It contains estimates of Gross Domestic Product measured by the output, expenditure and income approaches.

Business cycle : The short-run fluctuations of output around its long-term trend.

Bond : A financial instrument that usually pays interest to the holder, issued by governments, companies and other institutions. Most bonds have a fixed date on which the borrower will repay the holder.