Data limitations
Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco
Definition: In stabilization policy, refers to two scenarios: 1) quantitative factual information or data that is only available after the event (e.g., unemployment figures for last month); 2) the raw information that is adjusted for seasonal variations or changes in prices; therefore, data may not accurately measure the activity.
Day trade
Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland
Definition: Also known as a ”daylight trade.” The purchase and sale or the short sale and cover of the same security in a margin account on the same day.
Daylight trade
Related Term(s): Day trade
Deadweight loss
Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland
Definition: The value of the real resource cost resulting from some type of market inefficiency. Such inefficiencies can be government induced. For example, taxes (including seigniorage) result in some wasted resources. See also seigniorage.
Related Term(s): Seigniorage
Debit card
Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland
Definition: A card that resembles a credit card but which debits a transaction account (checking account) with the transfers occurring contemporaneously with the customer’s purchases. A debit card may be machine readable, allowing for the activation of an automated teller machine or other automated payments equipment.
Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis
Definition: A card that resembles a credit card but which debits a transaction account (checking account) with the transfers occurring contemporaneously with the customer’s purchases. A debit card may be machine readable, allowing for the activation of an automated teller machine or other automated payments equipment.
Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco
Definition: A card that resembles a credit card but which debits a transaction account (checking account) with the transfers occurring contemporaneously with the customer’s purchases. A debit card may be machine readable, allowing for the activation of an automated teller machine or other automated payments equipment.
Debt
Definition: The total value of outstanding securities issued by the federal government is referred to as federal debt or gross debt. It has two components: debt held by the public (federal debt held by nonfederal investors, including the Federal Reserve System) and debt held by government accounts (federal debt held by federal government trust funds, deposit insurance funds, and other federal accounts). Debt subject to limit is federal debt that is subject to a statutory limit on its issuance. The current limit applies to almost all gross debt, except a small portion of the debt issued by the Department of the Treasury and the small amount of debt issued by other federal agencies (primarily the Tennessee Valley Authority and the Postal Service). Unavailable debt is debt that is not available for redemption, or the amount of debt that would remain outstanding even if surpluses were large enough to redeem it. Such debt includes securities that have not yet matured (and will be unavailable for repurchase) and nonmarketable securities, such as savings bonds.
Debt held by government accounts
Office of Management and Budget
Definition: Debt Held by Government Accounts—The debt Treasury owes to other accounts within the federal government. Most of it results from the surpluses of the Social Security and other trust funds, which are required by law to be invested in federal securities.
Related Term(s): Debt held by government accounts, Debt limit
Debt held by the public
Citizen’s Guide to the Federal Budget
Definition: Debt held by the public is the total of all Federal deficits, minus surplus, over the years. This is the cumulative amount of money the Federal Government has borrowed from the public, through the sale of notes and bonds of varying sizes and time periods until maturity.
Related Term(s): Federal debt
Debt limit
Office of Management and Budget
Definition: Debt Limit—The maximum amount of federal debt that may legally be outstanding at any time. It includes both the debt held by the public and the debt held by government accounts. When the debt limit is reached, the government cannot borrow more money until the Congress has enacted a law to increase the limit.
Related Term(s): Debt held by government accounts, Debt limit
Debt service
Citizen’s Guide to the Federal Budget
Definition: Debt subject to legal limit, which is roughly the same as gross Federal debt, is the maximum amount of Federal securities that may be legally outstanding at any time. When the limit is reached, the President and Congress must enact a law to increase it.
Related Term(s): Federal debt
Citizen’s Guide to the Federal Budget
Definition: Debt the Government owes itself is the total of all trust fund surpluses over the years, like the Social Security surplus, that the law says must be invested in Federal securities.
Related Term(s): Federal debt
SSI Annual Statistical Report, 2002
Definition: Counting part of the income and resources of certain persons who live with an SSI recipient when determining the amount of the payment. These persons include the ineligible spouses of adult recipients, the ineligible parents of child recipients under age 18, and the immigration sponsor for certain noncitizens.
Internal Revenue Service (IRS)
Definition: The result of the government taking in less money than it spends.
Office of Management and Budget
Definition: A deficit is the amount by which outlays exceed receipts in a fiscal year.
Definition: The amount by which the federal government’s total outlays exceed its total revenues in a given period, typically a fiscal year. See also outlays and revenues; compare with surplus.
Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)
Definition: A retirement plan that uses a specific predetermined formula to calculate the amount of an employee’s future benefit. In the private sector, defined benefit plans are typically funded exclusively by employer contributions. In the public sector, defined benefit plans often require employee contributions.
Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA)
Definition: A defined contribution plan is a type of retirement plan in which the amount of the employer’s annual contribution is specified. Individual accounts are set up for participants and benefits are based on the amounts credited to these accounts (through employer contributions and, if applicable, employee contributions), plus any investment earnings on the money in the account.
Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)
Definition: A value that allows data to be measured over time in terms of some base period, or, in more obscure terms, an implicit or explicit price index used to distinguish between those changes in the money value of gross national product which result from a change in prices and those which result from a change in physical output. The import and export price indexes produced by the International Price Program are used as deflators in the U.S. national accounts. For example, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) consists of Consumption Expenditures+ Net Investment + Government Expenditures + Exports – Imports. Various price indexes are used to ”deflate” each component of the GDP in order to make the GDP figures comparable over time. Import price indexes are used to deflate the Import component (i.e. Import Volume is divided by the Import Price index) and the Export price indexes are used to deflate the Export component (i.e. Export Volume is divided by the Export Price index).
Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland
Definition: A deposit payable on demand, or a time deposit with a maturity period or required notice period of less than 14 days, on which the depository institution does not reserve the right to require at least 14 days written notice of intended withdrawal. Commonly takes the form of a checking account.
Internal Revenue Servfgice (IRS)
Definition: A person, other than the taxpayer or spouse, who entitles the taxpayer to claim a dependency exemption.
Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco
Definition: Maximum interest rates that can be paid on savings and time deposits at federally insured commercial banks, mutual savings banks, savings and loan associations, and credit unions. Ceilings on credit union deposits are established by the Depository Institutions Deregulation Committee (DIDC). By law, deposit interest rate ceilings were phased out over a six-year period, ending in 1986 under the oversight of the DIDC.
Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis
Definition: A financial institution that obtains its funds mainly through deposits from the public. This includes commercial banks, savings and loan associations, savings banks and credit unions. Although historically they have specialized in certain types of credit, nonbank depository institutions have broadened their powers in recent years. For example, NOW accounts, credit union share drafts and other services similar to checking accounts may be offered by thrift institutions.
Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco
Definition: A financial institution that obtains its funds mainly through deposits from the public. This includes commercial banks, savings and loan associations, savings banks, and credit unions. Although historically they have specialized in certain types of credit, the powers of nonbank depository institutions have been broadened in recent years. For example, NOW accounts, credit union share drafts, and other services similar to checking accounts may be offered by thrift institutions.
Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco
Definition: The Committee responsible for the orderly phase-out over a six-year period of interest rate ceilings on time and savings accounts at depository institutions. Voting members of the DIDC are the Secretary of the Treasury and the chairmen of the Federal Reserve Board, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Federal Home Loan Bank Board, and National Credit Union Administration Board. The Comptroller of the Currency serves as a non-voting member.
Definition: Decline in the value of a currency, financial asset, or capital good. When applied to a capital good, depreciation usually refers to loss of value because of obsolescence, wear, or destruction (as by fire or flood). Book depreciation (also known as tax depreciation) is the depreciation that the tax code allows businesses to deduct when they calculate their taxable profits. It is typically faster than economic depreciation, which represents the actual decline in the value of the asset. Both measures of depreciation appear as part of the national income and product accounts. See also book profits and national income and product accounts.
Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco
Definition: The trading desk at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York through which open market purchases and sales of government and federal agency securities are made. The desk maintains direct telephone communication with major government securities dealers. A ‘foreign desk’ at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York conducts transactions in the foreign exchange market.
Related Term(s): The desk
Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland
Definition: The trading desk at the New York Federal Reserve Bank, through which open market purchases and sales of government and federal agency securities are made. The desk maintains direct telephone communication with major government securities dealers. A ”foreign desk” at the New York Federal Reserve Bank conducts transactions in the foreign exchange market.
Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland
Definition: A situation in which there is a unique solution to the general-equilibrium model. See also indeterminate/indeterminacy.
Related Term(s): General-equilibrium model, Indeterminate/ Indeterminacy
Definition: The act of a government to lower the fixed exchange rate of its currency. The government implements a devaluation by announcing that it will no longer maintain the existing rate by buying and selling its currency at that rate. See also exchange rate.
Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland
Definition: A deliberate downward adjustment in the official exchange rate established, or pegged, by a government against a specified standard, such as another currency or gold.
Related Term(s): Exchange rate
SSI Annual Statistical Report, 2002
Definition: Classification of impairments, by body system, that identifies the medical condition(s) on which disability-related benefits are based. Before 1985, the coding of the primary and secondary diagnoses for Social Security and Supplemental Security Income applicants was in accordance with the International Classification of Diseases: Clinical Modification 4th ed., 9th rev., using 4-digit ICD-9 codes. In 1985, the Social Security Administration (SSA) implemented a revised method to determine and enter impairment codes in administrative records. This revised approach provides for a modified impairment coding system, generally using 3 digits (followed by zero), loosely based on the ICD-9 codes. For research purposes, the ICD-9 codes and SSA impairment codes may not be identical. However, the diagnostic groupings shown in the statistical tables closely parallel the major ICD-9 disease classifications.
Internal Revenue Service (IRS)
Definition: This allows tax refunds to be deposited directly to the taxpayer’s bank account. Direct Deposit is a fast, simple, safe, secure way to get a tax refund. The taxpayer must have an established checking or savings account to qualify for Direct Deposit. A bank or financial institution will supply the required account and routing transit numbers to the taxpayer for Direct Deposit.
Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA)
Definition: Investment in which a resident of one country obtains a lasting interest in, and a degree of influence over, the management of a business enterprise in another country. In the United States, the criterion used to distinguish direct investment from other types of investment is ownership of at least 10 percent of the voting securities of an incorporated business enterprise or an equivalent ownership interest of an unincorporated business enterprise.
Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA)
Definition: Funds that parent companies provide to their affiliates net of funds that affiliates provide to their parents. For U.S. direct investment abroad, capital flows also include funds that U.S. direct investors pay to unaffiliated foreign residents when foreign affiliates are acquired and funds that U.S. investors receive from them when foreign affiliates are sold. Similarly, for foreign direct investment in the United States, capital flows include funds that foreign direct investors pay to unaffiliated U.S. residents when U.S. affiliates are acquired and funds that foreign direct investors receive from them when U.S. affiliates are sold. Foreign direct investment in the United States capital flows also include debt and equity transactions between U.S. affiliates and members of their foreign parent groups other than their foreign parents. Direct investment capital flows consist of equity capital flows, intercompany debt, and reinvested earnings. Direct investment capital flows are components of the financial account (international).
Related Term(s): Direct investment, U.S. parent
Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA)
Definition: A measure of the value of direct investors’ equity in, and net outstanding loans to, their affiliates in which the equity portion of the position is valued based on the current cost of plant and equipment, land, and inventories. This measure values the direct investors’ shares of the affiliates’ investment in plant and equipment, using the current cost of capital equipment; in land, using general price indexes; and in inventories, using estimates of their replacement cost.
Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA)
Definition: A measure of the value of direct investors’ equity in, and net outstanding loans to, their affiliates in which the direct investors’ investment is valued at book value. It largely reflects prices at the time of the investment rather than prices of the current period and is not ordinarily adjusted to reflect the changes in the current costs or the replacement costs of tangible assets or in stock market valuations of firms.
Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA)
Definition: A measure of the value of direct investors’ equity in, and net outstanding loans to, their affiliates, in which the equity portion of the position is valued at current stock market prices. This measure revalues direct investors’ equity based on indexes of stock market prices.
Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA)
Definition: A table in the input-output (I-O) accounts that shows the input of commodities that an industry requires to produce a dollar of output. It also shows the value-added components that an industry requires to produce a dollar of output. The input coefficients are referred to as direct-requirements coefficients.
Related Term(s): Make table, Use table
Definition: Synonymous with mandatory spending. Direct spending is budget authority provided in laws other than appropriation acts. For the purposes of the Deficit Control Act, it is also defined as including entitlement authority and the Food Stamp program. See also appropriation act, budget authority, and entitlement; compare with mandatory and discretionary spending.
Related Term(s): Appropriation act, Budget authority, Discretionary spending, Entitlement, Mandatory spending
Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland
Definition: A type of floating exchange rate that is not completely freely floating because central banks intervene from time to time to alter the rate from its free-market level. It is still a floating rate because it has not been pegged at a predetermined par value.
Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis
Definition: A type of floating exchange rate that is not completely freely floating because central banks intervene from time to time to alter the rate from its free-market level. It is still a floating rate because it has not been pegged at a predetermined par value.
Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco
Definition: A type of floating exchange rate that is not completely freely floating because central banks intervene from time to time to alter the rate from its free-market level. It is still a floating rate because it has not been pegged at a predetermined par value.
SSI Annual Statistical Report, 2002
Definition: The inability to engage in substantial gainful activity (SGA) by reason of any medically determinable physical or mental impairment that can be expected to result in death or to last for a continuous period of not less than 12 months. (Special rules apply for workers aged 55 or older whose disability is based on blindness. The 12-month requirement does not apply to SSI beneficiaries who are blind.) Individuals are considered to be disabled only if their physical or mental impairment(s) are of such severity that they are not only unable to do their previous work but cannot–because of their age, education, or work experience–engage in any other kind of substantial gainful activity that exists in the national economy, regardless of whether such work exists in the immediate area in which they live, or whether a specific job vacancy exists for them, or whether they would be hired if they applied for work. The SGA criterion does not apply to children under age 18 in the Supplemental Security Income program. The standard for them is a medically determinable physical or mental impairment that results in marked and severe functional limitations.
Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland
Definition: The difference between the face value and the price paid for a security.
Economics: Principles & Practices
Definition: Interest rate the Federal Reserve System charges on loans to financial institutions
Definition: The interest rate the Federal Reserve System charges on a loan that it makes to a bank. Such loans, when allowed, enable a bank to meet its reserve requirements without reducing its loans.
Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland
Definition: The interest rate at which eligible depository institutions may borrow funds, usually for short periods, directly from the Federal Reserve Banks. The law requires the board of directors of each Reserve Bank to establish the discount rate every 14 days subject to the approval of the Board of Governors.
Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis
Definition: The interest rate at which eligible depository institutions may borrow funds, usually for short periods, directly from a Federal Reserve Bank. The law requires the board of directors of each Reserve Bank to establish the discount rate every 14 days subject to the approval of the Board of Governors.
Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco
Definition: Interest rate at which an eligible depository institution may borrow funds, typically for a short period, directly from a Federal Reserve Bank. The law requires that the board of directors of each Reserve Bank establish the discount rate every fourteen days subject to the approval of the Board of Governors.
Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland
Definition: Figurative expression for the Federal Reserve facility which extends credit directly to eligible depository institutions (those with transaction accounts or nonpersonal time deposits).
Definition: Jobless people who are available for work but who are not actively seeking it because they think they have poor prospects of finding a job. Discouraged workers are not counted as part of the labor force or as being unemployed. (BLS) See also labor force and unemployment rate.
Related Term(s): Labor force, Unemployment rate
Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)
Definition: Persons not in the labor force who want and are available for a job and who have looked for work sometime in the past 12 months (or since the end of their last job if they held one within the past 12 months), but who are not currently looking because they believe there are no jobs available or there are none for which they would qualify.
Economics: Principles & Practices
Definition: Spending for federal programs that must receive annual authorization by Congress
Office of Management and Budget
Definition: Discretionary spending is what the President and the Congress decide to spend through annual appropriations bills. Examples include money for such activities as the FBI, the Coast Guard, housing and education, space exploration, highway construction, defense, and foreign aid. See also mandatory spending.
Definition: Budget authority provided in appropriation acts, except that provided to fund direct spending programs. See also appropriation act; compare with direct spending.
Citizen’s Guide to the Federal Budget
Definition: Discretionary spending is what the President and Congress must decide to spend for the next fiscal year through 13 annual appropriations bills. Examples include money for such activities as the FBI and the Coast Guard, housing and education, space exploration and highway construction, and defense and foreign aid.
Definition: Ceilings imposed on the amount of budget authority provided in annual appropriation acts and on the outlays that flow from that budget authority. The limits, which are set forth in section 251 of the Deficit Control Act (as amended), currently apply through fiscal year 2002. Separate caps have often been imposed on specific categories of discretionary spending, such as defense, highways, and violent crime reduction. Each discretionary spending limit is enforced through sequestration. See also budget authority, discretionary spending, outlays, and sequestration.
Related Term(s): Budget authority, Discretionary spending, Outlays
Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA)
Definition: Total after-tax income received by persons; it is the income available to persons for spending or saving.
Economics: Principles & Practices
Definition: Personal income less individual income taxes; total income available to the consumer sector after income taxes
Definition: The income that individuals receive, including transfer payments, minus the personal taxes and fees that they pay to governments. (BEA) See also transfer payments.
Related Term(s): Personal consumption expenditures (PCE), Personal income, Personal saving
Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland
Definition: An investment strategy in which total investment is divided among assets of different types (stocks, bonds, real estate), which are unlikely to perform uniformly. Such a strategy reduces the investor’s exposure to risk. It’s the opposite of putting all one’s investment eggs into one basket.
Economics: Principles & Practices
Definition: See Dow-Jones Industrial Average
Related Term(s): Dow-Jones Industrial Average
Definition: Total purchases of goods and services, regardless of origin, by U.S. consumers, businesses, and governments during a given period. Domestic demand equals gross domestic product minus net exports. (BEA) See also gross domestic product and net exports; compare with aggregate demand.
Related Term(s): Aggregate demand, Gross domestic product (GDP), Net exports
Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA)
Definition: Technique for estimating real value added by industry in the gross domestic product (GDP)-by-industry accounts. Under this procedure, an industry’s gross output and its intermediate inputs are deflated separately–hence, the term “double deflation.” Real value added is then estimated as the difference between deflated, or real, gross output and real intermediate inputs.
Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA)
Definition: Tangible products that can be stored or inventoried and that have an average life of at least three years.
Related Term(s): Nondurable goods, Services, Structures
Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland
Definition: A situation in which net worth fluctuates depending on interest rates. This occurs when there is a mismatch in the duration between the loans held on the asset side of a balance sheet and the deposits on the liability side. When long-term loans are held with short-term deposits, assets are much more sensitive to interest-rate changes than the corresponding liabilities.
Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)
Definition: The length of time in weeks (through the current reference week) that persons classified as unemployed had been looking for work. For persons on layoff who are counted as unemployed (see definition of Unemployed below), duration of unemployment represents the number of full weeks they had been on layoff. The data do not represent completed spells of unemployment.