Externalities and Market Failure - Councils urged to keep vapes out of sight of children
This news story from the health section of BBC News offers a terrific opportunity to A level economists and teachers to open up the economic analysis and policy toolbox to address an important...
How about this for a synoptic exam question? Assess the possible microeconomic and macroeconomic effects of the UK government increasing spending to fund subsidies for free childcare for infants.
UK Economy - Business leaders must innovate again
Here is a Larry Elliott article that should be essential reading for everyone taking a post-16 examination this summer about the importance of productivity to helping the British economy out of its...
Sustainable Development - World Bank Videos on Sustainable Fishing
The World Bank has posted a number of videos looking at different examples of over-fishing, and the policy solutions developed in response. It is a veritable treasure trove of material relating to...
Tim Harford - Understand The Economy (BBC Radio)
Understand the Economy is a wonderful series on BBC Radio 4 presented by Tim Harford (Economics author aka 'The Undercover Economist' & FT Weekend Magazine Economics writer). So far there have...
Economics Weekly Quiz | 10 February 2023
Here's our weekly economics news quiz.
Economic Update - Developments in the UK Economy (Feb 2023)
In the latest of our regular updates on the UK, we bring you up to speed to what is happening with growth, inflation, jobs and interest rates. The Bank of England is now forecasting a shallower...
Is the Bank of England set to issue a digital pound?
A truly fascinating headline in the Financial Times today! The UK Treasury and Bank of England are launching a consultation on plans to design a “digital pound” that could supplant banknotes by...
Are Britain's mobile phone and broadband companies exploiting their dominant market positions? Certainly that's the implication of this Observer article that notes the extent to which they've...
Piouvian Taxes - Tesco chicken supplier and pollution in the River Wye
A very localised example here of a negative production externality, with algal blooms on the River Wye being attributed to the activities of poultry producer, Avara Foods.
How can water be saved and recycled at home?
Economics is fundamentally about how to best use scarce resources. This BBC video clip from "Click" looks at how we can recycle water, increasing sustainability, with Dutch company Hydroloop at the...
Retirement boom creates economic headache
The impact of more people opting for economic inactivity has implications for the economy as a whole as well as firms in specific locations. In this case, this Guardian piece looks at the area...
Business Objectives - Octopus Energy Ditches Profit to support Customers
What do think about this story? The CEO of Octopus Energy – one of the relatively new suppliers in the UK retail energy market – claims that “We could have made a profit but now’s not the time -...
Underemployment - How Benefit Reforms Push People into Low-Paid Jobs
This sort of thing is seen by many as peripheral - and in one sense it is - but in another it's a fundamental problem with current labour markets, and may contribute to rising in-work poverty....
Shell reports highest profits in 115 years
The announcement that Shell has made record profits of effectively $40 billion is going to fuel calls for the government to look again at the imposition of a windfall tax. Dan Niedle has some...
Economic Development - Can Sri Lanka trade its way back to prosperity?
A nation close to my heart, where many friends still live; the fate of Sri Lanka will always affect me, and the latest Newsnight coverage of the island's financial crisis is salutary.
Economics Weekly Quiz | 03 February 2023
Here's our weekly economics news quiz.
BoE raises interest rates to 4% - the highest for 14 years
We might be getting close to the peak of interest rates during the current tightening phase for UK monetary policy. The Bank of England today lifted official base interest rates for 10th...
Tesco - Delayering and the purchase of Paperchase
Two interesting stories about Tesco - a business that many students and teachers follow for case-study gold dust!
On the day that the IMF publishes its updated growth forecasts for individual economies as well as the global economy, they also publish this. A snapshot of global economic health: highlighting...