Microsoft Word Web glossary doc

Market Socialism: A form of socialism in which productive companies are owned through 
public or non-profit forms, but relate to each other through markets and competition (with little 
or no central planning). 
Mercantilism: An economic theory from pre-capitalist times which held that a country’s 
prosperity depended on its ability to generate large and persistent surpluses in its foreign trade 
with other countries. 
Microeconomics: The study of the economic behaviour of individual “agents” such as 
particular companies, workers, or households. 
Migration: The movement of human beings from one country or region to another. Sometimes 
migration is motivated by economic factors (such as the search for employment), sometimes by 
other forces (such as war, natural disaster, or famine). 
Monetarism: Strictly speaking, monetarism was a right-wing economic theory (associated with 
the work of Milton Friedman, in particular) which believed that inflation could be controlled or 
eliminated by strictly controlling, over long periods of time, the growth of the total supply of 
money in the economy. This theory was proven wrong in the 1980s (when it became clear that it 
is impossible, in a modern financial system, to control the supply of money). More broadly, 
monetarism believes that inflation is a major danger to economic performance, and should be 
controlled through disciplined policies; modern “quasi-monetarists” agree with this view, but 
now use high interest rates (rather than monetary targeting) to indirectly regulate the money 
supply. 

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Monetary Policy: Monetary policy reflects the use by government and government agencies 
(especially the central bank) of interest rate adjustments and other levers (such as various 
banking regulations) to influence the flow of new credit into the economy, and hence the rate of 
economic growth and job-creation. A “tight” monetary policy tries to reduce the growth of new 
credit (through higher interest rates); a “loose” monetary policy tries to stimulate more credit-
creation and hence growth.