The rate of inflation that people expect. In fact, people are likely to have a frequency distribution of possible rates of inflation over any given future period; this may be different for different time horizons. Expected inflation cannot be directly observed, except by surveys in which people are asked to state their expectations, which normally produce only point estimates, of low reliability. The rate of inflation that people expect can be inferred from the difference between the prices of index-linked and unindexed government securities with the same maturity dates. The greater the expected rate of inflation, the greater the excess of the price of indexed securities over those of comparable unindexed ones.

• break-up value
• Bretton Woods
• broad money
• broker
• brokerage
• bubble
• budget
• budget constraint
• budget deficit
• budgeting, zero-base
• budget line
• budget surplus
• budget year
• buffer stock
• building and loan association
• building society
• built-in stabilizers
• bull
• bullion
• bull market
• Bundesbank
• bundle of goods
• burden
• Bureau of Economic Analysis
• business