What are Barriers to Entry? Barriers to entry are the obstacles or hindrances that make it difficult for new companies to enter a given market. These may include technology challenges, government regulations, patents, start-up costs, or education and licensing requirements. American economist Joe S. Bain gave the definition of barriers to entry as “an advantage of…
What are Economic Indicators? An economic indicator is a metric used to assess, measure, and evaluate the overall state of health of the macroeconomy. Economic indicators are often collected by a government agency or private business intelligence organization in the form of a census or survey, which is then analyzed further to generate an economic…
What are Substitute Products? Substitute products offer consumers choices when making purchase decisions by providing equally good alternatives, thus increasing utility. However, from a company’s perspective, substitute products create a rivalry. As a result, businesses may incur high marketing and promotional costs when competing for market share, which, in turn, reduces operating profits. Some companies are…
What is a Business Cycle? A business cycle is a cycle of fluctuations in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) around its long-term natural growth rate. It explains the expansion and contraction in economic activity that an economy experiences over time. A business cycle is completed when it goes through a single boom and a single…
What is the Balance of Payments? The Balance of Payments is a statement that contains the transactions made by residents of a particular country with the rest of the world over a specific time period. It is also known as the balance of international payments and is often abbreviated as BOP. It summarizes all payments…
What are Diseconomies of Scale? Diseconomies of scale occur when an additional production unit of output increases marginal costs, which results in reduced profitability. Instead of production costs declining as more units are produced (which is the case with economies of scale), the opposite happens, and costs increase with the production of each additional unit….
How to Calculate Consumer Surplus Consumer surplus is an economic measurement to calculate the benefit (i.e., surplus) of what consumers are willing to pay for a good or service versus its market price. The consumer surplus formula is based on an economic theory of marginal utility. The theory explains that spending behavior varies with the…
What is Gross Domestic Product (GDP)? Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is an economics term for the total value of all final economic goods and services produced in a country during a specific period of time in local currency. It is the broadest financial measurement of a nation’s total economic activity and encompasses the total goods…
What is a Dead Hand Provision? A dead hand provision is a type of poison pill that massively dilutes the shares of the target company during a hostile takeover attempt. When an acquirer buys a stake in the target company, rights automatically issue, allowing the shareholders of the target to buy newly issued shares at…
What is Accounting Depreciation vs Tax Depreciation? Before we discuss accounting depreciation vs tax depreciation, let us first talk about depreciation itself. Essentially, depreciation is a method of allocating the cost of a tangible asset over several periods of time due to decreases in the fair value of the asset. Note that amortization is a…
