Why are glasses so expensive?
Why Glasses Are So Expensive? One glaringly obvious answer is that Italian firm Luxottica owns 40% of the US market and has a major presence in many other developed and emerging countries. This is...
Put your revision notes down for 6 minutes to watch this! Why is vanilla so expensive? There is a strong case for saying that the entire A level micro and macro course could be taught just using...
Economics Weekly Quiz - 10 May 2019
Here's this week's economics news quiz. Good luck! PS. Best of luck with upcoming exams!
More competition concerns for Apple, with the EU looking set to investigate Spotify's complaint that Apple's dominance of App Store means that it looks to push Apple music services to the detriment...
The Scots lead the way - this time, the Scottish government is looking to introduce a bottle return scheme for plastic drinks containers, cans and glass. As yet, the proposal is that when consumers...
Technology and the innovation possibilities frontier
If there were a betting market in future winners of the Nobel prize in economics, MIT’s Daniel Acemoglu would be at pretty short odds. His highly innovative work has already won him a string of...
The Observer highlights an interesting story - it's believed to be the case that the Chancellor is contemplating a significant rise in the national minimum wage, to the highest level in the...
Are zombie firms a drag on the UK economy?
KPMG have come up with an interesting assessment of the UK economy. Were it not for low interest rates, they argue that as many as one in seven UK firms would have gone out of business.
De-carbonisation - economic threat or opportunity?
Ben Chu reports on BBC Newsnight at the costs of decarbonising, and Lord Stern argues that the cost of adopting environmentally-friendly technologies is far lower than it was a dozen years ago....
Economics Weekly Quiz - 3 May 2019
Here's this week's economics news quiz. Good luck!
Green gas now supplied into more than one million UK homes
More good news here in the energy market - the amount of 'green' gas being used in the UK has increased to the extent that 1m homes are now using it for heating and cooking.
Economics Weekly Quiz - 26 April 2019
Here's this week's economics news quiz. Good luck!
A Brexit Thread for Core Understanding
A homely hat tip to the economics team at RGS Guildford who today published this really focused twitter thread on Brexit.
Will AI kill developing world growth?
Ian Goldin's article here supports his recent analysis programme on BBC radio 4 and it is well worth a read.
Micro credit versus direct subsidies in improving health care in developing countries
Low-income countries face major disease burdens from preventable and treatable communicable diseases. A persistent puzzle is the low uptake of highly effective preventive health products, such as...
YouTube super-stars and controlling the band-wagon effect
The stars of social media such as YouTube have to strike a careful balance to maintain and boost their popularity: uploading enough new material for ‘attention-volatile’ consumers, while not...
Confusing pairs of key phrases in A Level Economics - have a go at our 'Test Yourself' Activities
Here's a fantastic activity from our team of contributors who have identified the key phrases that are often misused during A Level Economics exams. As promised in February, we are now making the...
London's new Ultra Low Emissions Zone
Recently we have seen the introduction of the new Ultra Low Emissions Zone in London, designed to charge the owners of the most polluting vehicles an extra £12.50 for entering the area, in addition...
Solving the plastic packaging paradox
An excellent piece here from Tim Harford - looking at the paradox of plastic packaging. Packaging is a complex issue, but this article deconstructs some of the paradoxes associated with the use of...
Thanks to the large cuts to working-age benefits and tax credits made as part of the UK government’s austerity programme, the tax and benefit system is now less effective at protecting households...