Lebanese Baccalaureate - Economics & Sociology (SE) flashcards

35 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Law of Demand

Other things equal, the quantity demanded of a good falls as its price rises; this inverse relationship gives the demand curve its downward slope.

Price Elasticity of Demand

The percentage change in quantity demanded divided by the percentage change in price; values above one in absolute value indicate elastic demand.

Marginal Utility

The additional satisfaction gained from consuming one more unit of a good; it typically declines as consumption increases, illustrating diminishing marginal utility.

Market Equilibrium

The price at which quantity demanded equals quantity supplied, so there is neither shortage nor surplus and the market clears.

Perfect Competition

A market with many small price-taking firms, a homogeneous product, perfect information and free entry and exit, yielding zero long-run economic profit.

Monopoly

A market with a single seller protected by barriers to entry; the firm is a price maker and restricts output to raise price above competitive levels.

Oligopoly

A market dominated by a few interdependent firms whose pricing and output decisions depend on rivals' expected reactions, often producing price rigidity.

Limited Liability

A feature of limited companies whereby shareholders can lose only the capital they invested, not their personal assets, for company debts.

Gross Domestic Product

The total market value of final goods and services produced within a country's borders during a given period, usually a year.

Spending Multiplier

The ratio of the change in equilibrium income to the initial change in autonomous spending; equal to one divided by one minus the marginal propensity to consume.

Marginal Propensity to Consume

The fraction of each additional unit of disposable income that households spend on consumption rather than saving.

Real GDP

GDP valued at constant base-year prices, removing the effect of price changes so that output growth can be measured accurately.

Money Multiplier

The maximum amount of new deposits the banking system can create from each unit of reserves, approximately the inverse of the reserve ratio.

Demand-Pull Inflation

A sustained rise in the general price level caused by aggregate demand growing faster than the economy's capacity to produce output.

Open-Market Operations

Central bank purchases or sales of government securities that inject or withdraw bank reserves, thereby influencing interest rates and money supply.

Fisher Relation

The real interest rate approximately equals the nominal interest rate minus the expected inflation rate, linking nominal and real returns.

Progressive Tax

A tax whose average rate rises as the taxpayer's income increases, so higher-income earners pay a larger share of their income.

Budget Deficit

The amount by which government expenditure exceeds government revenue in a given year, financed by borrowing or other sources.

Fiscal Policy

The use of government spending and taxation to influence aggregate demand, output, employment and the distribution of income.

Laffer Curve

A curve showing that tax revenue initially rises with the tax rate, reaches a maximum, then falls as high rates discourage work and compliance.

Comparative Advantage

The ability of a country to produce a good at a lower opportunity cost than another country, forming the basis for mutually beneficial trade.

Balance of Payments

A systematic record of all economic transactions between residents of a country and the rest of the world in a given period.

Currency Depreciation

A fall in the value of one currency against another under market forces, making exports cheaper and imports more expensive abroad.

Customs Union

An economic integration arrangement in which member countries remove internal tariffs and adopt a common external tariff on imports from non-members.

Unemployment Rate

The number of unemployed persons expressed as a percentage of the labour force, where the labour force comprises the employed plus the unemployed.

Gini Coefficient

A measure of income inequality ranging from zero (perfect equality) to one (perfect inequality), derived from the Lorenz curve.

Structural Unemployment

Unemployment caused by a mismatch between workers' skills or location and the requirements of available jobs, often due to technological or industrial change.

Human Development Index

A composite index combining life expectancy, education and income per capita to measure average well-being beyond GDP alone.

Social Fact

Durkheim's term for external, coercive patterns of behaviour, belief and feeling that exist in a society independently of individual will.

Anomie

A condition of normlessness in which social standards lose their hold on individuals, producing disorientation and deviant behaviour.

Participant Observation

A qualitative research method in which the researcher joins a social group and observes its activities from within to understand meanings.

Social Mobility

The movement of individuals or groups between social positions; vertical mobility changes rank while horizontal mobility changes position without rank change.

Cultural Capital

Bourdieu's concept for knowledge, tastes, qualifications and manners acquired through socialisation that confer advantage in education and the labour market.

Demographic Transition

A model describing the shift from high birth and death rates to low ones as a society modernises, with rapid growth in the intermediate stage.

Push and Pull Factors

Circumstances that drive people away from a place (push), such as conflict or unemployment, or attract them to another (pull), such as jobs or security.