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Economics in the News : Archive for November 2006 The following articles on Economics in the News were published during November 2006 |
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| The British economy has enjoyed an uninterrupted period of expansion since the autumn of 1992. And new figures show the rate of growth picking up to 2.7% per year. | |||
| Our five speakers at Business Cafe Live should make for a fantastic event for Business and Economics teachers | |||
| Misleading pricing tactics, employees disputes and a great example of the product life cycle all feature in this weeks Biz Quiz. | |||
| A new report from the European Union Committee of the House of Lords has come out strongly in favour of the wider economic effects arising from the expansion of the EU from 15 to 25 countries in May 2004. | |||
| Andy Mukherjee from Bloomberg has a fascinating comment piece on the Bloomberg website today about the roles that some of India’s super-wealthy entrepreneurs are playing in addressing some of the enormous weaknesses in India’s infrastructure | |||
| EU Court rules against alcohol and tobacco e-commerce as duty free purchases must be brought home in person | |||
| A fascinating and rewarding story from South Africa with a feature on Ntsiki Biyela who at just 28 years old has become South Africa’s first black female winemaker. | |||
| The Spanish economy is achieving one of the fastest rates of growth of the countries inside the Euro Zone and is one of the macroeconomic success stories within the wider European Union community over the last ten to fifteen years | |||
| Some of my students returned back to school a couple of weeks ago after some time in Shanghai and Beijing and commented on how bad the smog was on an almost daily basis, the pollution, they said, had to be seen to be believed. | |||
| We have been discussing price deflation in class this week and usually the case of Japan figures prominently as an example of a country that has experienced price deflation. We now have another case to track as the latest consumer price index shows Israel moving in to technical deflation. | |||
| The 2nd edition of Etonomics, the economics magazine written and produced by students at Eton College is available for free for teachers in schools and colleges in the UK. | |||
| This is not for the squeamish, but there are plenty of economists out there who are in favour of allowing a legal market in the trade of human organs such as kidneys. An Economist article this week raised the issue. | |||
| As we head into the important Christmas holiday season, the Japanese games console manufacturer Nintendo is releasing its Wii console this weekend in the latest installment of the battle for the hearts, minds and wallets of the world’s computer gaming community. | |||
| Every year over four billion cartons made of layers of cardboard, plastic and metal foil are produced for use in the UK but less than ten per cent are recycled. The vast majority of these cartons end up in landfill sites as part of a 300 million tonne rubbish mountain. | |||
| Sadly the BBC do not look likely to issue the DVD of the first series of Trust Me I’m an Economist onto the commercial market which is a shame because there is so much in the four programmes that teachers can use in their classroom to highlight ideas and bring some economic theory to life! | |||
| Retailing, transport policy, old economists, building societies and media companies were all prominent in the business and economics news this week. Test whether you were keeping on top of the news with our weekly Biz Quiz. | |||
| Anatole Kaletsky writing in the Times last week in an article entitled “Why the sun is rising over Britain, not Japan†raised the rise to prominence of platform companies – businesses that have opted to outsource virtually all of the cyclical part of their manufacturing operations to countries where production costs are lowest and which thus offer high, stable returns on invested capital. | |||
| Last week Jim O’Neill, Head of Global Economic Research at Goldman Sachs, delivered a lecture at the Cass Business School reviewing the situation for the world’s four largest developing economies. That presentation is now available for download from the Cass Business School website. | |||
| An article in the Guardian today speculates that the steep fall in world crude oil prices which is filtering through to the petrol station forecourts in the form of lower prices at the pumps may prompt Gordon Brown to end his freeze of petrol duty. | |||
| Here are some links to obituaries of one of the most significant economists of the twentieth century, the founding father of monetarism and one of the proponents of the laissez-faire school of economics | |||
| We learn today of a plan that could create huge shock-waves in the stock markets of Europe. It is a fine example of the potential impact of a new supplier in the market. | |||
| The BBC news site has a super article entitled "When profit is not the bottom line" which looks at the emergence of a number of highly successful not-for-profit businesses. The article is timely as today is designated as social enterprise day when the activities of social entrepreneurs are heralded. | |||
| A focus on the new unemployment data. The level of employment in manufacturing industry with a 77,000 decline in industrial jobs over the last year taking manufacturing employment to the lowest level since records were started in 1841. | |||
| I enjoyed listening to Philippe Legrain at the Tutor2u Economics and Business Teacher Conference at Manchester on Monday. His new book “Immigrants, your country needs them†is due for publication early in the New Year and it will, I feel, provide an important contribution to the many economic, social and political issues raised by the rising scale of global migration. | |||
| Fears that the introduction of university tuition fees of up to £3,000 per year might cause consumer price inflation to hit a ten-year high proved unfounded when the Office of National Statistics released their latest inflation numbers yesterday | |||
| For the majority of people, the annual change in their cost of living will inevitably depart from the official figures for the change in the CPI. Indeed although the government data is showing reasonable price stability of 2.4%, the actual inflation rate that many households have to deal with could be considerably higher. | |||
| Recent visits to the cinema have reignited my interest in the pricing strategies that cinemas use to maximise the revenue and profit from their operations. | |||
| The United Nations has launched the 2006 Human Development Report entitled “Beyond scarcity: Power, poverty and the global waterâ€. The venue for the report’s publication was the beautiful city of Cape Town in South Africa. As always the report is a goldmine of information on the economic development status of virtually all of the world’s countries | |||
| The EU is expected to announce that UK consumers will be able to buy online alcohol and tobacco from other member states and not pay any additional duty | |||
| Christmas stamps, business fines and a slighty saucy lingerie story feature in this week's edition of The Biz Quiz - our fun Business and Economics test | |||
| Adidas and Nike are battling it out for leadership of the global sports footwear market. Here is a great resource from the BBC on this battle. | |||
| As expected the Bank of England raised their official interest rates by 0.25% from 4.75% to 5.00%. Evan Davis had a very good piece on the BBC news on the background to the rate hike and in particular the impact of higher borrowing costs on consumers and corporate Britain. | |||
| New reports on the surge in executive pay, the glass ceilings facing female executives and the water crisis in the Chinese economy | |||
| An early morning latte lesson with one of my AS economics groups raised all sorts of interesting issues covered in the newspapers which help to bring economics to life. In half an hour of discussion we ranged far and wide and these notes summarise some of the links and topics discussed. | |||
| There has been a lively exchange of views in the Financial Times in recent days about the shaky foundations of neo-classical economics and the fault-lines at the heart of standard textbook theories which continue to rely so heavily on the concepts of rational economic man and equilibrium in markets | |||
| Press Freedom group, Reporters Without Borders has updated its blacklist of countries that oppose free Internet use. | |||
| The BBC audio-visual directories continue to provide a rich seam of short clips that can be used in lessons on virtually every current issue and topic on the syllabus. I was updating my own audio-visual listings this weekend and I wanted to share a handful of really good recent news clips with you, linked to topics of perennial interest and concern. | |||
| This week we saw the latest figures released by the Government Insolvency Service for individual insolvencies in the UK economy and, on the surface, they made for frightening reading | |||
| It is a supply-side economist’s dream report! A new study from KPMG argues that reductions in corporate tax rates can give a country a competitive advantage over economic rivals and are linked to higher than average trend economic growth. | |||
| There is a terrific editorial in today’s Financial Times about the nature of the rapid growth in the Chinese economy but highlighting the dangers of an economy too hungry to invest. | |||
| Climate change was at the forefront of the business and economics news this week - and is reflected in this week's Biz Quiz | |||
| The Governor of the Bank of England has said in answering questions from a House of Lords Select Committee that a rise in official interest rates to 5% next week is not a done deal. The vast majority of city economists (teenage scribblers) appear to have pencilled in a rate hike but the Governor said that the members of the MPC will do as they have always done – wait until the meeting itself to make their final deliberations. | |||
| In a frank admission yesterday, Mervyn King said that the inaccuracy of data on the size of the UK population is hampering their decisions on interest rates. | |||
| The world price of uranium has soared to new highs after a flood at Cigar Lake in the USA, home to one of the largest new sources of uranium supplies. | |||
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| Other essential economics resources: | |||
| econoMAX - the Economics Magazine for AS & A2 Economics | |||
| Economics Exam Technique - Guidance from the Examiners | |||
| The UK Economy in a Nutshell | |||
| The European Economy - New Free Resources | |||
| Economics - Student Discussion Board | |||
| GCSE Economics Revision Notes | |||
| AS & A2 Economics Revision Notes | |||
