UK economy at recession’s door
Most students starting their economics courses this autumn have never known what it is like to live through a recession since the last time Britain went into a downturn was in the early 1990s. In fact, there have been only five recessions since the end of the Second World War: in 1974, 1975, 1980, 1981 and 1991.Is this all about to change? Yes.
read more...»Price stickiness on the forecourt
The AA isn’t happy. Standing up for hard pressed motorists is part of its daily remit and their latest salvo is directed at the petrol retailers for failing to pass on reductions in the price of crude oil on world markets to drivers who have been getting used to spending over £75 to fill up their tanks. Oil prices are indeed on the slide - how much further can the declines go? Will speculative activity accelerate the decline towards $110 or lower? But the AA claims that the major petrol retailers have been slower to reduce prices than they were to raise them when the cost of crude was heading northwards. Edmund King is reported in the Telegraph as saying “We calculate that retailers should be cutting a penny a litre off diesel and petrol with each two dollar fall in oil prices. The AA calculates that this should have meant petrol falling from 119.7p to 106.2p a litre and diesel dropping from 133.35p to 119.75p. Instead the latest pump price for petrol is about 115.25p, while motorists are still paying 128.42p for diesel.”
Inevitably there are time lags between changes in crude prices on global markets and the price we pay for petrol. Expect the supermarkets to move things along in the next couple of weeks with another bout of vigorous price competition. Profit margins for retailers of petrol and diesel are actually wafer thin - most of the money is made at earlier stages of the supply chain from oil exploration and refining.
Chart
Petrol_Diesel_Prices.ppt
Nokia cuts prices as battle for market share in handsets hots up
Nokia has increased its market share for handsets from 38.4% to 40.9% according to second quarter data from CCS Insight and reported in an article in the Times yesterday. The intense battle for market share is resulting in periodic price wars and the economic downturn seems to have precipitated another one - Nokia is reducing prices by up to 10% .
The mobile phone handset industry is best described as an oligopoly. In the second quarter of 2008 the leading five manufacturers accounted for 83% of world sales.
Nokia 40.9
Samsung 15.3
Motorola 9.4
LG 9.3
Sony Ericsson 8.2
The global mobile phone market grew by 12.3 per cent year-on-year in the first half of 2008 with shipments reaching 584 million units - the economies of large scale production in this kind of industry must be absolutely enormous. The power of the brand and the impact of achieving lower costs per unit are two of the key competitive drivers that impact on consumer prefereces.
Bitter blow for pubs as more opt to call last orders
It is a bitter blow for the licensed trade but 1.2 million fewer pints of beer are being drunk every day in Britain this year compared to last and over twenty pubs a week are calling last orders for the final time.
read more...»Nintendo poised to overtake Sony in the consoles battle
Sony has released results showing that it has sold 14.4 million PS3 machines worldwide since it went on sale late 2006 but this might not be enough to prevent Nintendo from overtaking them as the world’s biggest seller of computer games consoles in 2008. This classic oligopolistic market continues to see vigorous price and non-price competition between the three dominant players - Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft. This week - all ten of the top UK selling computer games are either for the Wii or Nintendo DS and five of the chart toppers are produced by Nintendo themselves. The company has sold more than 10 million Wii consoles and 70 million DS handheld machines worldwide.
More background available here “Consoles look to hit their stride”
Economic slowdown becomes steeper
This BBC news video is excellent at looking at some of the causes of the economic slowdown in the UK economy and features a brief cameo appearance by my old director of studies at university - Martin Weale from the National Institute. In a related article, the International Monetary Fund reports that the worst of the credit crunch is not yet over.
Beanscene battles to avoid being a has-bean
The BBC reports that one of Scotland’s fastest growing coffee houses has gone into administration as bottom-line losses became unsustainable. Beanscene’s 14 shops are spread across Scotland from Ayr to the border town of Hawick to the old town in Leith.
read more...»Cheap flights - elasticity and effective demand
Double-digit annual inflation rates in the prices of airline tickets for the low cost carriers will bring about a radical restructuring of the industry according to a report in today’s Times. I have tended to assume in the past that the demand for cheap airline tickets was fairly inelastic - for most people the price of a return flight for a holiday is a low percentage of their annual income; holidays in the sun have come to be regarded as an essential part of the year for millions of travellers. And for those with second homes in the mediterranean flights are pretty much unavoidable. The Times article hints at a low price elasticity of demand
“According to analysts a 10 per cent increase in fares typically leads to a 6.5 per cent fall in passenger numbers. Budget airlines carry an estimated 45million British passengers a year. If fares rise by 20 per cent over two years, passenger demand looks set to fall by more than five million.”
So the predicted large contraction in demand isn’t down to any fudnamental change in demand elasticity - more the scale of the fare hikes which are pricing thousands more out of the market - effective demand is taking a hit. I suspect the response may be even greater if the low cost airlines continue to fashion new ways of extracting revenue from their passengers. Doug McVite is quoted as saying “it is probably only a matter of time before some joker suggests charging for using the toilet. The whole experience of flying budget will become even more unpleasant.”
US minimum wage rises to $6.55
The US federal minimum wage increases today by 70 cents on Thursday, to $6.55 per hour from $5.85. The increase will raise the minimum wage in 25 states; the other 25 have minimum wages higher than $6.55 and the move will affect around two million workers. But will rising food prices simply swallow up the real income boost that the rise in the pay floor provides? And is it wise to rack up the minimum wage at a time of recession? What will happen to employment in the low skilled segments of the US labour market? Coverage here via the Associated Press and also the Charlotte Observer in North Carolina.
Another UK restaurant chain has been exposed for paying the staff less than half of the UK minimum wage of £5.73 an hour and using tips and other gratuities to make up the difference - there is a groundswell of public opinion that this is inequitable and may require further government intervention
Declan quizzes the Amazon boss
This is an excellent video snippet with Declan Curry quizzing Amazon chief executive Brian McBride on news that the online retailer - which is estimated to have over 15% of the market share in selling books - has reported profits of $158m in the three months to the end of June, a rise of 102% - helped by DVD releases of hit tv series and the likes of the enw Cold Play album and the incredible volume of sales achieved by the release of Grand Theft Auto IV.
Lots of concepts linked to the brief discussion
Amazon’s buying power in the market - does Amazon get better wholesale prices from the publishers than others in the book trade?
The long term shift towards online retailing and away from bricks and mortar
The emphasis on huge sales volumes allied to low profit margins
In April Amazon opened a new 800,000 sq ft fulfilment centre in Swansea Bay which is the size of ten football pitches
This article links in - smaller bookstores are clubbing together to give themselves better buying power in a bid to compete with the online retailers and the supermarkets.
Zimbabwe introduces a Z$100bn banknote
Price deflation for second-hand cars
The balance of power is tilting firmly towards buyers in the second hand car market to judge from new data which shows that the average forecourt price of second-hand cars has slumped more than 14 per cent in the past year.
The absence of buyers has left dealers worried about being stuck with excess stocks of cars and more buyers are not prepared to accept the advertised windscreen price. Demand has been hit by the loss of consumer confidence, the prospect of much higher vehicle excise duty on older less fuel efficient vehicles and by the rising price of fuel. And double-digit price deflation has been reinforced because many dealers are now able to source their vehicles more cheaply too as families with multiple cars on their drive way look to offload them as budgets are squeezed.
Housing slump and negative multiplier effects
This article in the Financial Times is a good example of how a fall in demand and activity in one industry can have negative multiplier effects on related industries up and down the supply chain. Barratt Developments has announced that it is laying off twenty per cent of its workers and that “job cuts across the industry could reach 60,000 out of 300,000 people employed directly and indirectly in the sector. - The Chief Executive is quoted as saying that there would be a “secondary effect on the supply chain, comprising kitchen companies, solicitors, mortgage advisers, estate agents and so on,”
BBC: “More job losses at UK housebuilders”
The Guardian: “Barratt cuts 1,200 jobs to cope with housing slump”
