Network Rail and Diseconomies of Scale
Is Network Rail too big? Virgin Rail boss Richard Branson clearly thinks so according to this BBC news report. He is quoted as saying that "Network Rail is far too big a company. I think that...
Game Theory and the Greek Economic Crisis
Game theory can be described as the mathematical study of decision-making, of conflict and strategy in social situations. It helps explain how we interact in key decision-making processes. In this...
International Trade Agreements
Some useful trade data is available on the Economist website. There’s a handy breakdown of the world’s biggest importers and exporters – data which also reveals where the biggest current account...
Information Failure - Sunscreen Labelling
A new report has found that there is deeply embedded information failure affecting consumers of sunscreen lotions, In a survey of 2,000 UK adults, one in five was unaware that the SPF rating does...
Who plays better poker? Cameron, Sturgeon or Varoufakis?
The gracious Palladian architecture of Edinburgh has often led the city to be described as the Athens of the North. If the referendum result had gone the other way, much closer parallels would have...
Could Djibouti be the next Dubai?
This little story on today's BBC Business News combines many of the elements of constraints on development and policies to help promote growth and development which we teach at A2.
Tax credits explained
In the last couple of weeks we have seen the PM pledging changes to the tax credits system, the Chancellor looking for £12bn of welfare cuts, and suggestions that it would help to avoid 'in-work...
Economics Teacher Conference Download
It was fantastic to see so many of you at today's Teachers National Conference at the Wellcome Collection conference centre in London. I'm sure, like me, you really enjoyed soaking up the wit and...
Access to great free resources from CORE Economics
The CORE Economics approach is now taught at UCL, Bristol and Southampton Universities. The demand for this new undergraduate course is in part a response to pressure from students who have been...
Ideas from Living and Dead Economists
A summer challenge for my more ambitious economics students is to become knowledgeable about the ideas, insights and theories put forward by as many different economists as they can. Here is the...
George Osborne’s plan to run financial surpluses and use them to pay off government debt has been met with the usual set of whinges and whines, mainly from academic economists funded by the...
Final preparations for Unit 4 macro
Year 13 students who are in the final stages of preparation for Unit 4 papers will know that they must carry a range of evidence about the UK and the global economy with them in their head as they...
Does social mobility matter to Economists?
Social mobility (or apparent lack of it) has been in the news again recently. I suppose that this won’t be a surprise given the success of the incumbent Conservative Government during the General...
The domination of the banking industry by a handful of ‘too-big-to-fail’ and highly leveraged banks is driven by two forces at the heart of modern market economies: competition and ‘increasing...
Behavioural Economics - Giving and Peer Effects
Donors are strongly influenced by how much other people have given when it comes to giving online to fundraising websites. A single large donation of £100 increases subsequent amounts given by...
At some point recession will return, and we will want to use fiscal policy and monetary policy to help revive aggregate demand. After the financial crisis, policymakers sprang into action to...
Mis-leading price comparison sites
They give the appearance of offering consumers much valued information and transparency about the best deals in complex savings, loans and insurance markets. But price comparison sites are coming...
OCR F585 Case Study Toolkit Presentation
The full version of my OCR F585 presentation toolkit is now available for viewing in streamed format now that the main exam is over.
Banks, cancer and Stephen Hawking
Massive fines for banks, gross misbehaviour, huge bonuses for failure, bail outs at vast expense to the taxpayer. Little wonder that politicians and pundits can almost invariably win cheap applause...
Nudging to Achieve Behavioural Change
Behavioural economics seeks to develop an understanding of how people think their decisions can be influenced through 'nudges'. There are many different types of nudge and this Storify will seek to...