GDP DEFLATOR:
A price index based on the calculation of real gross domestic product that's used as an indicator of average prices in the economy. Those loveable economists who spend their days and nights compiling and estimating the size of our economic pie provide estimates of gross domestic product in both nominal dollars and real dollars.
MACROECONOMIC SECTORS:
The four aggregate sectors of the macroeconomy--household, business, government, and foreign--that reflect four key macroeconomic functions and are responsible for four expenditures on gross domestic product. These four sectors are the primary "actors" on the macroeconomic stage. Macroeconomic theories then explain macroeconomic phenomena by exploring the interaction among these four sectors.
NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH:
A private, nonprofit, nonpartisan organization established in 1920 that promotes research into, and an understanding of, the workings of the economy. In addition to a relative small in-house staff (a few dozen), the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) includes several hundred of the best and the brightest economic professors at major universities as NBER researchers. At last count, a dozen Nobel Prize winners have included the title of NBER researcher on their resumes. The NBER sponsors research on assorted topics, including the development of quantitative economic measures and the analysis of public policies.
PARETO EFFICIENCY:
A type of efficiency that results if one person cannot be made better off without making someone else worse off. Named after Vilfredo Pareto, this criterion is the guiding theoretical notion of efficiency used in the study of economics, especially welfare economics. Pareto efficiency is generally not attained if some resources are idle or unemployed. By engaging idle resources in production, some people can have more production without reducing that available to others. A problem with Pareto efficiency, however, is that it is based on the existing distribution of income and wealth. This is one of two noted efficiency criteria used in economics. The other is Kaldor-Hicks efficiency.