Category
In the News
Shrinkflation ‘Dial Up’ Activity: Estimate These Shrinking Product Sizes
The ONS have produced another report on 'shrinkflation' - the concept that businesses are reducing the size of their products without reducing the price that they charge to consumers. It's an...
Solar Powers India's Future
Here is a great clip from the International Finance Corporation - looking at India's ambition to produce 40% of its power from renewable sources by 2030.
Can butchers survive the vegan boom?
Another look at changing consumer tastes, and their impact on the High Street. This time, it's butchers under the cosh as vegetarianism becomes increasingly popular and just a short while after the...
Climate change battle requires international cooperation
Here is a neat application of game theory at the margin, and certainly the economics of co-operation.
Economics Weekly Quiz - 18 January 2019
Here's this week's Economics news quiz. Good luck!
Uber introduces 15p per mile "clean air fee"
Uber is adding a clean air fee of 15p per mile to every trip taken in London. The current per mile fare is £1.25. The aim of the clean air fee is to help raise up to £200 million to support Uber...
Car alliances are the future in an age of technological disruption
Larry Elliott's excellent article about the reasons for carmakers struggling, is developed here - with the news that Ford and VW are planning not a merger, but an alliance to exploit new technology...
How Gregg's vegan sausage roll stormed social media
This is both economic - you might look at consumer choice, and the impact of marketing on price elasticity of demand, and Business Management, indicating the importance of skilled marketing. The...
Visible from Space: The World’s Largest Solar Power Plant
Look at the size of that solar park 36 kilometres squared in Egypt's Aswan desert, a private sector venture that will provide as much electricity as the Aswan Dam, remarkable. Renewable power meets...
How does Brexit affect the Pound?
An entry level piece about the nature of currency prices, and how Brexit has affected the value of the pound - a really good little introduction to this topic, which gets you thinking about the...
Economics Weekly Quiz - 11 January 2019
Happy New Year, quizzers. Here's this week's Economics news quiz. Good luck!
3 million new social homes needed over 20 years
A commitment to increasing social house-building could have significant effects on both the demand and supply-side of the economy. Housing affordability is one of the defining issues of the age....
2018 in economics: from market turmoil, to trade war and Brexit
Martin Sandhu from the Financial Times casts his eye over some of the major economics news stories in different parts of the global economy. The realities of Brexit have consumed much of the...
UK Plastic bag charge set to be doubled to 10p
Externalities and government intervention in action. The UK government DEFRA is consulting on plans to increase the price of smaller plastic bags to 10 pence in a bid to tackle plastic pollution...
Demography: Japan's birthrate falls to lowest level in history
Japan's population is decline and ageing at a rapid rate. New data shows that the natural decline in their population was nearly 500,000 in 2018 with fewer than one million babies born for the...
Is the UK crisp industry heading for a Brexit crunch?
Ed Conway from Sky News visits Kettles crisps (owned by Campbell Soup Company) to find out more about the UK's love affair with the crisp and concerns that some production may move overseas if...
The Cumulative Loss of Real Wages since 2008
Real wages are nominal wages adjusted for the effects of inflation. A new survey form the Trade Union Congress (TUC) has estimated that the average worker in the UK has (cumulatively) lost over...
Externalities: Air pollution is the new tobacco
This WHO clip looks at the impact of air pollution on the health of the world's children. It is estimated that 1.8 billion children breathe polluted air, equivalent to 9 out of 10 of the world's...
Chief Medical Officer calls for extended sugar and salt bans
The country's Chief Medical Officer, Dame Sally Davies, wants a ban on adding sugar to baby food, and further taxes to cut the nation's salt and sugar intake. However, the real meat to the report...
Economics Weekly Quiz - 14 December 2018
Here's the last weekly Economics Quiz for 2018. Good luck!