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Oesterreichische Nationalbank - Dictionary Category: Economy and Finance Date & country: 04/10/2008, AU Words: 3913

significance level
In hypothesis testing, the significance level is the criterion used for rejecting the null hypothesis. The significance level is used in hypothesis testing as follows: First, the difference between the results of the experiment and the null hypothesis is determined. Then, assuming the null hypothesis is true, the probability of a difference that la...

significance level
The significance level (also known as the alpha-level) of a statistical test is the pre-selected probability of (incorrectly) rejecting the null hypothesis when it is in fact true. Usually a small value such as 0.05 is chosen. If the P value calculated for a statistical is smaller than the significance level, the null hypothesis is rejected....

significance test
A significance test is performed to determine if an observed value of a statistic differs enough from a hypothesized value of a parameter to draw the inference that the hypothesized value of the parameter is not the true value. The hypothesized value of the parameter is called the `null hypothesis.` A significance test consists of calculating the p...

signing authority
Delegated authority to specific persons or positions for specific purposes to carry out the financial management of their responsibilities (accountabilities). Financial signing authority is comprised of spending authority, payment authority, commitment authority and budget adjustment authority....

signing officer
An officer of the corporation who is authorized to sign documents on behalf of the corporation, and who can legally bind the corporation....

silent partnership
The silent partnership is an unpublicized and unregistered written agreement by which the silent partner contributes funds or assets to a business but takes no part in the activity of the business. The status of a silent partner is similar to that of a creditor. The value of the deposit increases or decreases in accordance with the silent partner`...

Single European Act
Act signed in 1986 (and in force from July 1987) to establish a single European market, defined as an area without frontiers in which free movement of goods, services, people, and capital is ensured. The act was the first major revision of the Treaties of Rome. It provided for greater involvement of the European Parliament in the decision-making pr...

single market
A single market is a customs union with common policies on product regulation, and freedom of movement of all the three factors of production (land, capital and labour) and of enterprise. There should be movement of capital, labour, goods and services between the members as easily as within them. Sometimes a single market is differentiated as a mo...

single market programme (SMP)
At the end of 1992, the single market programme (SMP) came into force in Europe. It was aimed at eliminating the remaining barriers to trade among member countries. The expected consequences were increases in competition, industrial restructuring and reallocation of economic activities. In turn, these consequences were intended to induce three cate...

single monetary policy
The euro-area Member States will share a single monetary policy and a single exchange rate, while the other aspects of economic policy will remain national issues....

single passport
`single passport`: possibility to offer or admit securities to trading on the basis of a simple notification of the prospectus approved by the home competent authority....

single rate auction procedure
An auction at which the allotment interest rate (or price/ swap point) applied for all satisfied bids is equal to the marginal interest rate....

single-entry bookkeeping
Single-entry accounting system is a one sided accounting entry to maintain financial information....

single-purpose prepaid card
a stored value card for which the card issuer and merchant (card acceptor) are identical, thus representing a prepayment for specific goods and services delivered by the issuer....

sinking fund
A special reserve account created by a bond issuer. The issuer promises to put money into the account at regular intervals and to use the cash that accumulates to redeem the bonds. A sinking fund gives bondholders an extra layer of protection against default....

SITC
For compiling international trade statistics on all merchandise entering international trade, and to promote international comparability of international trade statistics. The commodity groupings of SITC reflect (a) the materials used in production, (b) the processing stage, (c) market practices and uses of the products, (d) the importance of the c...

SITC
international product classification...

site acceptance test
System test at the customer`s site....

skill mismatch
A mismatch between the competence of the trainee or graduating student/learner and the expected competence needs of the employers assumed to arise from course curricula mis-alignment...

skit note
Piece of paper masquerading as a banknote. It differs from a counterfeit in that its design parodies that of a genuine note often for political, satirical or advertising reasons. Others were produced as April Fools` Day jokes or a form of Valentine (eg, the Bank of Lovers). In recent years they have been produced as advertising gimmicks, or as coup...

slack
1. A loose part, as of a rope or sail. 2. A lack of tension; looseness. 3. A period of little activity; a lull. 4a. A cessation of movement in a current of air or water. b. An area of still water. 5. Unused capacity: still some slack in the economy. 6. slacks Casual trousers that are not part of a suit....

SLIC
A contract issued by savings and loan institutions that accepts contributions, holds them and then pays them back, each for specific time periods. The monies are credited with a set rate of guaranteed interest and principal. These contracts are expressed as SLIC H/P. H is the holding period inclusive of the contribution period and P is the payout p...

slipcase
A slipcase is a four or five-sided box, usually made of high-quality cardboard, into which binders, books or book sets are slipped for protection. Special editions of books are often slipcased. Slipcases may be issued for compact discs or DVDs, but these serve an aesthetic rather than protective purpose. They are often used in packaging for special...

slope
The slope of a line is the steepness of the line. It is measured as the change in Y associated with a change of one unit on X. The following graph shows a line with a slope of .5. A change of 1 on the X axis is associated with a change of .5 on the Y axis. For example, as X changes from 2 to 3, Y changes from 3.5 to 4. Lines with positive slopes go...

Slovenia
See also former Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia for data before the independence in 1991. Also visit a detailed page on Slovenian Governments since 1990, as part of ZPC, to know more about the ruling parties. Parties: SKD: Slovenian Christian Democrats; LDS: Liberal Democracy of Slovenia; SDS: Social Democratic Party of Slovenia; ZLSD: ...

slow day
little activity (business), lazy, laid-back...

slug
Popular name for the $50 gold pieces produced by private mints in California in the mid-nineteenth century. The term is also applied nowadays to tokens intended for use in gaming machines....

SME
Small and Medium-sized Enterprises...

smishing
SMISHING Continuing attempts by technological bad-hats to separate us from our money has led to this most recent creation. It`s formed from `SMS` (Short Messaging Service, the system that lets mobile phone users send and receive text messages), plus `phishing`, for sending trick e-mails that lure unsuspecting people to fake bank Web sites to get th...

smoothing consumption
consuming similar amounts in the present and future, rather than letting year-to-year income dictate consumption...

snapback
a sudden rebound or recovery...

social dumping
Worries also exist about the likelyhood of so-called social dumping, of decisions by companies to move their business operations from one part of the EU to another in the search of low labour cost areas....

social minimum
When we speak of a `social minimum` we mean to refer to the bundle of resources that a person needs in order to lead a minimally decent life in their society. Now the members of a given society might decide to introduce a set of institutions and policies that secures every member reasonable access to a social minimum in this sense. We shall refer t...

social partners
at the European level: The Commission is required to consult various social partners when it wants to submit proposals in this field. This social dialogue occurs via the three main organisations representing the social partners at European level: the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), the Union of Industries of the European Community (UNICE...

social security fund
Central, state and local institutional units whose principal activity is to provide social benefits....

social security fund
scheme managed by central, state/regional or local government, the principal objective of which is to provide social benefits to the population of the country. Certain population groups are obliged to pay contributions to these schemes. ...EMIMoney and banking statistics sector manual, based on ESA 95...

social trap
Social traps are negative situations where people, organizations, or societies get caught in a direction or relationship that later prove to be unpleasant or lethal and they see no easy way to back out of or avoid. One example is the `Tragedy of the Commons`, where in New England herd owners could graze in the common ground. But an individual advan...

soft budget constraints
budget constraints facing a firm in which the government subsidizes any losses...

soft landing
economic growth slows enough to keep inflation contained while avoiding a recession...

software maintenance
Recurring annual fees, which may or may not be mandatory for continued use of the software. Maintenance usually includes technical support and updates. For programs that are not paid-up at initial purchase, maintenance is the annual fee to keep the program running....

software maintenance
The activities associated with changes to software after it has been delivered to end-users....

software update
Any update, update rollup, service pack, feature pack, critical update, security update, or hotfix used to improve or fix software released by Microsoft....

sole proprietorship
A sole proprietorship, or simply proprietorship, is a type of business entity which legally has no separate existence from its owner. Hence, the limitations of liability enjoyed by a corporation and limited liability partnerships do not apply to sole proprietors. All debts of the business are debts of the owner. It is a `sole` proprietor in the sen...

sole proprietorship
unincorporated business owned by single individual...

solvency ratio
The own funds of each credit institution are defined as a proportion of the risk-adjusted value of its assets and off-balance-sheet items. That essentially concerns the credit risks incurred in the event of non-payment by a borrower and draws a distinction between the degrees of risk associated with individual assets and off-balance-sheet items, an...

sort code
A sort code is a number which is assigned to a branch of a bank for internal purposes. ... These numbers (called `BLZ`, for `Bankleitzahl`, meaning `bank routing numbers`) are eight digits long, normally formatted 3-3-2 (e.g. 100 200 30)....

sour crude
A crude oil containing hydrogen sulfide, carbon dioxide or mercaptans....

sour crude
Crude oil with a high sulphur content....

sovereign bond
A sovereign bond is a bond issued by a national government. Bonds issued by national governments in the country`s own currency are also referred as government bonds....

sovereign functions
Sovereign tasks involve commands (laws, regulations, rules) that can only be issued and enforced by the state....

sovereign functions
The public administration functions which are to be fulfilled on the basis of public law by the state (Federal Government, Länder) , a municipality or other public-law institutions and authorities ( legal person ). As such they ensue from the Constitution or an individual statute . In fulfilling these functions the public authorities may effect law...

spam
This word for off-topic commercial posts to usenet message boards or unsolicited commercial e-mail is of uncertain origin, although there is a commonly accepted explanation that is probably correct. The original Spam was coined in 1937 by the Hormel corporation as a name for its potted meat product. This brand name is a blend of spiced ham. From th...

span of control
Span of control or span of supervision is a management term referring to the number of subordinate employees who are directly accountable to a particular supervisor....

span of supervision
Span of control or span of supervision is a management term referring to the number of subordinate employees who are directly accountable to a particular supervisor....

speaker fee
Speaker Fee: Honorarium plus travel expenses and costs....

Spearman`s correlation coefficient
Correlation is a measure of association between two variables. The variables are not designated as dependent or independent. The two most popular correlation coefficients are: Spearman`s correlation coefficient rho and Pearson`s product-moment correlation coefficient....

Special Data Dissemination Standard
The purpose of the SDDS is to guide IMF member countries in the provision to the public of comprehensive, timely, accessible, and reliable economic and financial statistics in a world of increasing economic and financial integration. The SDDS is geared to those countries that have, or might seek, access to international capital markets. Subscriptio...

special drawing rights
(SDRs), type of international monetary reserves established (1968) by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Created in response to concern over the limitations of gold and dollars as the sole means of settling international accounts, SDRs were designed to augment international liquidity. Also known as paper gold, SDRs are assigned to the accounts ...

special drawing rights
IMF Rule O-2(a) defines the value of the U.S. dollar in terms of the SDR as the reciprocal of the sum of the equivalents in U.S. dollars of the amounts of the currencies in the SDR basket, rounded to six significant digits. Each U.S. dollar equivalent is calculated on the basis of the middle rate between the buying and selling exchange rates at noo...

special factor
A special factor is typically an identifiable monetary disturbance which is not captured by the macroeconomic explanatory variables of a money demand model and which may not have implications for price developments....

specialist
A health care provider who has received advanced training in a specific field of medicine....

specialist
A stock exchange member who makes a market for certain exchange-traded securities, maintaining an inventory of those securities and standing ready to buy and sell shares as necessary to maintain an orderly market for those shares. Can be an individual, partnership, corporation or group of firms. see also market maker, book, Accredited Personal Fina...

specialized lending
While lacking a generally accepted definition, `specialized” means lending: for highly leveraged borrowers to fund acquisitions, restructurings, or leveraged buyouts; in support of large credit lines; for large scale project finance; or in technical industries (e.g., film finance, agriculture, or precious metals). One key differentiator between m...

specialty fund
A mutual fund investing primarily in the securities of a particular industry, sector, type of security, or geographic region. also called specialized fund....

specific loan loss provision
A SPECIFIC PROVISION is a provision relating to a specific customer`s credit facility or a pool of specific customers` credit facilities. The CBA data reflects only specific provisions, as it is these provisions that can be analyzed in a comparable way to the Business Credit Statistics. These specific provisions are shown net of any reversals to an...

specific risk
The focus of most internal models is a bank`s general market risk exposure, typically leaving specific risk (i.e., exposures to specific issuers of debt securities or equities) to be measured largely through separate credit risk measurement systems. Specific risk includes the risk that an individual debt or equity security moves by more or less tha...

specific tax
Specific taxes are of a fixed amount by the head or number, or by some standard of weight or measurement, and require no assessment other than the listing or classification of the subjects to be taxed....

spinoff
A company can create an independent company from an existing part of the company by selling or distributing new shares in the so-called spinoff....

spiral career path
The Spiral Career Path: The spiral career path allows the employee to make a series of lateral moves between different functional areas within the same organization. It allows people in human resource jobs to retain talent by continuously challenging employees with new tasks and broadening their experience while at the same time depriving them of s...

split capital investment trust
An investment trust with a limited or determinable life, whose equity capital is divided into various classes of income share, capital share and zero dividend preference share....

split capital investment trust
Split capital investment trust is an investment trust with a fixed life span whose capital is divided into various share classes, each of which has distinct rights to dividends and to capital when the company is wound up. The following are the share classes commonly issued by splits: Income shares Capital shares Income and residual capital shares...

sponsoring undertaking
`sponsoring undertaking` means any undertaking or other body which pays contributions into an institution;...

spot transaction
A foreign exchange transaction in which each party promises to pay a certain amount of currency to the other today or within one or two days....

spread
The difference in yield between two financial instruments, e.g. in a swap of different securities. Swaps are agreements between at least two counter-parties to exchange cash flows in the future according to a pre-specified formula. They can therefore be regarded as portfolios of forward contracts. The most common one is an agreement on the exchange...

spread
The price difference between two related markets or commodities....

spread trading
The simultaneous buying and selling of two related markets to hold both a long and a short position - a spread -- with the objective of profiting from a changing price relationship. Examples include: buying one futures contract and selling another futures contract on the same instrument but with a different contract month; buying and selling the sa...

square matrix
A n × n matrix, i.e., one whose size is the same in both dimensions....

St. Pierre and Miquelon
a group of eight small islands in the North Atlantic, off the south coast of Newfoundland; pop. (1990) 6,390. An overseas territory of France, the islands form the last remaining French possession in North America. The capital and chief settlement is St Pierre....

Stability and Growth Pact
Established at the European Council of Dublin in December 1996, and legally adopted by the Amsterdam European Council in July 1997, the pact puts into place a preventive early-warning system for identifying Member State budget slippages which threaten to exceed the 3% of GDP ceiling defined by EMU, and dissuasive rules to incite Member States to co...

stability program
The stability programs are the national programs under the Stability and Growth Pact; the EU-11 implement yearly stability programs to meet the budget convergence criteria defined under the Maastricht Treaty. The convergence programs of the pre-ins (the other four countries of the EU-15 in addition to the EU-11) are called stability-convergence pro...

staff function
In ST jargon a manager`s staff are the first level of people reporting to our CEO. A staff-level position means that the holder is considered part of the manager`s staff even if they report to another person. A staff function is one not directly concerned with the operations of the Company, for example Public Relations, Human Resources and so on....

Stafford loan
A need-based government loan made to students rather than their parents. The size of the Stafford loan is determined from the expected family contribution. Repayment is not required until after graduation. Unsubsidized Stafford loans accrue interest before graduation, but subsidized Stafford loans do not....

staggered board of directors
Often used in risk arbitrage. Board of Directors of a company in which a portion of the directors are elected periodically, instead of all at once. A board is often staggered in order to thwart unfriendly takeover attempts, since potential acquirers would have to wait a longer time before they could take control of a company`s board through the nor...

stamp duty
a tax in the form of the cost of stamps which are required to be affixed to legal documents such as certificates, receipts and the like....

standard costing
A management tool used to estimate the overall cost of production, assuming normal operations....

standard deviation
A statistical measure which indicates the width of a distribution around the mean. A standard deviation (Greek letter pronounced `sigma`) is the square root of the second moment of a distribution....

standard deviation
The square root of the variance. A measure of dispersion of a set of data from their mean....

standard deviation
The standard deviation of a random variable is the positive square root of its variance....

standard pensioner
It replaced tying the pension to the net wage, did away with early retirement, abolished the pension for occupational invalidity (due to decline in earning capacity) and made it more difficult to get a general disability pension. It also lowered the pension of the so-called `standard pensioner`, that is, someone who has paid contributions based on...

standard tender
A tender procedure to be used by the ESCB in its regular open market operations. Standard tenders are carried out within a time frame of 24 hours. All counterparties fulfiling the general eligibility criteria are entitled to submit bids in standard tenders....

standard wage rate
The labor commissioner must establish classifications for all hourly nonsupervisory employees based on those identified in the Federal Register of Wage Determinations under the Federal Service Contract Act. The rate must be considered the minimum rate. The commissioner must then add a 30% surcharge to the federal minimum hourly wage for each classi...

standardized approach
According to International Convergence of Capital Measurement and Capital Standards, known as Basel II, the standardized approach is a set of risk measurement techniques for banking institutions. The term may be used in the context of credit risk or operational risk....

standardized approach
One of the two main options for banks to establish minimum regulatory capital requirements. It introduces new risk weight categories in comparison with the current Accord. Moreover, the risk weights are based on external ratings of banks` counterparties, recognised by national supervisory authorities in line with the criteria established by the BCB...

Stand-By Arrangement
Stand-By Arrangements The most common type of credit arrangement designed to provide short-term financial assistance. Purchases under Stand-By Arrangements are repayable in 8 quarterly installments 3¼-5 years after drawdown....

standing facility
`standing facilities` shall mean the marginal lending facility and the deposit facility organised by the Eurosystem ECB/2001/3...

standing facility
A central bank facility available to counterparties at their own initiative. The ESCB will offer two overnight standing facilities: the marginal lending facility and the deposit facility....

standing order
A standing order is an instruction a bank account holder gives to his bank to pay a set amount at regular intervals to another account. The instruction is sometimes known as a banker`s order....

staple goods
Staple goods: Foodstuffs such as sugar, salt, flour, and vinegar that are used on a regular basis....

STAR model
smooth transition autoregressive model...

startup
New business venture. In venture capital parlance, start-up is the earliest stage at which a venture capital investor or investment pool will provide funds to an enterprise, usually on the basis of a business plan detailing the background of the management group along with market and financial projections. Investments or loans made at this stage ar...