Interest rate in the context of "Liquidity preference"

Usury (/ˈjuːʒəri/) is the practice of making loans that are seen as unfairly enriching the lender. The term may be used in a moral sense—condemning taking advantage of others' misfortunes—or in a legal sense, where an interest rate is charged in excess of the maximum rate that is allowed by law. A loan may be considered usurious because of excessive or abusive interest rates or other factors defined by the laws of a state. Someone who practises usury can be called a usurer, but in modern colloquial English may be called a loan shark.

In many historical societies including ancient Christian, Jewish, and Islamic societies, usury meant the charging of interest of any kind, and was considered wrong, or was made illegal. During the Sutra period in India (7th to 2nd centuries BC) there were laws prohibiting the highest castes from practising usury. Similar condemnations are found in religious texts from Buddhism, Judaism (ribbit in Hebrew), Christianity, and Islam (riba in Arabic). At times, many states from ancient Greece to ancient Rome have outlawed loans with any interest. Though the Roman Empire eventually allowed loans with carefully restricted interest rates, the Catholic Church in medieval Europe, as well as the Reformed Churches, regarded the charging of interest at any rate as sinful (as well as charging a fee for the use of money, such as at a bureau de change). Christian religious prohibitions on usury are predicated upon the belief that charging interest on a loan is a sin.

A fixed price is a price designated for a good or a service that is neither subject to bargaining nor bartering. The price may be fixed since the seller has placed it, or given that the price is managed by the authorities under price regulation. Fixed prices may also refer to swaps whereby payments are determined upon a never-ending interest rate, if not referring to negotiated price points that aren't amendable under regular situations. These also extend towards fixed-price contracts, whereas the price is not permitted to fluctuate unless there are premeditated mitigating situations; The equivalents of these, by definition, are cost-plus contracts, where the contractor-originating costs are managed, likewise with additional revenue subsidies issued.

Bargaining is very common in many parts of the world, primarily in the Middle East, Africa as well as Asia but not in most retail stores in Europe, North America, and Japan. Elsewhere, fixed prices tend to be an exception from the norm. Before the introduction of currency, both practices were the universally accepted means of transaction, at a domestic and international rate.

In finance, a loan is the tender of money by one party to another with an agreement to pay it back. The recipient, or borrower, incurs a debt and is usually required to pay interest for the use of the money.

The document evidencing the debt (e.g., a promissory note) will normally specify, among other things, the principal amount of money borrowed, the interest rate the lender is charging, and the date of repayment. A loan entails the reallocation of the subject asset(s) for a period of time, between the lender and the borrower.

The economy of governments covers the systems for setting levels of taxation, government budgets, the money supply and interest rates as well as the labour market, national ownership, and many other areas of government interventions into the economy.

Most factors of economic policy can be divided into either fiscal policy, which deals with government actions regarding taxation and spending, or monetary policy, which deals with central banking actions regarding the money supply and interest rates.

In finance, a derivative is a contract between a buyer and a seller. The derivative can take various forms, depending on the transaction, but every derivative has the following four elements:

1. an item (the "underlier") that can or must be bought or sold,
2. a future act which must occur (such as a sale or purchase of the underlier),
3. a price at which the future transaction must take place, and
4. a future date by which the act (such as a purchase or sale) must take place.

A derivative's value depends on the performance of the underlier, which can be a commodity (for example, corn or oil), a financial instrument (e.g. a stock or a bond), a price index, a currency, or an interest rate.

Industrial production is a measure of output of the industrial sector of the economy. The industrial sector includes manufacturing, mining, and utilities. Although these sectors contribute only a small portion of gross domestic product (GDP), they are highly sensitive to interest rates and consumer demand. This makes industrial production an important tool for forecasting future GDP and economic performance. Industrial production figures are also used by central banks to measure inflation, as high levels of industrial production can lead to uncontrolled levels of consumption and rapid inflation .

In economics, consumer debt is the amount owed by consumers (as opposed to amounts owed by businesses or governments). It includes debts incurred on purchase of goods that are consumable and/or do not appreciate. In macroeconomic terms, it is debt which is used to fund consumption rather than investment.

The most common forms of consumer debt are credit card debt, payday loans, student loans and other consumer finance, which are often at higher interest rates than long-term secured loans, such as mortgages.

In economics, aggregate demand (AD) or domestic final demand (DFD) is the total demand for final goods and services in an economy at a given time. It is often called effective demand, though at other times this term is distinguished. This is the demand for the gross domestic product of a country. It specifies the amount of goods and services that will be purchased at all possible price levels. Consumer spending, investment, corporate and government expenditure, and net exports make up the aggregate demand.

The aggregate demand curve is plotted with real output on the horizontal axis and the price level on the vertical axis. While it is theorized to be downward sloping, the Sonnenschein–Mantel–Debreu results show that the slope of the curve cannot be mathematically derived from assumptions about individual rational behavior. Instead, the downward sloping aggregate demand curve is derived with the help of three macroeconomic assumptions about the functioning of markets: Pigou's wealth effect, Keynes' interest rate effect and the Mundell–Fleming exchange-rate effect. The Pigou effect states that a higher price level implies lower real wealth and therefore lower consumption spending, giving a lower quantity of goods demanded in the aggregate. The Keynes effect states that a higher price level implies a lower real money supply and therefore higher interest rates resulting from relevant market equilibrium condition, in turn resulting in lower investment spending on new physical capital and hence a lower quantity of goods being demanded in the aggregate.

The Wall Street crash of 1929, also known as the Great Crash, was a major stock market crash in the United States which began in October 1929 with a sharp decline in prices on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). It triggered a rapid erosion of confidence in the U.S. banking system and marked the beginning of the worldwide Great Depression that lasted until 1939, making it the most devastating crash in the country's history. It is most associated with October 24, 1929, known as "Black Thursday", when a record 12.9 million shares were traded on the exchange, and October 29, 1929, or "Black Tuesday", when some 16.4 million shares were traded.

The "Roaring Twenties" of the previous decade had been a time of industrial expansion in the U.S., and much of the profit had been invested in speculation, including in stocks. Many members of the public, disappointed by the low interest rates offered on their bank deposits, committed their relatively small sums to stockbrokers. By 1929, the U.S. economy was showing signs of trouble; the agricultural sector was depressed due to overproduction and falling prices, forcing many farmers into debt, and consumer goods manufacturers also had unsellable output due to low wages and thus low purchasing power. Factory owners cut production and fired staff, reducing demand even further. Despite these trends, investors continued to buy shares in areas of the economy where output was declining and unemployment was increasing, so the purchase price of stocks greatly exceeded their real value.