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42 terms were found starting with the letter c.

Cairns Group
A group of countries formed in 1986 in Cairns, Australia, that seeks the removal of trade barriers and substantial reductions in subsidies affecting agricultural trade. The Cairns Group was a strong coalition in the Uruguay Round of multilateral trade negotiations.
Capital
Tangible investment goods such as plant and equipment, machinery, and buildings. Often referred to as physical capital in order to distinguish it from human capital.
Capital Account
The part of a country’s balance of payments ledger showing inflows of private investment from other countries, outflows of private investment to other countries, and inflows and outflows of government grants and loans. See also current account.
Capital Accumulation
Increasing a country’s capital stock through investment above and beyond capital lost due to depreciation.
Capital Flight
When worried private investors liquidate whatever capital they can and move it out of a country into safer havens where there is less risk of loss.
Capital Market
The market for buying and selling long-term loanable funds such as bonds and mortgages. The market for short-term funds is typically referred to as the money market.
Capital Stock
The total amount of tangible investment goods such as plant and equipment, machinery, and buildings.
Capital-Augmenting Technical Change
Technical change that increases output by raising the productivity of capital. For example, more powerful or more reliable farm machinery could be interpreted as capital-augmenting technical change.
Capitalism
An economic system in which most of the economy’s resources are privately owned and managed.
Carbon Sink
A forest or other natural area that absorbs carbon dioxide.
Carbon Tax
A tax on products that emit greenhouse gases, levied in proportion to their content of carbon and other greenhouse gases.
Cartel
A group of firms or countries that explicitly agree to set prices and/or limit output in order to raise profits. OPEC (the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) is an example of a cartel.
Cash Crop
A crop produced entirely or almost entirely for sale on the market rather than for home consumption. See also subsistence crop.
Ceiling Binding
In cases where an existing tariff was not already bound, developing countries were allowed to establish ceiling bindings. These ceiling bindings could result in tariffs that were higher than the existing applied rate. The ceiling bindings took effect on the first day of the implementation of the Agreement on Agriculture.
CIF (Cost + Insurance + Freight)
When the selling price of a good includes transportation costs (freight, insurance), so that the buyer does not have to pay for those costs separately. The risk of loss or damage to the goods in transport is borne by the seller or the seller’s insurance company.
Climate Change
A long-term change in atmospheric and/or ocean conditions due to natural or human activity. Climate change is sometimes used synonymously with the term global warming, but climate change is a broader term because it includes natural changes in climate.
Closed Economy
An economy in which there are no trade or investment activities with the rest of the world.
Club Good
A good that is excludable but nonrival. A good is excludable if it is possible to prevent someone from consuming that good once it has been made available to the public. A good is nonrival if one person’s consumption of that good does not reduce the quantity available for consumption by someone else.
Coase Theorem
States that, in the presence of an externality, a Pareto-optimal outcome for dealing with the externality will result through the market – no government action required – as long as transaction costs are negligible. Also states that, under these conditions, the initial assignment of property rights will have no impact on the Pareto-optimal outcome.
Codex Alimentarius Commission (CODEX)
A world body that develops food standards, guidelines, and codes of practice. The main purposes of CODEX are to protect the health of consumers, ensure fair trade practices in food trade, and promote coordination in food standards among countries.
Commodity
An article of trade or commerce. Often used to denote goods that are relatively homogenous (e.g., corn).
Common Market
Involves free trade not only in goods and services between member countries, but also unrestricted movement of labor and capital. Usually implies common policies and a progressive reduction of non-tariff barriers. (i.e., rules, regulations, standards, and specifications become harmonized between member countries).
Common Property Resource
A resource where the rights of use are communally shared and ownership is not private but communal.
Comparative Advantage
The ability of one country to produce a some given quantity of a good or service a lower opportunity cost than another country, taking into account the fact that resources used in the production of one good or service are no longer available for use in the production of other goods and services.
Constant Returns to Scale
A situation in which a 1% increase in all inputs into production leads to exactly a 1% increase in output.
Constant Returns to Size
A situation in which an increase in output does not lead to any change in the average total cost of production.
Consumer Support (Subsidy) Estimate
Indicator of the annual monetary value of gross transfers to consumers arising from government policies directed toward producers in a particular sector (e.g., agriculture). Is negative if policies transfer income away from consumers toward producers.
Consumer Surplus
A measure of the benefits to consumers from the consumption of a good or service. Defined as the area below the demand curve up to the total quantity consumed, minus total expenditures on the good or service.
Contagion
Occurs when a financial crisis in one country spills over into other countries.
Cost Minimization
Using inputs into production so as to produce any given level of output at the lowest possible total cost. Unlike the profit maximization criterion, the cost minimization criterion does not ask what level of output a firm should choose, only how it should choose inputs given the level of output it has chosen.
Cost-Benefit Analysis
An economic technique in which anticipated private and social costs of a proposed investment, public policy or other activity are weighted against anticipated private and social benefits from the proposed activity.
Cost-Effectiveness
A criterion for evaluating a program or public policy. A program or policy is cost-effective if it attains its objectives at the lowest possible social cost. Unlike economic efficiency, the cost-effectiveness criterion does not ask if the objectives are socially desirable.
Counterfactual
In economics, a “what if?” analysis. Used to think about how an economy might be different if one or more underlying conditions or public policies were different.
Countervailing Duty
An additional levy imposed on imported goods to offset subsidies provided to producers or exporters by the government of the exporting country, permitted under Article VI of the GATT.
Country Schedules
The official schedules of subsidy commitments and tariff bindings as agreed to under GATT for member countries.
Cournot Model
An oligopoly model in which firms assume that their competitors’ outputs are fixed, and in which they simultaneously decide how much to produce.
Crawling Peg
An official exchange rate system under which the government devalues the currency by a small amount on a weekly, daily or even more frequent basis.
Cross-Price Elasticity of Demand
The percentage change in the consumption of some good or service in response to a 1% increase in the price of some other good or service.
Crowding Out
When private economic activity is displaced by public economic activity (e.g., when government borrowing reduces investment funds available to private sector borrowers).
Crude Birth Rate
The number of children born alive in a given year per 1,000 population.
Current Account
The part of a country’s balance of payments ledger showing exports of goods and services to other countries, and imports of goods and services from other countries.
Customs Union
A union of countries in which free trade exists between member nations and external tariffs may be erected against all outside countries. The tariffs may be different for different goods and applied to some countries and not others, but the trade policy with respect to all external countries is consistent throughout member countries.