Here are Economics Terms beginning with O

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Occupational immobility refers to the inability or lack of willingness of workers to switch from one job to a job to another.

Ockham's razor named after William of Ockham (1287-1347) is a principle of parsimony, economy, or succinctness used in logic and problem-solving. It states that among competing hypotheses, the hypothesis with the fewest assumptions should be selected. The Razor states that one should proceed to simpler theories until simplicity can be traded for greater explanatory power.

Oligopoly is a market structure in which there are barriers to entry and just a few firms supply the product. As such, there is significant interdependence in that the decision making of one firm significantly influences the decisions made by other firms in the industry.

Oligopsony is a market structure in which just a few firms are involved in the purchase of a product or service such as labor services.

Open economy is a country that is open to international trade in the form of imports and exports, the country may also be open to capital inflows and outflows in the form of portfolio flows and foreign direct investment.

Open market operations is when the central bank intervenes in the short term securities market to buy or sell Treasury bills. The operation will aim to raise or lower the short term rate of interest and expand or contract the narrow money supply.

Opportunity cost of consumption or production is the cost on consumption or production as measured by the cost in terms of the next best foregone alternative.

Optimal currency arera refers to the optimal size of a single currency area which maximises the gap between the benefits and costs of adopting a single currency. The optimal currency literature determines the criteria that a country needs to meet to qualify as a member of the single currency.

Optimum tarifff is a tariff that can be imposed by a large country that has monoposonistic purchasing power. It is the  tariff that equates the marginal benefit from the lowering of the price of the imported good against the marginal loss resulting from the reduced volume of trade.

Organisational slack is a system whereby managers of company or enterprise deliberately maintain excess capacity so that they can quickly raise their output to respond to demand increases if need be. Alternatively, they may use it as a barrier to entry so as to deter potential new competitiors from entering the industry. It also means that there is excess workers that can be sacked should a further downturn occur which has the effect of keeping up profitability levels.

Output gap is the difference between the actual level of ouput of an economy and the potential level of output of an economy that could be achieved if it was at full employment and working at maximum efficiency.

Outsiders refers to the unemployed or contract workers employed on a short term basis that have no influence on going wage rate or employment conditions which are determined by the insiders who are employed on a full-time basis.

Overheads are the costs of running a business or organization and mainly exclude the variable costs of production.