Economics

Economics

basics of economics

Contributors in Economics

Economics

The stalking-horse for international capitalism. A focus for all the worries about environmental damage, human-rights abuses and sweated labour that opponents of globalisation like to put on their ...

Bounded rationality

Economy; Economics

A theory of human decision making that assumes that people behave rationally, but only within the limits of the information available to them. Because their information may be inadequate (bounded) ...

Bonds

Economy; Economics

Gentlemen prefer bonds, punned Andrew Mellon, an American tycoon. A bond is an interest-bearing security issued by governments, companies and some other organizations. Bonds are an alternative way ...

Black-Scholes

Economy; Economics

A formula for pricing financial options. Its invention allowed a previously undreamed of precision in the pricing of options (which had hitherto been done using crude rules of thumb), and probably ...

Barriers to exit

Economy; Economics

How firms keep out competition--an important source of incumbent advantage. There are four main sorts of barriers. * A firm may own a crucial resource, such as an oil well, or it may have an ...

Big Mac index

Economy; Economics

The Big Mac index was devised by Pam Woodall of The Economist in 1986, as a light-hearted guide to whether currencies are at their "correct" level. It is based on one of the oldest concepts in ...

Beta

Economy; Economics

Part of an economic theory for valuing financial securities and calculating the cost of capital, known as the capital asset pricing model, beta measures the sensitivity of the price of a particular ...