Unit 3 Micro: The Economics of Solar Subsidies
This blog provides a link to a new prezi presentation on the economics of solar subsidies - I have been using it as part of my teaching on aspects of environmental economics for Unit 3 AQA but it might also be useful for unit 1 market failure. I have kept theoretical diagrams out of it and plan to build up relevant analytical concepts such as economies of scale, consumer subsidies, economic and social welfare, government failure et al on a normal whiteboard rather than embed them into the Prezi. I hope it is useful.
Follow the tags at the bottom of the blog entry for more recent articles on solar subsidies such as feed-in-tariffs and other environmental economic resources.
read more...»Unit1 Micro: Processed Meat and Cancer Risk - Information Failure?
I do my level best to avoid the processed meat aisles in the supermarkets - or at least the lower end of what is on offer (I remember once the 5pence sausage that was a guaranteed 2 per cent pork!). But perhaps excessive consumption of processed meats - much of which finds a way into the traditional Full-English might be doing people much more harm than good? Follow this BBC news report for more details.
read more...»Prezi on Information Failures
Click below to open a new Prezi on aspects of information failures / gaps and market failure together with some of the interventions that might be used to address imfornation imperfections in many markets.
read more...»Information failure: supermarket pricing
Information failure occurs when limited data means consumers or producers make different decisions than if they had full information. This video clip Panorama: The Truth About Supermarket Price Wars shows how supermarket pricing can confuse and confound rational decision making
read more...»The Bicycle - A merit good and an integral part of sustainable transport solutions?
A recent economic study1 found that bicycle ownership can boost household income in sub-Saharan Africa by 35%. I may be biased given my passion for cycling but I think there are indeed some very strong economic arguments for encouraging more bicycles both in the developing and the developed world.
The bicycle: more than just a mode of transport
Unit 1 Micro: Teacher Update on New Regulations
The end of September has brought a raft of new or changed regulations affecting different markets. Here is a summary of some of them for students and teachers wanting to keep up to date:
read more...»Where there’s muck there’s brass
I am cross-posting this from the Business Studies blog, so apologies to those who read both - but I think it is a good story for both subjects. I have changed a few of the terms and themes to cover the different emphasis for an economics student.
On the face of it, this is a good end-of-term case study which is bound to raise a smirk or a grimace from most students, but actually there is a wealth of good solid theory in it. In answer to the question “What to do with 12,000 tonnes of pig poo?” a farm in Gloucestershire has taken advantage of government grants to set up their own biogas generator, which enables them not only to provide their own power for the farm and farmhouse, but also to sell about 2.2 million kilowatts of electricity each year to the National Grid, and even better, to save money on fertiliser as the by-product has been broken down into a form that can be used on the fields. Even better, the process prevents huge amounts of methane from being released into the atmosphere - apparently each year it saves the equivalent of almost 9,000 return flights from London to New York. So lots of good positive externalities there.
read more...»Unit 3 Micro: Economies of Scale in Solar Power
How about this for economies of scale in the renewable energy industry? A new photovoltaic park has opened in Les Mées in France, By the end of 2011, solar panels will cover 200 hectares and produce around 100MW, making it the biggest solar array in France.
Electric cars: government failure?
There was a great in-depth look at activity in the car market in the Sunday Times yesterday with regards to electric powered vehicles.
Nudge? More like a shove for Aussie smokers!
Here is an example of a government prepared to make tough decisions on the marketing of a de-merit good - a strong alternative to the default option of simply raising the duty (tax) on consumption in real terms. The Australian government has introduced what it thinks are the strongest laws controlling the sale and display of cigarettes in the world - it will be fascinating to see how this impacts on consumption among different age groups. Logos are banned, a large area of each packet must show cancerous tumours and the health effects of tobacco. And they are taking nudge to a new level by insisting that the colour of each packet is one that in surveys, smokers have found to be least attractive.
The Sydney Morning Herald reports that smoking kills 15,000 Australians a year and costs the community about $31.5 billion annually. Over the last twenty years the smoking rate in Australia has halved but the government now wants to reduce it still further to 10%. The move is being contested by the multinational cigarette manufacturers who claim that the proposed restrictions infringe international trademark and intellectual property laws.
Read: Australian anti-smoking laws to be ‘toughest in world’
See also The Independent: Australia’s cigarette war over shocking pack rules and David Prosser: When will big tobacco decide to give up?
Information Failures: Health Warnings on Cigarette Packets
Henry Wingfield writes about the impact of health warnings on cigarette packets - they have proved effective in many countries but should the bar be raised in the UK? They are certainly considering it in the United States as the embedded video below suggests.
read more...»Economics of health care reform
A hat tip to Diane Coyle for spotting this excellent podcast on the economics of reforms to the NHS - a discussion rich in the use of economic terms and one that might be a great teaching resource for AS micro students looking at aspects of health care markets and government intervention?
High taxes stimulate rise in smuggling of cigarettes
One of the unintended consequences of the steep rise in the real price of cigarettes in the UK is the strong incentive to bring contraband cigarettes into the UK from elsewhere in the EU single market.
This Guardian article reports on the expected rise in smuggling as cigarette duties reach fresh highs in 2011. The average price of a pack of 20 cigarettes reached £6.29 in the UK last summer, compared with £2.80 in Spain and £1.57 in Poland.
Lifting the cap on tuition fees - a question of price elasticity?
The latest review of university funding has recommended that the cap on tuition fees be lifted giving universities more freedom to raise annual tuition costs well above the current level of £3,290 a year.
To what extent will a rise in the private cost of studying for a degree lead to a substantial fall in market demand from UK-based students? This BBC news feature makes for interesting reading and links in well to the concept of price elasticity of demand - the responsiveness of demand to a change in the market price. There is little doubt that the cost of taking a university education will rise substantially in the years ahead and this raises hugely important questions about the impact on demand and the effect on students from poorer backgrounds who might be priced out of a degree.
It seems that Business Secretary Vince Cable has already come out against introducing a Graduate Tax - one of the main alternatives to raising tuition fees. The issue is debated here in this discussion on the Radio 4 Today programme. There is more background on the university funding issue here.
Further articles on the economics of a graduate tax can be found here.
University course fee increases ‘could deter students’ (BBC news)
Healthy Options - Which Menu Works Best
A second summer hat tip to Michael Owen for picking this article from the Independent with Jamie Oliver defending his approach to make changes to the choices available to students when taking school meals. Oliver was responding to criticisms from Health Minister Andrew Landsley. The inspiration behind the Fifteen Foundation cites inadequate funding available to train school catering staff properly.
Super-fast broadband slows down again
Figures comparing growth in UK productivity consistently show us falling behind our major competitors. As Geoff highlighted in this recent blog, there are many underlying factors on the supply-side of the economy and one of them is infrastructure bottlenecks caused by, among other things, slow broadband speeds.
read more...»Spare swine flu vaccine - government failure or good planning?
Is this an example of government failure, or good planning?
The answer to that probably lies in the future, next winter, when we will discover whether the buffer stocks of 34 million unused swine flu jabs is needed or not.
In the emergency last summer the government contracted to buy 120 million jabs from the two manufacturers, GlaxoSmith Kline and Baxter, but then reduced the order to just 44 million as the emergency petered out. Only 6million of those have actually been used, nearly 4 million are being given to the World Health Organisation for use in Africa, leaving 34 million on the shelf.
read more...»NHS: Govt failure?
The NHS is back at the centre of hot debate again this weekend, as the Dr Foster report findings generate differences of opinions.
read more...»Should museum entry be free?
Here is a link to a discussion on the Today programme between Dr Michael Dixon, of the Natural History museum, and Guardian columnist Simon Jenkins, also chairman of the National Trust. A good resource as an introduction to any lesson on museums, charges and the costs and benefits of a free entrance policy.
Two VAT Stories - Sports Goods and Restaurants
Changing the rate of value added tax (VAT applied to a product should bring about a change in the retail price of a good or service to the consumer. The current rate of VAT in the UK is 15% following a temporary cut from 17.5% in November 2008. Today the Public Health Commission has started to lobby for a reduction in VAT to the min rate allowed under EU law - 5% - for products such as sports equipment. The justification is that lower prices will increase the affordability of leisure products and help encourage more people to follow a healthy life style. As always a reduction in an ad valorem tax will have a great impact on the price of more expensive equipment - for example the £1000+ cost of a concept 2 rower compared to an entry level tennis racket. The arguments are raised in this BBC news article.
Across the Channel the cost of eating out will fall as a result of a cut in VAT by the French government. Value-added tax (VAT) has been reduced from 19.6% to 5.5%, in an attempt to increase consumer spending and create thousands of jobs.
On a different matter I didn’t realise until last week that VAT is applied to razor blades - one reason (but not the main one) behind the scandalously high prices that the likes of Gillette and Wilkinson Sword charge for their cartridges.
Preventing bush fires - are toxin free retardents merit goods?
As those living in Australia, Greece and California can testify through recent experience, protecting human life, buildings and foliage when bush and forest fires break out is often incredibly difficult and very expensive.
read more...»Q&A: Demerit Goods and Negative Production Externalities
Question: I was wondering what the difference between a demerit good and a good that has negative externalities in production was?
read more...»Economies of Scale for Wind Farms
The scale of the new farm project at Eaglesham Moor near Glasgow is stunning but projects of this type inevitably create a huge furore especially for those living in the area. My own personal view is that wind farms as a source of renewable energy are things of beauty - this BBC video provides an aerial view of the Glasgow project and might be a good one to use when teaching about the economics of renewable energy, cost benefit analysis and economies of scale.
The UK Government has a target of providing 15.4% of all electricity supply from renewable sources by 2015. Jim recently blogged about the London Array here
Recession provides boost to vitamin demand
A cyclical hat tip to Chris Freeman for spotting this excellent article in the New York Times which looks at the rising demand for vitamin pills and other health products as recession bites. “Sales of vitamins and nutritional supplements, which have grown consistently for years, have surged in recent months, rising as the stock market has fallen. People are clearly cutting back on many items, from bread and milk to designer jeans and flat-screen televisions, but they are stocking up on pills that they think can spare them expensive doctor visits.”
Lots of interesting economics here:
1/ The power of emotion in driving demand - are sales of fish oil tablets linked to how many times people read stories about the growing incidence of early dementia?
2/ Utility and price - is the utility that people say they get from nutritional tablets linked to the price they pay? Some behavioural economists have pointed to studies about the impact on perceived benefit that consumers report when they are told the price of a product - including placebos!
3/ Sales of vitamins are up but sales of pain-killers are down - what might this say about consumer preferences?
4/ Cross price elasticity of demand - the price of health care goes up - causing some consumers to look for supplements to reduce the risk of needing health treatments later on in life
The Law of Unintended Consequences at Staffordshire hospitals
Government intervention is carried out with the best of intentions, but can result in unintended consequences with resulting government failure (a deepening of the market failure or even worse a new failure which may arise). The case of the failures at the Staffordshire General Hospital reported yesterday gives a tragic example of this. A report by the Healthcare Commission, which is a regulator for the NHS, said there were deficiencies at “virtually every stage” of emergency care at the hospital, and up to 400 patients died as a result. This BBC report highlights a dreadful list of errors at the hospital’s Accident and Emergency department from the use of receptionists to carry out initial checks on patients to heart monitors being turned off on wards because nurses did not know how to use them. Various factors are identified as having led to this failure, the government’s target for patients to be seen within four hours at A&E which meant patients could be taken to “dumping grounds” to avoid breaching the target. The situation was only recognised after complaints from residents were backed up by statistics showing a high death rate.
read more...»Sky news focuses on the NHS
I usually have Sky news running in the background and this week their newsroom has been running a series of reports on the condition of the National Health Service and the financial pressures facing state health care in a world of ever-changing health needs and wants, the emergence of new treatments and the daily inevitability of health care rationing. Many of the features are ideal for those using health care as a case study in scarcity, resource allocation, cost benefit analysis, positive and normative economics and market demand and supply of health services. Here is the main link Among the articles and videos is an emotional one with the darts legend Andy Fordham, who is battling to have a liver operation.
Cross elasticity: Demand for allotments
From Wrexham to Eastbourne and in virtually every part of the country, the demand for allotment space is rising much faster than local councils can supply. The economics of having your own allotment land have changed significantly in the last few years. Allotments peaked in popularity in the immediate post-war years as people looked to grow their own food and drag themselves out of the restrictions of rationing. But gradually the number of allotments declined as the food availabilty improved, real prices fell and the number of supermarketsexpanded. By the 1980s using an allotment was widely regarded as the preserve of the ‘Good Life’ crowd and those in retirement wanting a way to pass the time.
But now the combined effect of rising food prices, growing concerns over the environmental effecs of food miles and demand for locally-grown organic produce has prompted a fresh wave of demand for scarce allotment space.
read more...»Red wine as a merit good
The red wine provided by Leith’s of London at the Business Studies conference yesterday went down very well at the end of a long week. And travelling home on the train I enjoyed reading this piece in the Economist on the health benefits of a couple of glasses of a decent red! Perhaps we should add red wine to the list of perceived merit goods! Part of the pleasure and benefit comes from anticipating the consumption of a good bottle. And behavioural economists would no doubt tell us that the private benefit is increased simply by thinking the red wine is expensive even if it isn’t! (The power of the placebo applied to wine lovers!).
The American Association of Wine Economists might have something interesting to say about this! And there is a series of articles on wine economics in the latest version of the Economics Journal.
Social viagra?
Could this be a possible new merit good?
“Scientists in the US found that oxytocin, a natural hormone that assists childbirth and helps mothers bond with newborn babies, helps reduce anxiety and calm phobias. There are also signs it may help people with autism.”
More here from the Telegraph and also from the Times
It would be nice to have a bottle of the stuff handy to spray over people at boring committee meetings and in classrooms where students are by default passive sponges despite our best efforts!
But she ain’t messin’ wit no broke…
This Wednesday the Law Commission announced that pre-nuptial agreements could become legally binding with a few years. This is a landmark decision that could change the face of British society as we know it. Currently, “prenups” have no legal standing in the United Kingdom while they are quite common in the United States and Canada. Today I am going to examine the prenup as a merit good, and offer a policy imperative which may be rather brow-raising.
