Dambisa Moyo on fixing economic growth
Here's a very recent TED talk from Dambisa Moyo on fixing stalling economic growth. She argues that capitalism isn't creating the growth we need, and in both state-sponsored and market-driven...
What have Trade Unions ever done for us?
For students born in the aftermath of Thatcherite reform which cast the unions as the industrial bogeyman, this TUC video goes some way towards redressing the balance. So what have the unions done...
Scale of UK food bank use continues to grow
New data from the Trussell Trust finds that the number of people given emergency food help has continued to grow with over 1 million people receiving assistance in 2014-15 compared to 128,000 in...
Apprenticeships lower German youth unemployment
Britain has always lagged behind our Continental rivals in providing vocational training and this clip from BBC news highlights the apprenticeship system operated by Siemens - its costs/benefits to...
Beer Mergers: Asahi buys Peroni and Grolsch
As part of the AB InBev SABMiller deal, the mega-brewer has been forced to divest itself of some of its brands.
FT Video: Takeovers Explained
An excellent short resource to use when teaching the economics of business takeovers. n the first part of the new FT video series Finance Decoded, City editor Jonathan Guthrie explains how deal...
UK GDP grows by 2.2% in 2015
The provisional data shows that the UK economy enjoyed a 12th consecutive quarter of real GDP growth in the final three months of 2015.
Thirst for Coffee Brews Chronic Supply Shortage
Elementary demand and supply factors at play here: there's the prospect of higher coffee prices. Changing consumer tastes, as artisan coffee houses become the norm in cities such as London, mean...
UK Trade in Goods Deficit reaches new record in 2015
A familiar refrain: the trade deficit remains a problem and so it proves once again in the 4th quarter of 2015: the annual deficit widened by £1.9bn to a record £125bn, with the quarter registering...
Julian Assange, rational choice theory, and the game of Go
IS JULIAN Assange rational? There are no prizes for guessing the responses of most readers to this question. He faces questioning over allegations (which he denies) in Sweden, and he claims that...
Can a new currency help Somalia
In a country where no new bank notes have been printed for over 39 years, can a new currency help Somalia to re-establish a financial system to support growth and help lift people out of extreme...
The impact of trade and globalisation
There is a great analytical piece on the impact of trade on the Economist website from the weekend. In particular, it examines the impact of imports into the US from China on US manufacturing.
Cartels: The Quebec Maple Syrup Cartel
Quebec has 7,500 mostly family-run farms – who produce 70% of world supply of maple syrup. Since 1990 producers have been required to hand over the bulk of what they produce to the Federation of...
Chinese Economic Reform - An Overview
These are pivotal times for the Chinese economy. Structural reforms of their institutions, labour and financial markets are high on the agenda of the Chinese government and many of them are seen as...
Grimsby - The Renewable Capital of Britain
A blustery hat tip to Matt Smith for spotting this superb contextual example in the Independent of the partial economic renaissance being seen in the east coast port of Grimsby.
Halting the Yuan slide - Reserves dim sum
Armed with a huge stock of reserves of foreign currency, the People's Bank of China has been intervening heavily in a bid to soften the downward slide in the external value of the Yuan. The BBC...
Economists must never ignore the human factor
Several members of the Tutor2u teacher community have alerted me to this excellent, thought-provoking article from Tim Garton-Ash on the challenges to Economics as an academic discipline nearly ten...
Chinese slowdown - the human cost for migrant workers
This video from Reuters highlights the precarious existence of migrant workers as the Chinese economy slows down: as the piece highlights, workers are increasingly seen as criminals rather than...
Falling oil prices and disappearing rigs
This BBC article puts the impact of low oil prices in a Scottish context, suggesting that the current price levels are such that a number of rigs are going to be shut down in the near future. This,...
Market Failure and Behavioural Policies - Research Assignment
A seasonal hat tip to my colleagues in the economics department at school for this tremendous idea for a slightly different research project to promote independent learning and stronger evaluation...