E

Posted on by

34 terms were found starting with the letter e.

Econometrics
The application of statistical tools and techniques to economic issues and economic data.
Economic Development
The process of improving the quality of human life through increasing per capita income, reducing poverty, and enhancing individual economic opportunities. It is also sometimes defined to include better education, improved health and nutrition, conservation of natural resources, a cleaner environment, and a richer cultural life.
Economic Efficiency
A criterion for evaluating a program or public policy. A program or policy is economically efficient if, among the possible alternative programs or policies, it has the largest excess of social benefits over social costs.
Economic Growth
The process of increasing per capita income.
Economic Model
A diagrammatic, mathematical, written or verbal representation of an entire economy (a general equilibrium model) or part of an economy (a partial equilibrium model). Economic models can range in complexity from a simple supply-demand diagram to a computer-based model containing thousands of equations.
Economic Profit
A firm’s profit over and above the profit that would provide the firm’s owners with a competitive rate of return on the capital they invested in the firm. May be positive, zero, or negative.
Economic Rent
The income received by owners of a resource (e.g., land) over and above the minimum income they would require in order to be willing to make the resource available for use.
Economies of Scale
A situation in which a 1% increase in all inputs into production leads to more than a 1% increase in output.
Economies of Size
A situation in which an increase in output leads to a decrease in the average total cost of production.
Ecosystem
All the organisms in a particular region and the environment in which they live. The elements of an ecosystem interact with each other in some way, and so depend on each other either directly or indirectly.
Effective Exchange Rate
The domestic market price of a good divided by its border price – in other words, the exchange rate actually paid on a given good.
Effective Protection Coefficient/Effective Rate of Protection (EPC, ERP)
The degree of protection given to domestic producers of a good by tariffs and other restrictions on imports. Equal to the percentage amount by which domestic value added per unit of that good exceeds what it would be in the absence of import restrictions.
Elasticity
The percentage change in one economic variable in response to a 1% change in some other economic variable.
Elasticity of Demand
Usually refers to the own-price elasticity of demand, which is the percentage change in the consumption of some good or service in response to a 1% increase in the price of that good or service.
Embargo
A prohibition on imports of a specific good or all goods from a specific country.
Endogenous Growth
Economic growth generated by forces within an economic model as opposed to forces acting from outside on that model. Typically refers to treating accumulation of human capital and technical change as endogenous to an economic model as opposed to exogenous to the model.
Entitlements
As used in the literature on poverty and hunger, refers to the legal right to own, use or sell some good or service. Includes trade-based entitlements (your right to own goods obtained through trade with a willing party), production-based entitlements (your right to own what you produce yourself), own-labor entitlements (your right to the fruits of your own labor), and inheritance and transfer entitlements (your right to goods willingly given to you by others).
Environmental Capital
The stock of natural resources and environmental assets. Includes water, soils, air, flora, fauna, minerals, and other natural resources.
Environmental Kuznets Curve
An “inverted U” relationship between a country’s per capita income and some measure of environmental degradation. Environmental degradation first worsens during the course of economic growth and then later improves.
Environment-Constant Tradeoff Curve
In the case of production, a curve showing the possible alternative combinations of two goods (for example, agricultural and nonagricultural goods) that an economy can produce while holding constant the total economic costs of environmental externalities from production in the two sectors. Defined similarly in the case of consumption.
Equality Under the Law
A legal environment in which a person’s legal rights and responsibilities as a citizen do not depend on the economic status, ethnicity, gender, political status, race, or social status of that person, that person’s relatives, or that person’s friends and associates.
Equilibrium Exchange Rate
The exchange rate at which a country’s supply of hard currency earned through exports, foreign investment and foreign aid is equal to its demand for hard currency needed in order to pay for imports.
European Community (EC)
An economic federation of European countries that was superseded in 1993 by the European Union.
European Free Trade Association (EFTA)
An international organization with four member countries: Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland. The purpose of EFTA is to monitor and manage relationships among the EFTA states.
European Union (EU)
An economic federation of 15 European countries created in 1993 in which there is free movement of goods, services, capital and labor across member countries. The EU has a variety of programs funded by member countries. It also coordinates economic, social and environmental policies across member countries.
Eutrophication
The fertilization of surface waters by nutrients that were previously scarce. Eutrophication through nutrient and sediment inflow is a natural aging process by which warm shallow lakes evolve to dry land. In many cases human activities are greatly accelerating the process. The most visible consequence of eutrophication is proliferation of algae.
Exchange Rate
The rate at which a bank or other financial intermediary will exchange one country’s currency for another. Often expressed in units of the domestic currency per U.S. dollar – for example, 10 Mexican pesos per U.S. dollar.
Exhaustible Resource
A resource whose total stock is fixed or whose rate of regeneration is so small relative to consumption that it can for all practical purposes be regarded as fixed.
Existence Value
An economic value placed on an environmental or natural resource above and beyond any value that might be derived from the actual use of the resource or from the value of preserving the option of future use.
Export Credit Guarantee
A government sponsored credit guarantee for commercial financing of exports, often to protect a country’s exporters against potential loss due to non-payment by foreign buyers.
Export Subsidy
A government payment made to an exporter for the purpose of facilitating exports. In Europe, this is often called an export restitution.
External Debt
The total private and public debt owed by a country to individuals, households, firms, and governments in other countries.
Externality
Any benefit or cost imposed by an individual, household or firm on another individual, household or firm for which no compensation is paid or received.
Extreme Poverty
A situation in which a person or household lacks the resources to consume a certain minimum amount of food judged to be necessary for adequate nutrition, even in the case when all resources are devoted to food.