ECONOMY
This is my PowerPoint presentation about economy 🙂
Markets
Presentation about “Interest”
Interest
What exactly is “interest”?
Interest is payment from a borrower or deposit-taking financial institution to a lender or depositor of an amount above repayment of the principal sum (i.e., the amount borrowed), at a particular rate. It is distinct from a fee which the borrower may pay the lender or some third party. It is also distinct from dividend which is paid by a company to its shareholders (owners) from its profit or reserve, but not at a particular rate decided beforehand, rather on a pro rata basis as a share in the reward gained by risk taking entrepreneurs when the revenue earned exceeds the total costs.
For example, a customer would usually pay interest to borrow from a bank, so they pay the bank an amount which is more than the amount they borrowed; or a customer may earn interest on their savings, and so they may withdraw more than they originally deposited. In the case of savings, the customer is the lender, and the bank plays the role of the borrower.
Interest differs from profit, in that interest is received by a lender, whereas profit is received by the owner of an asset, investment or enterprise. (Interest may be part or the whole of the profit on an investment, but the two concepts are distinct from each other from an accounting perspective.)
The rate of interest is equal to the interest amount paid or received over a particular period divided by the principal sum borrowed or lent (usually expressed as a percentage).
Compound interest means that interest is earned on prior interest in addition to the principal. Due to compounding, the total amount of debt grows exponentially, and its mathematical study led to the discovery of the number ‘e’. In practice, interest is most often calculated on a daily, monthly, or yearly basis, and its impact is influenced greatly by its compounding rate.
Interest in economics
In economics, the rate of interest is the price of credit, and it plays the role of the cost of capital. In a free market economy, interest rates are subject to the law of supply and demand of the money supply, and one explanation of the tendency of interest rates to be generally greater than zero is the scarcity of loanable funds.
Over centuries, various schools of thought have developed explanations of interest and interest rates. The School of Salamanca justified paying interest in terms of the benefit to the borrower, and interest received by the lender in terms of a premium for the risk of default. In the sixteenth century, Martín de Azpilcueta applied a time preference argument: it is preferable to receive a given good now rather than in the future. Accordingly, interest is compensation for the time the lender forgoes the benefit of spending the money.
On the question of why interest rates are normally greater than zero, in 1770, French economist Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot, Baron de Laune proposed the theory of fructification. By applying an opportunity cost argument, comparing the loan rate with the rate of return on agricultural land, and a mathematical argument, applying the formula for the value of a perpetuity to a plantation, he argued that the land value would rise without limit, as the interest rate approached zero. For the land value to remain positive and finite keeps the interest rate above zero.
Adam Smith, Carl Menger, and Frédéric Bastiat also propounded theories of interest rates. In the late 19th century, Swedish economist Knut Wicksell in his 1898 Interest and Prices elaborated a comprehensive theory of economic crises based upon a distinction between natural and nominal interest rates. In the 1930s, Wicksell’s approach was refined by Bertil Ohlin and Dennis Robertson and became known as the loanable funds theory. Other notable interest rate theories of the period are those of Irving Fisher and John Maynard Keynes.
What is the Government’s intervention on interest?
Interest rates are generally determined by the market, but government intervention – usually by a central bank – may strongly influence short-term interest rates, and is one of the main tools of monetary policy. The central bank offers to borrow (or lend) large quantities of money at a rate which they determine (sometimes this is money that they have created ex nihilo, i.e., printed) which has a major influence on supply and demand and hence on market interest rates.
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What is the money market?
The money market is where financial instruments with high liquidity and very short maturities are traded. It is used by participants as a means for borrowing and lending in the short term, with maturities that usually range from overnight to just under a year. Among the most common money market instruments are eurodollar deposits, negotiable certificates of deposit (CDs), banker’s acceptances, U.S. Treasury bills, commercial paper, municipal notes, federal funds and repurchase agreements (repos).
Breaking down ”MONEY MARKET”
Money market transactions are wholesale, meaning that they are for large denominations and take place between financial institutions and companies rather than individuals. Money market funds
offer individuals the opportunity to invest smaller amounts in these assets.
Who participates in the money market?
Institutions that participate in the money market include banks that lend to one another and to large companies in the eurocurrency and time deposit markets; companies that raise money by selling commercial paper into the market, which can be bought by other companies or funds; and investors who purchase bank CDs as a safe place to park money in the short term.
The U.S. government issues Treasury bills in the money market, and the bills have maturities that range from a few days to one year. Only primary dealers can buy them directly from the government; dealers trade them between themselves and sell retail amounts to individual investors. State, county and municipal governments also issue short-term notes.
Commercial paper is a popular borrowing mechanism because it is exempt from SEC registration requirements. It’s attractive to corporate investors because rates are higher than for bank time deposits or Treasury bills, and a range of maturities is available, from overnight to 270 days. However, the risk of default is significantly higher for commercial paper than for bank or government instruments.
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