aggregate supply
The total supply of all the goods and services in an economy. J. M. Keynes made aggregate demand the focus of macroeconomics; however, since the 1970s many economists have questioned the importance ...
Agricultural Experiment Stations.
By the 1880s, industrialization and urbanization in America were generating increasing demands for farm products, while the plains and western states were producing surpluses for a developing ...
backward-sloping supply curve for labour
The preference for increased leisure over increased remuneration. Thus, when wage incentives are offered to improve productivity, labourers respond by working shorter hours to earn the same money ...
biomass
The total mass of all the organisms of a given type and/or in a given area; for example, the world biomass of trees, or the biomass of elephants in the Serengeti National Park. It is normally ...
ecological efficiency
The ratio between the energy assimilated at one trophic level and that assimilated at the immediately preceding level, usually expressed as a percentage; i.e. (A2/A1)×100, where A1 is the lower ...
economic Development
An economic transformation of a country or a region that leads to the improvement of the well-being and economic capabilities of its residents.
energy flow
(in ecology)The flow of energy that occurs along a food chain. Energy enters the food chain at the level of the producers (usually plants) in the form of solar energy. The plants convert solar energy ...
factor productivity
The output of a plant, a firm, or an industry per unit of factor input. The factor concerned may be a particular factor only, such as labour or land. Productivity is often used to mean labour ...
factory system
The ‘factory system’ has been an important element in the accelerating processes of industrialization known as the industrial revolution. As British industrial enterprises expanded in the 18th cent., ...
Foreign Trade, U.S.
Trade and commerce have had a formative influence on America from the Colonial Era onward. The British colonial system embraced the doctrines of mercantilism, with its closely regulated trade, ...
Global Economy
Commercial interactions on a global scale have been an important feature of the growth of the capitalist system for half a millennium. Patterns of trade as much as three or ...
Hawthorne studies
Research conducted in the 1920s and 1930s at the Western Electric Company's Hawthorne plant in Chicago. The programme set out to explore the effects of physical working conditions on employee ...
human capital
The present discounted value of the additional productivity, over and above the product of unskilled labour, of people with skills and qualifications. Human capital may be acquired through explicit ...
incentive payments
Payment by results: any method—such as individual piecework—of paying workers above a basic minimum and in relation to their output or productivity. Schemes may apply to individuals, small groups, or ...
industrialism
Both words denote the transition in methods of production which has been responsible for the vastly increased wealth-creating capacity of modern societies compared with traditional systems. It should ...
informal-sector theories
This is the dominant paradigm in use for explaining poverty and inequality in Third World cities. There have been many versions since its first formulation in 1971, but most focus on differences in ...
justice, social
Arguments about justice feature not only in sociology, but also in philosophy, political science, social policy, psychology, and of course law itself. Justice is a central moral standard in social ...
land reclamation
The process of creating new dry land (for example from the sea‐bed), or of restoring productivity to land that has been damaged (for example by erosion or mining activities). See also reclamation.
leisure
Time spent not working. In many economic models leisure is regarded as a consumption good from which utility is derived. The measurement of leisure raises questions about whether time spent ...
