Virtuous Circle and Vicious Circle

Virtuous Circle And Vicious Circle

A virtuous circle and a vicious circle (also referred to as virtuous cycle and vicious cycle) are economic terms. They refer to a complex chain of events that reinforces itself through a feedback loop. A virtuous circle has favorable results, while a vicious circle has detrimental results.

Both circles are complexes of events with no tendency towards equilibrium (at least in the short run). Both systems of events have feedback loops in which each iteration of the cycle reinforces the previous one (positive feedback). These cycles will continue in the direction of their momentum until an external factor intervenes and breaks the cycle. The prefix "hyper-" is sometimes used to describe these cycles if they are extreme. The best-known example of a vicious circle is hyperinflation.

Read more about Virtuous Circle And Vicious Circle:  Vicious Circles in The Subprime Mortgage Crisis, Other Examples

Famous quotes containing the words virtuous, circle and/or vicious:

    The aim of every political constitution is, or ought to be, first to obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common good of the society; and in the next place, to take the most effectual precautions for keeping them virtuous whilst they continue to hold their public trust.
    James Madison (1751–1836)

    The passion of love is essentially selfish, while motherhood widens the circle of our feelings.
    HonorĂ© De Balzac (1799–1850)

    The poorest children in a community now find the beneficent kindergarten open to them from the age of two-and-a-half to six years. Too young heretofore to be eligible to any public school, they have acquired in their babyhood the vicious tendencies of their own depraved neighborhoods; and to their environment at that tender age had been due the loss of decency and self-respect that no after example of education has been able to restore to them.
    Virginia Thrall Smith (1836–1903)