“Asymmetric information” is a term that refers to a situation where one party in a transaction has more information than the other.
In some transactions, sellers can take advantage of buyers because there is asymmetric information, whereby the seller knows more about the item being sold than the buyer. The reverse may also be true.
Asymmetric information is seen as a desirable result of a healthy market economy in terms of skilled labor, where workers specialize in one occupation, become more productive and benefit workers in other occupations.
An economist is an expert who studies the relationship between a society’s resources and its production or output, using a number of different indicators to predict future trends.
An absolute advantage is when a manufacturer can provide a greater quantity of a product or service for the same price or the same quantity at a lower price than its competitors.
Animal spirits come from the Latin spiritus animalis: “breath that awakens the human mind.” It was introduced by the British economist John Maynard Keynes in 1936.
Autarky refers to a state of self-sufficiency and is commonly used to describe countries or economies that seek to reduce their dependence on international trade.
Automatic Stabilizers is a permanent government policy that automatically adjusts tax rates and transfers payments in a way that stabilizes income, consumption, and business spending over the business cycle.
The balance of trade (BOT) is the difference between the value of a country’s imports and exports over a given period and is the largest component of a country’s balance of payments (BOP).
“Best Effort” is a legal term that represents the obligation of a party to a contract to take all possible steps to fulfill the terms of the agreement.
Black Monday refers to the stock market crash that occurred on October 19, 1987, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost almost 22% in one day, causing the global stock market to crash.