Unit 2 Macro: Migration and the UK Economy
A revision blog on the economic impact of migration on the UK economy
read more...»Unit 4 Macro: African Human Development Report 2012
May 15th 2012 marks the day when the African Human Development Report 2012 is published. This will no doubt become a key reference point for students and teachers who are passionate about their development economics.
“Sub-Saharan Africa cannot sustain its present economic resurgence unless it eliminates the hunger that affects nearly a quarter of its people, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) argues. More than one in four Africans - close to 218 million people - is undernourished, African governments spend between 5-10% of their budgets on agriculture, well below the 20% average that Asian governments devoted to the sector during the green revolution there.”
Resources:
African Human Development Report 2012
Guardian: Sub-Saharan Africa can only grow if it solves hunger crisis – UNDP
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...»Knoema: ‘The Youtube of Data’
I have found Knoema incredibly useful for collecting data and imagine it would be an excellent site for teaching colleagues and researchers, particularly with its focus on Economics. The Guardian’s data team have a good article on it today.
read more...»Poverty tells many stories
Poverty tells many stories - this is a powerful award-winning short film that will raise many issues with your students
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.
Tullow Oil and African Development
Yesterday I spent a fascinating evening in the company of Aidan Heavey, Founder and CEO of Tullow Oil plc, Africa’s leading independent oil exploration business and the top performer among FTSE-100 listed businesses on the UK stock exchange. It has approximately 100 production and exploration licenses in 22 countries.
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 1 Micro: Market Failure in Private Health Care
The supply of health care in the UK is an important economic, social and political issue. Demand for health care treatments grows year by year as the population expands, ages and as incomes rise. For millions of people private health care is regarded as a necessity even though the NHS provides a vast range of services free at the point of use. Treatments such as cosmetic surgery, hand surgery, laser eye treatment, physiotherapy, weight loss services and hip and knee replacements are offered by a range of private sector providers in addition to state health care facilities.
read more...»Intergenerational Equity - Fairness and the Slump
The recession and weak recovery is bringing about important employment and income distribution effects among different generations in Britain. The externalities of a slump are never uniform and I hope that good examiners at AS and A2 level will always reward students who bring comments and arguments about equity / fairness into their evaluative discussions. Recently there has been increased media coverage of the inter-generational effects of the financial crisis and the recession.
read more...»Austerity - Portuguese experience
Those who are interested in the ‘austerity’ title for the RES essay competition might find this article on the BBC website useful. Today there is a general strike planned in Portugal, in protest against the country’s austerity measures. Portugal’s three main parties all voted in favour of stringent austerity measures for the country. The new government, voted in last summer, has privatised several industries, cut public sector wages and raised taxes, including VAT. They have been praised by Brussels for their approach, and the latest government estimate put its budget deficit for 2011 at close to 4% of GDP, well below the official target of 5.9%. In this interesting piece of writing, many different perspectives are offered of the effects of these measures, ranging from an increase in bad behaviour in schools to an increase in home-grown vegetables.
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
Unit 1 Micro: Inequality - The Rise of Fuel Poverty
A new report headed up by Professor John Hills from the LSE highlights the growing risks of fuel poverty facing millions of people in the UK and especially those living in lower-income families. At present, the definition of fuel poverty based on whether a household needs to spend more than 10 per cent of its income each year on energy. But this measure has been criticised because it ignores the significant seasonal variation in energy bills and the financial distress that a really large bill can have on people with little or not savings to fall back on.
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...»TED Talks- Income Inequality
I’m going to use Richard Wilkinson’s very interesting TED talk about the serious negative effects of income inequality in my lesson tomorrow about income distribution. Read on to find out about this video and how I will use it to aid classroom discussion of this topic.
read more...»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...»The Economics of Climate Change - Stern 5 Years On
Lord Nick Stern tonight gave the first of three lectures on the ethics and economics of climate change as the annual lecture series in honour of Lionel Robbins started at the LSE.
It is over five years since the publication of the Stern Report and much has happened in the intervening period. Stern however was at pains to emphasise that his core message remained undimmed, namely that the costs of inaction are enormous but the costs of early action to cut emissions are manageable. We have seen in recent years rapid technological change much of which is hugely encouraging in taking us closer to de-coupling the relationship between production and consumption and carbon emissions. But more is needed, Stern is arguing in these three lectures for a new industrial revolution, a deep set of changes to production processes and technologies that happens across every sector. The economics and politics of how progress might be made in moving towards a new revolution will be the focus of the second and third lectures.
LECTURE 1 - Tuesday 21 February 2012
What we risk and how we should cast the economics and ethics
LECTURE 2 - Wednesday 22 February 2012
How we can respond and prosper
LECTURE 3 - Thursday 23 February 2012
How we can get there: building national and international action
Unit 1 Economics: Panorama - Poor America
For those of you who missed this week’s panorama “Poor America” it is well worth 30 minutes of your time. Students often assume that a high GDP per capita always leads to the good life for all- this programme highlights inequality well.
Video clip: Poor America: ‘Some kids are making ketchup soup’
The Panorama programme on America’s poor is available to view for the next 12 months - click here
read more...»Unit 2 Macro: The Dash for Gas in Mozambique
In the last twelve months two huge discoveries of natural gas have been made in the East African country of Mozambique. The latest - a deepwater discovery - is said to hold over 210 billion cubic metres of natural gas and investment in exploiting the field could be the major cataylst for a rapid phase of growth and development for one of the world’s poorest countries. The country has large untapped oil, coal and titanium reserves in addition to the gas. According to the UK Trade and Investment body, within 15 years Mozambique could be Africa’s second largest coal producer (after South Africa) and one of the largest coal exporters in the world.
Can it benefit in a sustainable way from exporting these resources or will they prove to be a curse on development?
For many years Mozambique has been afflicted by a brutal civil war which ended in 1992 and then a series of natural disasters including floods in 2001 and 2001 which destroyed much of its infrastructure.Floods were replaced by a calamitous drought in 2002 but more recently the economy has achieved strong growth and progress in lifting people out of absolute poverty. That said, 50% of Mozambicans living on less than $1 a day, foreign aid accounts for nearly half of government spending and there remain severe doubts about whether the dividends of an export-boom in natural resources will feed through the the majority of the population.
The Mozambique government has a 10% stake in the newly-discovered gas fields, it sold a licence to the Italian company Eni to explore for new gas reserves and Eni has committed to building a multibillion-dollar liquefied natural gas terminal in the country as a distribution platform to export mainly to fast-growing Asian economies.
Other transnational companies are investing in Mozambique. Vale, a Brazilian multinational is spending over $3 billion to rebuild and extend the 425 mile Nacala railway and connect it to a deep water port so that Mozambiquan coal can be exported.
Putting the infrastructure in place will take several years and gas production on a huge scale may not start before 2016. Although new industries brings risks as well as opportunities, the potential for a step change in development in the country is enormous.
read more...»Unit 3 Micro: Richard Wilkinson on Inequality and Economic Harm
I have been using this talk given at TED 2011 by Richard Wilkinson when teaching the topic of poverty and inequality and the risks that a growing chasm between low and high income groups can have for society and economic performance. Students and teachers familiar with the work of Pickett and Wilkinson and their recent book “The Spirit Level” will know well the approach that these authors take.
They use published data on inequality and link to wide differences in a range of economic and social outcomes. Their work has been criticised by many on the right, not least because their argument is strong and clear - namely that we need to reduce inequality to tackle some of society’s deepest and most corrosive problems.
read more...»Unit 2 Macro:Video Resources on Human Development Data
Here is a short collection of short video resources on measuring human development with specific reference to the annual human development report and to progress in improving welfare in countries such as Kenya and Brazil
read more...»Unit 2 Macro: The Economic Disaster of Youth Unemployment
The official figures show that there are now more than one million young people counted as unemployed in the UK although the precise scale of the jobless crisis is difficult to measure accurately. Nonetheless, it represents a fundamental economic, social and political problem and one that policy makers must address.
In this video report from Al Jazeerah, Lawrence Lee visits Leeds to find a well qualified nineteen year old with good qualifications but who cannot afford to go to university and is finding it tough to win a place in the police force - his main ambition.
read more...»Unit 2 Macro: Focus on China - Per Capita Incomes
Per capita incomes in China are rising though still low by advanced-nation levels. China ranks at 119 in terms of average incomes, according to World Bank data (per capita incomes, PPP adjusted). But China is now the biggest car market in the world and there has been a huge rise in the sales of luxury goods to China (these products have a strong income elasticity of demand).
China wants to achieve a re-balancing of her growth – towards domestic consumption and away from exports. Another key aim of the plans for the next 5 years is a surge in market-driven entrepreneurial activity. Plus a continued shift towards higher-value, high-knowledge manufactured products.
read more...»Unit 2 Macro: Population Shift in China
What happened in the UK in 1851, the United States in 1920 and in the World in 2008? These three years mark the estimated year when the size of a given urban population overtook the size of the rural population. And now China has reached this significant landmark.
The Chinese Bureau for National Statistics reported recently that in 2011, the proportion of urban population reached 51.27 percent (1.3% higher than in 2010) with the urban population standing at 690.79 million persons, an increase of 21 million persons in a year. China’s rural population stood at 656.56 million persons and for the first time her urban population was 34.23 million persons more than the rural population.
Click below for some study / teaching resources:
read more...»Video Resources on Rising Inequality
In this blog entry we will be bringing together some short video resources that might be useful when teaching and studying the economics of inequality. Please do add some more resources using the comment box at the bottom and we can add them to the listing.
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...»Newsnight on rebalancing the UK economy
Last night’s edition of Newsnight should be required viewing for all AS and A level economists - and it is a huge shame that it is only available on i-player for another 7 days. Introduced on the shock news that even Tesco is vulnerable to the downturn, it included reports from Andrew Verity looking at whether the British economy will ever wean itself off shopping and the City, and an excellent (and all-female!) discussion including Deborah Meaden and the FT’s Gillian Tett. Try challenging your students to watch and listen to this while noting down every aspect of the syllabus which is mentioned or referred to - that will keep them busy!
There was also a debate between Employment Minister Chris Grayling and disability campaigner Sue Marsh about the government’s welfare reforms, defeated in the House of Lords the night before, and finally Tokyo correspondent Roland Buerk looking at Japanese economic stagnation of the late 1980s and 90s, to consider whether it was a “lost decade” and what could be learnt from it.
Unit 1 Micro: A World of Seven Billion People
Fergus Walsh from the BBC provides this really clear video info graphic on the expanding global population estimated to have exceeded seven billion during 2011 and forecast to rise to eight billion by 2025.
Unit 4 Macro: Development Issues: The Baby Boom in Zambia
In this special report from BBC reporter Fergus Walsh, the rapid population growth in the African country of Zambia is examined. Population growth in the country is so quick that it could perpetuate deep poverty in the country despite relatively fast growth in recent years. In Zambia, the UN predicts that the population could triple by 2050, reaching 100 million by the end of the century.
Great Blog to Follow - Joseph Rowntree Foundation
If you are at all interested in the latest research findings in the domains of poverty, inequality, economic and social exclusion and the social impact of government policies, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation website is highly recommended. In this particular blog the JRF provide a revealing list of things that they have found during the course of 2011 - there is some excellent background evidence here for AS and A2 students wanting data to support their work on poverty and inequality and social trends in the UK.
You can also follow the JRF on Twitter - use this link
