The Economic Environment

The last few years of choppy waters and a tougher business climate has pushed the economic environment further up the agenda for Business students. Firms look back with nostalgia for the NICE era (with non-inflationary, continuous economic expansion) that began around 1992 but came to a shuddering standstill by 2008.

Here are a few links (outside T2U) that might help you illustrate the changing economic environment. I’m starting with The Guardian, whose business website is catching up with other sources, and is a site I now regularly visit.

So if you want to start with the basics of GDP change over the last 50 odd years try here. Still with The Guardian, this next graphic encourages you to spot links between GDP and issues like unemployment, inflation and house prices.

The BBC are the dominant website for those of you looking for stories, videos and graphics to support your understanding of Business. By way of an example, today’s news leads with the shocking astonishing fall in UK consumer confidence. The dramatic drop in sentiment is partly to do with price inflation, VAT rises and the surprising recent fall in GDP.

The BBC also have an excellent economy tracker too, which has some nifty graphics to help you spot links between macroeconomic variables.

I often check on data and stories from The Economist although their pay wall is sometimes an obstacle. See if you can’t pick up one of their amazing student deals of £2 in total for 30 issues (!!!) which gives you access to the whole website.

I shan’t use this blog to make a start on Youtube, but I don’t see why only Economics students should have the fun of the – surprisingly good – Boom and Bust rap.