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Topic updates
Taking renewable energy to the next level (2018 update)
We are likely to look back on 2018 as a year when many countries and regions of the world made further substantial progress in increasing renewable energy capacity and benefitting from economies of...
Poor management cited as a key supply-side weakness for the UK
An excellent piece here in the Guardian for dissecting some of the supply-side weaknesses brought about by under-performing management especially in family-run mid-sized firms.
Herd behaviour can be perfectly compatible with rationality
The Bank of England and Federal Reserve held a two-day conference last week in London on Big Data and machine learning. All very interesting stuff. There was an intriguing vignette as we emerged...
Inside the Ocean Spray Cranberry Cooperative
Business Insider visits a cranberry farm to explore how over 200 billion cranberries are harvested each year. Ocean Spray Cranberry farms are a part of a cooperative established in 1933 that...
Unintended consequences of inflation targets
Just fascinating - this article looks at the purpose and consequences of inflation targets, arguing that they don't always promote stability as intended but might actually increase uncertainty, and...
Infrastructure - Why is China so good at building railways?
Wendover Productions with another fantastic clip - this time looking at China's ability to build high-speed rail. China now has more high-speed rail links than the rest of the world put together,...
Lessons of Quantitative Easing
This is a US centric video clip but carries some pertinent evaluation points about the impact of quantitative easing on the US economy a decade on from the launch of this "unconventional monetary...
Inside the Amazon Warehouse - Monopsony under Scrutiny
BBC Newsnight pays a visit to the huge Amazon logistics facility in Rugeley, Staffordshire to look at working conditions. Has it successfully replaced the jobs lost when the Staffordshire coal...
Preparing for the next recession
The Economist speculates that whilst we're ten years away from the last recession, we shouldn't be complacent and we might be on the brink of another recession, perhaps triggered by emerging...
Lessons on innovation from a 2018 Nobel Prize winner
Gordon Brown’s time as Chancellor will be remembered for many things. A sense of humour would be conspicuously absent from this list. But he provoked a great deal of mirth unintentionally in a...
How to Fuel the Future
This fantastic Economist clip looks at the state of the global energy sector, highlighting the importance of oil and the challenges facing the global economy in this regard.
Private sector debt will likely cause the next crisis
This month of course saw the 10th anniversary of the collapse of Lehmann Brothers, which precipitated one of the only two global financial crises of the past 150 years. The late 2000s and the early...
Intra-Regional Trade: A Challenge for South Asia
This World Bank clip looks at the relatively low level of intra-regional trade in South Asia and suggests that the countries of the region should be doing three times the trade that they currently...
Empowering women as a driving force for development
The IMF looks at why empowering women is a good thing for development: it's relatively simple. Women represent more than 50% of the potential workforce and increasing female education also reduces...
Stepping back to 2008
This excellent programme was broadcast on Saturday night on BBC Radio 4 and traces events surrounding the causes of global financial crisis. It is made up of extracts from archive BBC material and...
History Repeating: The Financial Crisis 10 Years On
Adam Parsons from Sky News has this special report from New York, a decade on from the collapse of Lehman.
Financial Crisis Explained: 4 Short FT Videos
Hats off to the Financial Times for producing this series of short videos discussing aspects of the global financial crisis. Superb for new students wanting to bring their historical knowledge up...
Health care spending in the UK
Here are some links to the scale and pattern of health-care spending in the UK economy.
Think Tank calls for major reforms of the UK economy
The IPPR Commission on Economic Justice has found that the UK is being held back by a number of weaknesses, not least a lack of investment, and high levels of inequality and has proposed a number...
Should We Nationalise the Water Industry?
A timely and pertinent discussion on the future for the water industry. Faiza Shaheen and Robert Colvile discuss on BBC Newsnight whether water companies should remain privatised or become...