pump-primingn.
/ˈpʌm(p) ˌprʌɪmɪŋ/, U.S. /ˈpəm(p) ˌpraɪmɪŋ/ Originally U.S.
The stimulation of economic activity by investment, esp. by government investment or spending; an instance of this. Cf. to prime the pump at prime v.2 5a.
ΘΚΠ
society > trade and finance > management of money > management of national resources > [noun] > political economy > growth > stimulation by investment
pump-priming1933
1933 Wall St. Jrnl. 16 May 1/2 To carry the pump-priming analogy a step further, it is suggested that a small portion of the expected flow of restored industrial income be directed to the reservoir from which the original ‘prime’ was borrowed.
1934 Washington Post 15 Jan. 2/2 (headline) Public spending viewed as ‘pump-priming’.
1938 Sun (Baltimore) 18 Feb. 15/1 Farm products seemed most likely to benefit from the next ‘pump-priming’.
1950 Ann. Reg. 1949 161 Large development projects whose results would be out of all proportion to the ‘pump-priming’ required from U.N.
1963 Daily Tel. 18 Jan. 12/2 To the financial purists, this appears as a bid for straightforward Keynesian pump-priming. Something of the sort is clearly required to stir the American economy out of its present sluggishness.
1995 G. Vidal Palimpsest 359 Berlin is going to cost us $3.5 billion and that will just do the trick, all the pump-priming they want.
2002 Economist 6 July 77/3 Giving incentives for housing loans early in the crisis may have been one of the government's best policies, and..helped to restore domestic demand. Yet..the pump-priming has lately got out of hand.
Compounds
General attributive, with sense ‘of or relating to pump-priming, used for pump-priming’, as pump-priming activity, pump-priming cash, pump-priming policy, etc.
ΚΠ
1934 N.Y. Times 6 Jan. 25/1 With the aid of the government's ‘pump-priming’ activities, I think we are going to see quite an improvement in the next three, four or five months.
1937 F. D. Roosevelt Public Papers & Addr. (1941) VI. 520 The things we had done, which at that time were largely a monetary and pump-priming policy.., had brought the expected result.
1960 Guardian 21 Oct. 24/6 The pump-priming period of the Welfare State.
1961 B. R. Wilson Sects & Society 9 The pump-priming activity of the revivalist to generate a distinctive form of religious expression.
1978 M. Puzo Fools Die xxx. 351 He, Lieverman, would throw in the pump-priming cash, the development money.
1996 Business Week 26 Feb. 48/2 The economy is on track to grow 2% in 1996, but it's being driven primarily by $500 billion in pump-priming measures since 1992.
2001 U.S. News & World Rep. 19 Mar. 64/2 Hundreds of billions of pump-priming dollars in taxpayer money have been poured into public works.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, September 2007; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
<
n.1933