aggregate demand

Aggregate Demand

The total demand of goods and services in an economy at a given overall price and time. Aggregate demand is tracked on an aggregate demand curve, which plots demand against price. When prices are rising, this indicates that the aggregate supply in the economy is inadequate to meet the aggregate demand; this leads businesses to expand their operations and produce more goods and services.

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aggregate demand

the total demand for a firm's product/s. The term is also used to describe the total demand placed on a production unit in order to calculate MANUFACTURING RESOURCE PLANNING (MRP II) requirements.

Collins Dictionary of Business, 3rd ed. © 2002, 2005 C Pass, B Lowes, A Pendleton, L Chadwick, D O’Reilly and M Afferson

aggregate demand

or

aggregate expenditure

the total amount of expenditure (in nominal terms) on domestic goods and services. In the CIRCULAR FLOW OF NATIONAL INCOME MODEL aggregate demand is made up of CONSUMPTION EXPENDITURE (C), INVESTMENT EXPENDITURE (I), GOVERNMENT EXPENDITURE (G) and net EXPORTS (exports less imports) (E):

Some of the components of aggregate demand are relatively stable and change only slowly over time (e.g. consumption expenditure); others are much more volatile and change rapidly, causing fluctuations in the level of economic activity (e.g. investment expenditure).

In 2003, consumption expenditure accounted for 52%, investment expenditure accounted for 13%, government expenditure accounted for 15% and exports accounted for 20% of gross final expenditure (GFE) on domestically produced output. (GFE minus imports = GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT). See Fig. 133 (a) NATIONAL INCOME ACCOUNTS.

Aggregate demand interacts with AGGREGATE SUPPLY to determine the EQUILIBRIUM LEVEL OF NATIONAL INCOME. Governments seek to regulate the level of aggregate demand in order to maintain FULL EMPLOYMENT, avoid INFLATION, promote ECONOMIC GROWTH and secure BALANCE-OF-PAYMENTS EQUILIBRIUM through the use of FISCAL POLICY and MONETARY POLICY. See AGGREGATE DEMAND SCHEDULE, ACTUAL GROSS NATIONAL PRODUCTS DEFLATIONARY GAP, INFLATIONARY GAP, BUSINESS CYCLE, STABILIZATION POLICY, POTENTIAL GROSS NATIONAL PRODUCT.

Collins Dictionary of Economics, 4th ed. © C. Pass, B. Lowes, L. Davies 2005