Impact Lag – In the context of economic policies, the time between corrective government action responding to a shock to the economy and the resulting affect on the economy. This is one of four lags in the use of economic policies. The others are recognition lag, decision lag, and action lag. The length of the impact lag, also termed outside lag, is primarily based on the speed of the multiplier process and is essentially the same for both fiscal and monetary policy. The length of the policy lags is one argument against the use of discretionary policies to stability business cycles.
Imports Line – A graphical depiction of the relation between imports bought from the foreign sector and the domestic economy’s aggregate level of income or production. This relation is most important for deriving the net exports line, which plays a minor, but growing role in the study of Keynesian economics. An imports line is characterized by vertical intercept, which indicates autonomous imports, and slope, which is the marginal propensity to import and indicates induced imports. The aggregate expenditures line used in Keynesian economics is derived by adding or stacking the net exports line, derived as the difference between the exports line and imports line, onto the consumption line, after adding investment expenditures and government purchases.
Income Distribution – The manner in which income is divided among the members of the economy. A perfectly equal income distribution would mean everyone in the country has exactly the same income. The income distribution in the good old U. S. of A., while more equal than most nations of the world, is far from perfectly equal. A certain amount of inequality in the income distribution is to be expected because resources are never equally distributed. Some labor is naturally going to be more productive–better able to produce the stuff that consumers want–and thus get more income. The same is true for capital, land, entrepreneurship. However, without government intervention, an unequal distribution of income tends to perpetuate itself. Those who have more income, can invest in additional productive resources, and thus can add even more to their income.
Inferior Good – A good for which an increase in income causes a decrease in demand, or a leftward shift in the demand curve. If demand decreases as income increases, it is an inferior good, or a good with a negative income elasticity of demand. An inferior good is one of two alternatives falling within the income determinant of demand. The other is a normal good.
Invisible Hand – The notion that buyers and sellers, consumers and producers, households and businesses, pursuing their own self-interests, do what’s best for the economy–automatically, without any government intervention, as if guided by an invisible hand. This invisible hand was essential to the economic analysis of markets in Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations. It has continued to be cornerstone in conservative economic policies that call for limits on government intervention in the economy.
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