E
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Econometrics | The application of statistical methods to economic data to provide empirical content to economic relationships, involving the quantitative analysis of actual economic phenomena based on the concurrent development of theory and observation. |
| Economic Costs | Total costs, including money spent on production and opportunity costs. |
| Economic Development | Broad improvement in the economic well-being or quality of life of a nation, region, or community, often as a consequence of economic growth. |
| Economic Efficiency | In microeconomics, a situation where nothing can be improved without something else being hurt, representing optimal resource use. |
| Economic Equilibrium | A situation in which economic forces such as supply and demand are balanced, leading to stable values of economic variables in the absence of external influences. |
| Economic Growth | An increase in the inflation-adjusted market value of goods and services produced by an economy over time, conventionally measured as the percent rate of increase in real GDP. |
| Economic Indicator | Measurable units of the economy providing insights into its overall health and performance, such as unemployment rate and gross domestic product. |
| Economic Interdependence | The necessary relationships between different sectors of the economy, where decisions and actions in one sector impact others. |
| Economic Model | A theoretical construct representing an economic process by variables and logical/quantitative relationships. It simplifies complex processes to illustrate them and may have various exogenous variables. |
| Economic Profits | Also called economic rent, any money collected by a firm above what is required to keep an entrepreneur interested in continuing business. |
| Economic Shortage | Also called excess demand, a situation where the demand for a particular good or service exceeds its supply within a market. |
| Economic Surplus | Also called excess supply, a situation where the supply of a good or service exceeds its demand within a market, often resulting from the current price being below economic equilibrium. |
| Economic System | Also called an economic order, a system of production, resource allocation, and distribution of goods and services within a society or geographic area. |
| Economics | The social science studying the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services within economies. |
| Economies of Agglomeration | Cost savings from urban agglomeration, where firms are located near each other, relating to economies of scale and network effects. |
| Economies of Scale | Cost advantages obtained from increased efficiency with a certain scale of operation, measured by output produced, leading to cost per unit of output decreasing with increasing scale. |
| Economies of Scope | Cost advantages obtained from increased efficiency through variety rather than volume, with cost per unit of output decreasing with increasing variety. |
| Economist | A practitioner in the discipline of economics. |
| Economy | An area of production, distribution, trade, and consumption of goods and services by different agents, defined broadly as a social domain emphasizing practices associated with the use and management of resources. |
| Effective Demand | The theory explaining why the capitalist economy is typically limited by the total amount of spending (demand-constrained), developed by Keynes and Kalecki. |
| Elastic Demand | Demand that is highly responsive to changes in price, resulting in a relatively large effect on the quantity demanded. Contrast with inelastic demand. |
| Elasticity | Measurement of the proportional change of an economic variable in response to a change in another, often interpreted as how easy it is for a supplier or consumer to change behavior and substitute another good. |
| Employment | A specific form of work in which a worker performs labor for someone else in return for a wage or salary. |
| Employment Rate | The share of working-age adults actually employed in a paying position, often a better indicator of labor market strength than the unemployment rate. |
| Enclosures | A historic process in early capitalism where lands formerly held in common were fenced off, creating a landless class compelled to work in industrial factories. |
| Engineering Economics | Previously known as engineering economy, a subset of economics concerned with the use and application of economic principles in the analysis of engineering decisions. |
| Entrepreneurship | The efforts by an entrepreneur in organizing resources for creating something new or taking risks to create innovations and production. |
| Environment | The natural environment’s influence on the economy, providing ecological benefits, natural resources as inputs to production, and dealing with waste and pollution created by economic activities. |
| Environmental Economics | A sub-field of economics concerned particularly with environmental issues. |
| Environmental Taxes | Taxes imposed on specific activities or products considered environmentally damaging to change economic behavior and reduce pollution. |
| Equal Opportunity | A state of fairness in job applications, treating applicants similarly, unhampered by artificial barriers or prejudices, except when distinctions can be explicitly justified. |
| Equilibrium | The point at which quantity demanded equals quantity supplied, leading to satisfaction for both consumer and producer. |
| Equilibrium Price | The market price at which both supplier and consumer will trade and be satisfied. |
| Equity | The proportion of a company’s total assets owned outright by the company’s owners, equal to its value less debt owed to lenders. |
| Excess Supply | Also called economic surplus, a situation where the quantity supplied is more than the quantity demanded, resulting in a price above equilibrium. Opposite of economic shortage. |
| Exchange Rate | The rate at which one currency can be exchanged for another in the foreign exchange market. A country’s currency is strong or has a high exchange rate if it can purchase more of another country’s currency. A country’s currency appreciates when its value grows. |
| Excludability | The degree to which a good, service, or resource can be limited to paying customers, preventing “free” consumption. |
| Expected Utility Hypothesis | A concept in economics guiding decisions in uncertain situations based on risk appetite and preferences. |
| Expeditionary Economics | An emerging field focusing on rebuilding economies in post-conflict and disaster-struck nations, emphasizing economic planning and structuring new firms. |
| Experimental Economics | The application of experimental methods to study economic questions, using experiments to estimate effect size, test theories, and illuminate market mechanisms. |
| Exports | The sale of a product from one country to a purchaser in another country. |
| Externality | A cost or benefit falling on others, not directly involved in an activity, and can be positive or negative. |