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| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Sales Tax | A tax imposed as a proportion of consumer spending on specified goods or services. Also known as a “value-added” tax. |
| Saving | The portion of income which is not spent on consumption. Saving can be undertaken by individuals and households, by businesses, or by governments. |
| Scarcity | Any situation in which people do not have enough resources to satisfy all of their wants. The phenomenon of scarcity is what creates the need for economics. |
| Sector | A portion or component of the larger economy, such as households, firms, or the government. |
| Securitization | A process in which financial relationships (such as loans) are converted into financial securities or assets (such as bonds) which can be bought and re-sold in securities markets. |
| Services | A form of output which consists of a function performed for one person by another – such as cooking and serving a meal, teaching a lecture, completing a telephone call, or delivering a package. Distinct from goods. |
| Shares | Financial assets which represent the ownership of a small proportion of the total equity (or net wealth) of a corporation. Shares can be bought and sold on a stock market. |
| Shift Work | Employment practice designed to make use of, or provide service across, all 24 hours of the clock each day of the week. Involves dividing the day into shifts during which different groups of workers perform their duties. |
| Short Run | All production in real time occurs in the short run. The decisions made by businesses tend to be focused on operational aspects, defined as specific decisions made to manage the day-to-day activities in the company. Increases and decreases in variable factors are the only things that can affect the output produced by firms in the short run. |
| Shortage | A situation in which the demand for a product or service exceeds its supply in a market. Opposite of an excess supply (surplus). |
| Short-Run Shutdown Condition | A situation in which a firm’s total revenues are less than its variable costs, and the firm is better off shutting down immediately and losing only its fixed costs. |
| Shrinkflation | The process of items shrinking in size or quantity, or reducing quality while maintaining the same price. Allows companies to increase profitability by reducing costs while maintaining sales volume. |
| Slavery | An economic system in which most work is performed by individuals who are forcibly compelled to work with no formal compensation, under the control of a slave-owning elite. |
| Social Behaviour | Behaviour among two or more organisms within the same species, affecting each other due to interaction. |
| Social Choice Theory | A theoretical framework analyzing the combination of individual opinions, preferences, interests, or welfares to reach a collective decision or social welfare. |
| Social Mobility | The movement of individuals, families, households, or other categories of people within or between social strata in a society. |
| Social-Democracy | A reformist political strategy aiming to improve social and economic conditions under capitalism without challenging fundamental precepts. |
| Socialism | An economic system in which most wealth is owned or controlled collectively, and markets are influenced or managed through regulation and planning. |
| Socialist Economics | Economic theories, practices, and norms of socialist economic systems characterized by social ownership and operation of the means of production. |
| Sociality | The degree to which individuals in an animal population tend to associate in social groups and form cooperative societies. |
| Socially Optimal Output Level | The output level that maximizes the benefits that society can get from its limited supply of resources. |
| Socioeconomics | The social science studying how economic activity affects and is shaped by social processes. |
| Sole Proprietorship | A business owned and operated by one person. |
| Speculation | The purchase of an asset with the hope that its market price will increase, allowing a profit on its resale. |
| Stagflation | A simultaneous economic phenomenon during which inflation and unemployment are both rising. |
| Standard Of Living | The level of income, comforts, and services available, applied to a society or location, contributing to an individual’s quality of life. |
| State Tax | Any tax paid to a state government, e.g., sales taxes, state income tax, and license plate fees. |
| Sticky Prices | Prices that are slow to adjust to shocks, causing recessions to linger. |
| Stock Market | A place where shares of joint-stock corporations are bought and sold, often facilitated through connected computer networks. |
| Stockholm School | A school of economic thought referring to a group of Swedish economists working together in Stockholm in the 1930s. |
| Structural Unemployment | Unemployment created due to a decrease in demand for the skills of a worker. |
| Structuralist Economics | A form of heterodox economics emphasizing the relationships between effective demand, income distribution, and political and economic power. |
| Structures | A form of fixed capital consisting of buildings and other large constructed assets. |
| Substitute Good | A product that can satisfy the utility of another. |
| Substitution Effect | When consumers react to an increase in a good’s price by consuming less of that good and more of other goods. |
| Sunk Costs | Costs that have already been incurred and cannot be recovered. |
| Supply | The total amount of a certain type of good that has been produced and is available. |
| Supply Chain | A system of organizations, people, activities, information, and resources involved in supplying a product or service to a consumer. |
| Supply Curve | A line on a graph representing how much of a good or service sellers are going to produce at various prices. |
| Supply Schedule | A chart listing how much of a good a supplier will offer at different prices. |
| Supply Shock | A sudden shortage of a good. |
| Supply-Constrained | An economy is supply-constrained when its total output is limited only by the supply of factors of production. Contrasts with a demand-constrained economy. |
| Supply-Side Economics | A macroeconomic theory postulating that economic growth can be fostered by lowering taxes, decreasing regulation, and allowing free trade. |
| Surplus | Any agent or sector in the economy experiences a surplus when its income exceeds its expenditure. |
| Surplus Economic | For the economy as a whole, the surplus equals the amount of production over and above what is required for the reproduction of the existing economic system. |
| Surplus Government | A government surplus exists when a government’s tax revenues exceed its total spending. |
| Sustainability | A condition in which the economy does not utilize more resources than can be replenished by the environment, and does not expel more pollution than can be absorbed without environmental deterioration. |
| Scarcity | The fundamental economic problem arising from the limited availability of resources compared to unlimited wants and needs. Requires choices about resource allocation. |
| Supply and Demand | The fundamental concept in economics describing the relationship between the quantity of a good or service supplied by producers and the quantity demanded by consumers, determining prices and quantities in a market. |
| Subsidy | Financial assistance provided by the government to individuals or businesses to encourage certain activities, industries, or behaviors. |
| Socialism | An economic and political system where the means of production, distribution, and exchange are owned or regulated by the community as a whole, aiming for a more equitable distribution of wealth and resources. |
| Surplus | The situation where the quantity supplied of a good or service exceeds the quantity demanded at a given price, often leading to price reductions. |
| Stock Market | A market where buyers and sellers trade shares of ownership in public companies, influencing the value of companies. |
| Speculation | The act of buying or selling assets with the expectation of making a profit from price changes, involving risk and uncertainty. |
| Stagflation | An economic condition characterized by a combination of stagnation (low economic growth) and inflation (rising prices), posing challenges for policymakers. |
| Supply-Side Economics | An economic theory emphasizing policies to stimulate economic growth by increasing the production (supply) of goods and services, often including tax cuts and deregulation. |
| Sunk Cost | A cost that has been incurred and cannot be recovered, irrelevant to future decision-making. |
| Secular Stagnation | A long-term period of slow economic growth, low investment, and persistently high unemployment, often caused by demographic changes or technological shifts. |
| Structural Unemployment | Unemployment resulting from a mismatch between the skills of workers and the requirements of available jobs, associated with changes in the economy’s structure. |
| Social Security | A government program providing financial support to individuals who are retired, disabled, or survivors of deceased workers, funded through payroll taxes. |
| Short Run | The period during which at least one factor of production is fixed, and firms can only adjust output by changing the quantity of variable inputs. Contrasts with the long run. |
| Supply Chain | The network of organizations and processes involved in producing and distributing goods and services, aiming to optimize efficiency and minimize costs. |
| Specialization | The focus on producing a limited range of goods or services in which an individual, firm, or country has a comparative advantage, leading to increased efficiency and trade. |
| Solvency | The ability of an individual, business, or government to meet its long-term financial obligations, crucial for financial stability. |
| Standard of Living | The level of material well-being, measured by factors such as income, housing, healthcare, and education, contributing to an individual’s overall prosperity. |
| Sales Tax | A consumption tax imposed on the sale of goods and services, typically collected by the seller and remitted to the government. |
| Supply Chain Management | The coordination and management of all activities involved in producing and delivering goods and services to consumers, aiming to maximize efficiency and minimize costs. |
| Sovereign Wealth Fund | A state-owned investment fund managing a country’s reserves, often derived from revenues generated by commodities or foreign exchange reserves. |
| Sustainable Development | Economic development that meets present needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs, balancing economic, social, and environmental considerations. |
| Securities | Financial instruments representing ownership (stocks) or debt (bonds) that can be bought or sold in financial markets. |
| Shadow Banking | Financial activities performed by non-bank financial institutions, such as hedge funds and money market funds, operating outside the traditional regulatory framework. |
| Subprime Mortgage | A mortgage loan extended to borrowers with a lower credit rating, often associated with higher interest rates, playing a role in the 2008 financial crisis. |