Economics Weekly Quiz | 14 October 2022
Here's our weekly economics news quiz.
Exploring the gap in regional household disposable income
I suspect many Economics teachers have been using the concept of disposable income with great frequency in recent weeks. Most forecasts predict that in 2022-2023, there will be a significant fall...
UK government may launch fuel price comparison website
If you provide better information, then markets operate more efficiently. This is what economic theory would suggest, and it seems that the operation of the petrol market in Northern Ireland has...
Will the UK government cap renewable industry revenues?
A lovely applied example Here of the complexities of policymaking. In tackling the energy crisis, the government is looking to cap the price that renewable energy sources are able to charge for...
Can China’s electric car boom last?
This article looks at the booming e-vehicle market in China and makes the point that China is expected to register 6 million electric cars in 2022, revised upwards from 5.5 million, representing a...
Crucial days ahead for financial stability in the UK economy
The Bank of England is sending some serious messages to the financial markets - and pension funds in particular - that they see significant risks to the financial stability of the UK economy.
Price Mechanism in Action - Californian Drought Raises Grocery Prices
A short video here from Reuters which offers a neat applied example of supply and demand in action. I might use it when discussing price volatility.
Some rather depressing research from Oxfam reveals that budget analysis shows that post-Covid health spending has fallen in around a half of the poorest countries and that welfare spending and...
Carbon offset market comes under scrutiny
This FT video looks at the carbon offset market - suggesting that the voluntary carbon offset market isn't working as it should, with the impact of carbon removal projects minimal and avoidance...
Dynamic Pricing: Ticketmaster pricing system criticised
A BBC news article on dynamic pricing should be hard for Economics students to ignore! In adopting a dynamic pricing model what are Ticketmaster trying to achieve, and to what extent is this...
Barriers to Trade - Applied Examples and a Retrieval Activity
We have been covering trade protectionism in class over recent days. As always there is a wealth of current applied examples to consider when analysing and evaluating.
Amazon to invest $1 billion in electric vehicles and charging hubs
Investment decisions by leading businesses may well have a notable impact on the speed with which the UK transitions to low-carbon transport. This news from Amazon provides a terrific example of a...
Fixing inequality and insecurity in the USA
James K.Galbraith argues in this piece published in the Guardian that the United States economy has for too longer fostered inequality and reduce the poorest in society to a state of near-penury...
Recession Watch: More UK Companies Going Bust
There is now a 13 year high in UK business insolvencies - taking us back to 2009 and the aftermath of the global financial crisis. This is seen as a leading indicator pointing to slowing growth and...
The distributional implications of poverty can, in part be defined by ethnicity, with newly published research by the Runnymeade Trust suggesting that minority ethnic groups are over-represented...
Economics Weekly Quiz | 07 October 2022
Here's our weekly economics news quiz. What extraordinary times in which we live!
A classic example of a trade-off - between cutting carbon emissions and economic growth, with the IMF warning that getting to net zero will impact growth, but that the cost of this will be...
Cost pressures have forced Greggs to raise the price of their iconic sausage roll for the 2nd time in less than a year. It has jumped from £1.00 to £1.05 and now another 10 pence to £1.15 - putting...
Profit Margins - Are supermarkets taking advantage of drivers?
Petrol prices are often faster to rise when market conditions change than they are to drop when cost pressures are easing. Are the supermarkets using this moment to increase their profit margins on...
Middle Income Trap - Five reasons why China's economy is in trouble
The latest Communist Party meeting is prompting a lot of navel gazing by Sinophiles who think that the economy is struggling to break free of the middle income trap.