Microsoft Word Web glossary doc

 
Pensions: Pension benefits are paid to individuals who have retired from active employment, in 
order to support themselves in the last years of their lives. Pension programs can be sponsored 
by governments or by individual employers; they can be based on pre-retirement years of service 
and wage levels, or paid on a universal per-person basis. 
 
Perfect Competition: An abstract assumption, central to neoclassical economics, in which 
companies are so small that none can influence total output or price levels in an industry, none 
can distinguish its products from those of competing firms, and none can anticipate or interact 
with the actions of its competitors. Perfect competition has never existed in real life; it is a 
theoretical assumption developed solely in order to defend the internal logical integrity of 
neoclassical economic theories. 
 
Physical Capital: A tangible tool, building, machine, or other productive asset which is used to 
produce other goods or services. 
Physiocrats: A very early school of economics (originating in France in the 18
th
Century) which 
likened the interactions between different sectors and classes of the economy, and the monetary 
flows between them, to the circulation of blood through the human body. 
 

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Pollution: Many economic activities involve the discharge of waste products (including solid 
waste, air pollution, and water pollution) into the natural environment, as a negative side-effect 
of production. 
 
Post-Keynesian Economics: A modern heterodox school of economic thought which 
emphasizes the more non-neoclassical or radical aspects of John Maynard Keynes’ theories.
Post-Keynesians pay primary attention to the monetary system, and the impact of monetary 
behaviour and policies on employment, output, and other economic indicators.