Wages which are free to move up and down as necessary to preserve equilibrium in labour markets. Wages are notoriously not normally flexible, particularly not flexible downwards. This is due to a number of reasons. Trade unions are usually strongly opposed to wage cuts, but so are non-unionized workers. This may be because wages are a sign of social status as well as a purely economic reward. Individuals and groups of workers are keenly aware of their differentials compared with others whose skills they regard as inferior: accepting a wage cuts means losing status compared to other groups. It is sometimes argued that flexible wages would prevent unemployment. While perfectly flexible wages would by definition prevent involuntary unemployment, it is not clear that if wages are sticky, making them slightly less so would help. An expectation that wages are due to fall gives an incentive to postpone employing people until after this has actually occurred, so a small increase in wage flexibility might not be beneficial for employment.

• diminishing marginal utility
• diminishing marginal utility of money
• diminishing marginal utility of wealth
• diminishing returns, law of
• direct investment abroad
• direct investment, foreign
• direct labour
• director
• directorates, interlocking
• direct tax
• dirigisme
• dirty floating
• discomfort index
• discount
• discounted cash flow
• discounted present value
• discount house
• discounting the future
• discount rate
• discount window
• discouraged worker
• discrete distribution
• discrete time
• discrete variable
• discretionary policy