Any features of the economy that tend to limit economic fluctuations through routine behaviour, without the need for specific decisions. The government's budget provides obvious examples. If national income falls, the application of given direct and indirect tax rates cuts revenue automatically; if unemployment rises, the application of given benefit rules ensures that income maintenance payments rise. This raises the budget deficit, and limits the fall in incomes. Similarly, when national income rises the budget deficit falls. The advantage of built-in stabilizers over deliberate policy measures is that they operate automatically and immediately. When deliberate policy changes are needed, there is delay while the figures are collected, and further delay results from technical or political disagreement about the policy measures to be adopted. The disadvantage of built-in stabilizers is that they can only diminish fluctuations and cannot eliminate them completely. Any further stabilization requires deliberate changes in policies, based on forecasts of the economy which are known to be unreliable. Some economists believe that partial stabilization through built-in stabilizers is probably about the most that can actually be achieved.

• receivership
• recession
• reciprocal
• reciprocity
• recommended retail price
• recovery
• rectangular hyperbola
• recycling
• redeemable security
• redemption date
• redemption value
• redemption yield
• redeployment
• rediscount
• redistribution of income
• redistributive tax
• red-lining
• reduced form
• reducing balance depreciation
• redundancy
• reform
• reform, trade
• refund, tax
• refusal to supply
• regime, exchange rate