5. The Financial Sector Flashcards
What are the key roles of the financial sector?
- Facilitate saving
- Lend to businesses and households
- Facilitate the exchange of goods and services
- Provide forward markets in currencies and commodities
What is a forward market?
A forward market is an over-the-counter marketplace that sets the price of a financial instrument or asset for future delivery
What is a financial market?
Financial markets refer broadly to any marketplace where the trading of securities occurs, including the stock market, bond market, and forex market.
What is exchanged on financial markets?
Liquid financial assets
Why is a stable financial sector required to promote economic development?
Because without a financial sector, households and firms cannot generate sufficient savings to make the macroeconomy stable.
What does the Harrod-Domar model state?
The Harrod-Domar model states that investment, saving, and technological change are required in an economy for it to see economic growth - the rate of growth increases as the savings ratio increases.
How do you calculate the rate of growth according to the Harrod-Domar model?
Savings Ratio / Capital Output Ratio
(Capital Output Ratio - the amount of capital needed to produce one unit of output)
What is microfinance?
The borrowing of small amounts of money from lenders to finance enterprise. Small loans usually for ‘unbankable’ people to promote financial independence and security.
Do microfinance loans have high or low repayment rates?
High
How does the financial sector promote economic development?
- Facilitates savings
- Enables management of the economy e.g. fiscal policy
- Financial markets allow firms to raise capital
- Facilitates borrowing = investment
- Enables government borrowing
What is a foreign currency gap?
When a country’s expenditures in foreign currency, such as payments for imports or servicing foreign debt, exceed its foreign currency earnings from exports or other sources, such as foreign investment or remittances.
What is capital flight?
Capital flight is the uncertain and rapid movement of large sums of money out of a country.
“the outflow of resident capital which is motivated by economic and political uncertainty.”
What is debt relief?
The partial or total forgiveness of debt
What are the 4 functions of money?
- Medium of exchange
- Unit of account (measure of value)
- Store of value
- Method of deferred payment
What are the required characteristics of money?
Money must be:
- Durable
- Divisible
- Portable
- Uniform
- Limited in supply
- Acceptable