OCR Unit F585 Pre-Release Stimulus Material for 2016
The stimulus material for OCR A2 Economics Unit F585 2016 has now been released.You can download the material here.The popular tutor2u Unit F585 toolkit for the 2016 stimulus material can now be...
South Korea hit by Chinese slowdown
The Economist reports that exports account for roughly half of South Korea’s GDP—and a quarter of all those go to China. Little wonder that, for South Korea, the slowdown in the Chinese economy is...
Market Capitalisation of a Business
Market capitalization (often shortened to market cap) is a measurement of the value of the voting ownership interest that shareholders hold in a business enterprise. It is equal to the current...
Why are Economics textbooks so expensive?
This is a question asked by many thousands of students and teachers every year. For students at university, the annual cost of buying the recommended texts can be a sizeable percentage of their...
10 Minute Quiz for your New AS/Yr 1 students
Here's a 10 minute activity to include in your first (or second) lesson with brand new students to economics. Meet Bernard, a lovable chimp who challenges your students to a quiz. Now, as clever...
Whatever it is, Corbynomics is not mainstream
A group of economists hit the headlines last week with their claim that Jeremy Corbyn’s policies are supported by mainstream economics. Perhaps the best known of them is David Blanchflower, a...
Framing the EU Referendum Question
Framing a question or offering in a different way often generates a new response by changing the comparison set it is viewed in. Examples include the framing of privacy settings on social networks...
Eduqas Resources for the New Spec
My thanks to Simon Harrison for linking me to the Equqas teacher support area where some resources for the new spec are available for Eduqas teachers. Here is the link...
Fermenting Nicely - The Rise of Microbreweries
Britain now has 361 independent brewers of craft beer, up from 291 in 2014 as evidence grows of the surge in popularity of craft beer-making and consumption in the UK. It is a good example of how...
Maersk Oil's Culzean Gas Field Given Go-Ahead
I put this here because it represents an addition to the UK's supply-side capacity but the fact of the matter is that with world oil prices being so low at the moment, I wonder whether production...
Graduates Stuck in Non-Graduate Jobs
Another supply-side bottleneck - the issue of getting the young into appropriate work is covered in this Katie Allen piece in the Observer. It starts with the contention that a large proportion of...
NHS Treatment Price Tags - An Exercise for Students
Many economics teachers bring the economics of health care into their teaching at an early stage of a new course. It is a terrific issue to look at when considering the basic economic problem of...
Europe's Orphan - The Future of the Euro
In this interview on the Financial Times website, senior journalist Martin Wolf reviews ‘Europe’s Orphan’ by the FT's Martin Sandbu.
Beyond the Bike Channels
Two teachers cycling new and old Silk Roads en route to China in an epic educational and charity project. Please follow the Beyond the Bike team as they start their epic journey!...
Autumn 2015 Lectures in Economics
Here is my pick of free-to-attend autumn lectures in Economics - offering superb enrichment opportunities for ambitious and curious students and CPD for passionate teachers. I will add to the list...
Brazilian Economy Falls into a Deep Recession
After a decade of solid growth, one of the BRIC nations Brazil has fallen into recession. Unemployment is rising, inflation is high and businesses are being hit by a surge in energy prices as the...
Subscription Video-on-Demand and threats to Broadcasters
This is an excellent background article on the continued rise of Subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime and Sky Now. These media platforms are lavishing big...
Buns, Tax and Zero-Hours
An unusual and wide-ranging, but relatively short interview here with the newly-installed CEO of McDonald's in the UK.
Google Rejects EU Competition Probe
This really could develop into a remarkable story: Google has formally rejected the EU Competition Commissioner's assessment that it has been abusing its dominance in the market for internet...
Search for a Balanced UK Recovery Continues
UK GDP continues to head in the right direction - the figure for Q2 growth in real national output remains unrevised at 0.7% and this is a clear indication that the economy is on the right track in...