Category
In the News
Mind the Gap - Transport Infrastructure
In late July my local council announced that a new railway station was to be built near Peterlee in County Durham. The station, serving the town of Horden, is estimated to cost £10.55 million with...
Fresh Perspectives on Wealth, Savings and Health Inequalities
There has been a raft of newly-published data in the scale of inequality in the UK including a glaring divide in health outcomes between North and South.
ONS reimagines how to measure the economy
Deep inside the offices of the ONS's Data Science Campus in Newport (Gwent) data crunchers are hacking away trying to find new and better ways of measuring the economy.
Sterling's slide yet to help the UK economy rebalance
According to this piece from Chris Giles in the FT, UK exporters have raised their prices and profit margins rather than driven increased volumes and market share in response to the post-Brexit...
British Gas hikes electricity prices by 12.5%
British Gas (Centrica) is increasing electricity prices by 12.5% in September in a move affecting over 3 million customers.
Should there be a new minimum price for books?
Twenty years on from the end of the Net Book Agreement, author Phillip Pulman has argued that a minimum price for books is justified to help secure the future for smaller independent book-sellers.
Reinventing the wheel - exploring the NAIRU
Chris Dillow explores the some of the thinking behind the construction of the NAIRU concept.
Wage determination and labour economics may be a topic taught early on in the academic year, so I was struck by this recent report highlighting how money can bring happiness - as long as it is used...
A great example of a behavioural intervention - Honolulu bans texting while crossing streets in bid to curb injuries - presumably enforced through cameras.
The surge towards electric cars gathers momentum each day. But this report from David Pilling of FT on the Democratic Republic of Congo - home to more than sixty per cent of the world's cobalt but...
Labour Market Enforcement Tsar Starts Work
Professor David Metcalf is starting work as the new Labour Enforcement Tsar leading a campaign against abuses in the labour market including allegations made against transnational companies with...
Venezuela’s economic and political crisis in charts
The FT has produced a series of charts focusing on the economic and humanitarian crisis in the failed state of Venezuela.
Alphabet (Google) profits shrink after EU fine
How much impact can governments have on markets? Alphabet (the parent company of Google) have announced that their overall profits fell by 28% for the last quarter following a fine of $2.74bn...
Greece returns to the bond market
An encouraging sign for the Greek economy as for the first time in several years, Greece has returned to the international bond market seeking to swap government debt due in 2019 for a bond that...
Shrinkflation gets bigger!
Shrinkflation occurs when products get smaller without getting any cheaper . According to a new survey from the ONS, shrinkflation has been going on for years across thousands of products.
State Pension Age of 68 is Brought Forward
Faced with increasing longevity and the prospect of tens of billions of extra welfare spending in the years ahead, the British government has brought forward the date at which the state pension can...
Gender Pay Gap at the BBC
Releasing the names of the BBC's best-paid employees tells us a lot about the TV labour market although the information did not include those working for independent production companies.
The dominant economic narrative in the UK is a pretty gloomy one just now. True, employment is at a record high. But, counter the whingers and whiners, zero hours contracts and low pay proliferate.
Pay for BBC top talent revealed - should this model be used more in our Labour Markets
If you haven't seen it already, have a look of the list of the BBCs top earners here which has been revealed today. When you have a scan through, there are few surprises and, on the basis I can't...
More Growth for A Level Economics But is AS on the Way Out?
The latest exam entry data from Ofqual suggests continued growth in the popularity of A Level Economics. However, AS Economics is rapidly being abandoned by centres and it's hard to imagine it...