AQA ECON4 Context

Geoff’s blog about ECON4 (see below) is fantastic advice, and I hope that my A2 students will spend much of the next 2 days working their way through it, checking they are secure in their knowledge of the topics he has identified, and can apply them to the context areas suggested there. If they have finished all that, and want yet more up-to-date evidence there is plenty in the news in the last few days.

US double-dip recession: On June 11th the American network ABC interviewed Yale economist Robert Schiller who is warning of a double-dip. On the other hand, last Friday the IMF Chief Economist said that the ‘Chance of US Double Dip ‘Very,Very Small’

Global price volatility: Earthquake and euro woes hit platinum prices (May 2011). Rare earth prices were also back in the news on Sunday as China stockpiles, and prices of some have doubled in three weeks

The role of the Chinese economy and its implications for the UK: keep an eye on The Times reports of their CEO Summit this week - today’s edition has a report about the UK’s perceived performance on fiscal conditions, infrastructure, skills, education relative to the US, India, China, France and Germany - in which the UK does not come out too well.

The impact on the UK economy of major instability of the euro: no end of reporting over the weekend and today about Greece and the second bailout - try the BBC’s updated Q&A, and Robert Peston’s blog suggesting that this could be worse than the Lehman crisis in 2008. Reuters have also provided this useful quick guide to the Greek crisis.

And finally, looking back within the domestic economy, today’s release of the June ‘Markit Household Finance Index’ shows a picture of some rise in household spending, but only because of the rise in prices, rather than any desire to spend more. This, against a background of declining income from employment, erosion of savings, and some evidence of rising debt in order to pay household bills.