Unit 2 Macro: Migration and the UK Economy
A revision blog on the economic impact of migration on the UK economy
read more...»Under-employment - the dark side of flexible working or just a sign of the recession?
Today, TUC figures showed that the number of men working part time who are looking for full time work has doubled in the last four years from 293,000 to nearly 600,000. Is this a sign of the recession or is it an inevitable result of a move towards more flexible working?
read more...»Unit 1 Micro: Minimum Wages and Living Wages
The campaign for a living wage has gained renewed prominence in the last year or so. Students and teachers wanting to know more about the minimum and the living wage debate might find this background blog from Channel 4 news relevant and useful. More here on the living wage from the Citizens UK web page.
Unit 3 Micro: The Dawn of a Shareholder Spring?
Here is a pertinent and timely resource from Channel 4 news on overcoming the principle agent-problem. Are shareholders in some of our leading companies becoming more active in holding senior executives to account for poor performance? or more concerned with their own shareholder value at a time when CEO earnings continue to grow well above inflation? I own plenty of shares but have never once been to a company AGM or exercised my right to vote. Could planned legislation further embolden activist shareholders and shake up boardrooms across the UK? More on the debate over the shareholder spring here See also BBC news: FTSE 100 bosses’ pay ‘rose 11% last year’ And: FTSE 100 bosses’ pay unrelated to results, report says (BBC news, May 2012)
read more...»Made in China - but not quite so cheaply…...
How long can China keep its comparative advantage of cheap production for manufacturing goods? We are aware of rising inflation in China which is eroding their advantage, and here is an article about a UK firm which manufactures cushions, some from a factory in Kirkby on Merseyside and some from his factory in the Zhejiang province in China. The story comes from a programme ‘The Town taking on China’ to be shown on BBC2 at 8pm tonight - and subsequently on i-player.
read more...»Unit 1 Micro: Adecco and Monopsony Power
Here is an example of monopsony power in the labour market and the risk of exploitation of employees. Britain’s largest recruitment agency, Adecco, is being accused of short-changing temporary staff by rounding down their holiday pay. Hundreds of thousands of people are employed by contract recruitment businesses - this is a timely reminder of the importance of employment legislation as a means of protecting the pay and conditions of people in vulnerable jobs.
read more...»Unit 2 Macro: Better news on jobs in the UK?
This excellent news video from Channel 4 news looks at the changing pattern of employment in the UK economy. The number of full time workers is dropping and there has been a big switch towards part-time employment. Who are the winners and losers in our labour market as the fragile recovery struggles to maintain momentum?
read more...»Blanchflower calls for more action to address youth jobless crisis
Professor David Blanchflower didn’t pull his punches when he was a member of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee and he is making his mark once more with an attack on what he views as the Coalition government’s lacklustre approach to tackling youth unemployment. Blanchflower is reported in the Guardian as wanting zero national insurance contributions for employers who take on younger workers in depressed regions and localities. And he wants greater investment in vocational education in schools and colleges with the school-leaving age raised to 18.
read more...»Budget 2012 - analysis with evidence
As ever, there are loads of sources that students can use to analyse the Budget and to extract pieces of Evidence for the Examples they will need to add depth to their analysis in essays. Those who are attending the current round of revision workshops will recognise this as a key part of ensuring that they write essays which PEEL the answer (each paragraph makes one Point, using Examples with Evidence, offering Evaluation and Linking to the question). As start points, I would suggest these sources which are reasonably free of opinions:
BBC website: Budget 2012 at a glance, Farewell 50p tax rate, and Over 65-s tax-free income freeze
The Guardian Budget 2012: welfare cuts, tax cuts too, but retreat on child benefit and for the visual learners a nice graphic version: Tax and spending plans visualised
Which is the world’s biggest employer?
One of my favourite little statistical gems has always been the claim that the NHS is the world’s third largest employer, after the Indian Railways and the Chinese army, so it is deeply disappointing to find that this is not true - it’s actually only the fifth on the list with 1.7 million staff.
Ahead of the NHS are McDonalds’ global workforce in 4th place (1.9 million), Walmart, including Asda in the UK in third (2.1 million), the Chinese army 2nd with 2.3 million and, at the top of the table, the US Department of Defense with a whopping 3.2million staff - although only 1.6 million of these are on active service,with the rest in civilian and other support roles.
read more...»Michael Sandel at the LSE
On Thursday, I was fortunate enough to get a ticket to see Michael Sandel speak at LSE. I have attended several events at LSE in the past two years and this was, by some margin, the best I have seen. Michael was delivering the first of three lectures and the subject for discussion was whether bankers should be paid more than nurses. Although this type of discussion is commonplace in our classrooms, Michael’s background as a philosopher meant that the event had me thinking about the issue in new ways. The style used relies almost entirely on contributions from the audience and makes it difficult to summarise but what follows is my best effort.
read more...»Unit 1 Micro - Labour Migration and the Economy
Migration from one country to another has become an increasingly important feature of our globalizing world and it raises many important economic, social and political issues. About 200-million people — about 3% of the world’s population — now live in countries in which they were not born. In the United Kingdom in 2010, the number of international migrants as a percentage of the population rose above 10% for the first time after several years of high rates of net inward migration
read more...»Unit 1 Micro: Highest and Lowest Paid Jobs in the UK
A summary of the highest and lowest paid jobs in the UK labour market can be found here. I often use this data and resource links as starting points for discussion introductory labour market economics for EdExcel Unit 1 and it might also be handy for AQA Unit 3 economics.
read more...»Unit 3 Micro: Slideshare Presentation on Trade Unions
An updated presentation for A2 microeconomics on some economic aspects of trade unions in the UK is now available through slideshare
read more...»Unit 2 Macro: A Man Regains his Self Respect
We have followed Stephen Stubbs on the economics blog before. This committed man from the north-east of England has been out of work for more than a year and had filed nearly two thousands job applications in a concerted and lengthy pursuit of a fresh job. What marvellous news it is that he has found work with the student loans company. Here are two videos that tell the story of his long and difficult pathway to finding new work.
read more...»Unit 3 Micro: Video Resources on Trade Unions
Here is a selection of short news video resources on trade unions in the UK
read more...»Unit 3 Micro: Trade Union and Industrial Stoppages
I am teaching trade unions as part of our study of labour markets in the UK and the rest of Europe. This data from Timetric tracks the number of days lost from industrial disputes / stoppages and is always useful in providing historical context. Data on UK trade union membership can be found here
* Trade union density for employees in the UK was just 26.6 per cent in 2010
* Trade union membership levels for UK employees was 6.5 million compared with 2009. Across all sectors of the economy, just under half of UK employees (46.1 per cent in 2010) were in a workplace where a trade union was present
* The hourly earnings of union members, according to the LFS, averaged £14.00 in 2010, 16.7 per cent more than the earnings of non-members (£12.00 per hour)
Unit 3 Micro: Low Pay in Supermarkets
The award-winning journalist Paul Mason provides this video report on low pay for hundreds of thousands of people who work for the big four supermarkets. I use this video when teaching monopsony power in the labour market. For many people, supermarket workers’ wages are being supplemented by state benefits such as child tax credits
read more...»France and Flexible Employment
This article could be useful as an illustration of the EU context in relation to employment in general, and flexible employment in particular. Attracting inward FDI is arguably a significant benefit of UK membership of the EU, and one of the advantages which the UK can offer compared to, say, France is relatively flexible employment laws.
read more...»Unit 2 Macro: Living below the Breadline
This article on the appalling depth of workless households in Liverpool is a reminder of the multiple aspects of relative poverty and economic/social exclusion.
The causes of unemployment are complex - many are structural - but it is hard to draw much if any optimism from reading this article. By some estimates over one third of households in Liverpool have no one in work and second and third generation unemployment is not uncommon. This is a must article for students to read if they want a better awareness of the human cost of non-employment. Read: Below the breadline on Liverpool’s workless estates
read more...»Unit1 Micro: Can a minimum wage create jobs?
Tim Harford has a piece in his regular column in the Financial Times which discusses some of the issues surrounding the minimum wage and whether a legal pay floor can actually create jobs. Here is the link
Unit 4 Macro: Video Resources on Unemployment
This blog entry brings together a selection of recent news reports and videos covering the economics of unemployment in the UK and inother countries.
read more...»Unit 4 Macro: Human Capital and Economic Growth
In A2 macroeconomics the underlying causes of economic growth and development and constraints on both of these are covered in more depth. One of the concepts students might be familiar with is that of human capital.
I have always summarised the idea of human capital as being a measure of the overall quality of the human input available to produce goods and services in an economy. The ONS have published a new study on the value of human capital in the UK and they draw on a definition given by the OECD
read more...»Unit 4 Macro: The Rise in Self Employment
One feature of the jobs market data in the UK in the last couple of years has been the surge in measured levels of self-employment (the data is collected as part of the huge Labour Force Survey)
The total number of self-employed people in the UK increased by 166,000 in the three months to the end of November to reach 4.14 million - this is the highest number of self-employed people since comparable records began in 1992.
What helps to explain the growth of self employment? Optimists might claim that it is a sign of a pick up in entrepreneurial activity in Britain as many people who have been made redundant decide to strike out on their own by starting a new business.
A more realistic explanation is that rising self employment is a sign of macroeconomic weakness. Hundreds of thousands of people have lost their jobs and a sizeable number will simply re-categorise themselves as self employed when they are quizzed as part of the Labour Force Survey. They are likely to be scouting around for jobs and are much likely to take one or more part time jobs when they can.
Part time employment was up sharply, but do not forget that the number of full-time employees fell by 188,000 in the three-month period covering August, September and October - that is more than 2,000 people per day losing their jobs.
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Unit 2 Macro: Will a Youth Jobs Subsidy Work?
The Coalition Government recently heralded a new scheme designed to address the structural problem of high youth unemployment in the UK economy. Under their “youth contract” plan, employers will be given “wage incentives” worth £2,275 to take on some 160,000 18-to-24-year-olds. But will it have much impact on the problem? The independent Office for Budgetary Responsibility says that the net effect on overall unemployment will be close to zero, because the subsidy incentive will lead to a switch in employment away from older workers.
read more...»Unit 1 Micro: 50 Years since the end of the Max Wage in Football
Around this time of my micro course my students look at maximum prices (price ceilings) in different markets. There are still plenty of contemporary examples to consider, for example salary caps for executives, caps on the cost of mobile phone texts and roaming charges, rent ceilings etc. But here is a resource that will be of special interest to football-loving economists, namely the 50th anniversary of the ending of the maximum wage in football. The Independent has this nifty set of graphics looking at landmarks in wages of top footballers over the years. Click on: The maximum wage and football’s money trail
UK unemployment in November 2011 - a video overview
The presentational style might leave a little to be desired, but this analytical ONS video might provide colleagues with a different teaching resource to help explain the rapid rise in UK unemployment.
read more...»Here there be NEETs.
Regional unemployment is seen as a significant economic problem, but employers may be reluctant to relocate if the educational quality of the workforce is below par. The term NEET refers to young people Not in Education, Training and Employment, and it appears that there are significant pockets of NEETs across the mainland of Great Britain.
read more...»Unit 3 Micro: UK Executive Pay - All in it Together?
At a time when millions of people are taking nominal or real pay cuts, the news that chief executives of FTSE-100 companies have seen their earnings rise by 43% in the last year is particularly difficult to stomach.
read more...»Unit 1 Micro: University fees and elasticity of demand
When teaching price elasticity of demand, here is a good article on the BBC today on the effect of higher university fees on demand for higher education. Good for discussion of how PED will differ with respect to different types of consumer and for different types of universities, as well as the cross price elasticity of demand with foreign universities.
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