Global Economy

Brazil’s widening wealth gap

Gillian Lacey-Solymar, Business correspondent for BBC Newsnight has a piece on tonight’s show about the rising inequality in Brazil as her economy continues to experience breakneck growth. Expect an excellent video clip to be available from the BBC web site immediately after the Newsnight programme has aired. Excellent for highlighting the links between growth and income and wealth distributio, especially with a tax system that appears to have regressive effects on the lowest income earners.

Policy conflict for the UK economy?

The IMF is forecasting a slowdown in global growth to 3.7% in 2008 and 2009. This is in contrast to recent growth rates of over 5%.

Well it helps the stereotypes…

I normally dislike these “heads up” blog entries because most of our audience are already prolific readers of other news content, but the latest edition of The Economist has published a great piece on the similarities and differences between the British and American public. And it can’t have been an accident that the poll (YouGov & Polimetrix) just happened to coincide with Monsieur Sarkozy’s state visit on Wednesday. 

Mind Map: Credit Crunch

Our A2 macro group mind-mapped the Credit Crunch in a lesson on Friday, a text summary appears below and the original map is also available as a pdf file.

Yuan’s World

Countries running gigantic trade surpluses must take some responsibility for rebalancing the world economy by raising their own domestic demand for goods and services. That was the message I took from a speech on the balance of payments given last week by John Gieve, deputy governor of the Bank of England. In a talk to the Sovereign Wealth Management Conference in London. Mr Gieve argued that stronger action is needed to correct some of the deep rooted balance of payments imbalances in the world economy and that sovereign wealth funds will have an increasing role to play by boosting investment in their domestic economies to close some of the gap between domestic savings and investment.

Some key points from his speech are given below:

Credit Crunch in 3:07

I teach a General Studies course on Friday mornings and will be looking at the credit crunch and the link between financial and economic crises tomorrow.

The Decoupling Debate

The D word - ‘decoupling’ - is at the heart of the debate regarding global economic prospects for 2008 and beyond.

The term refers to the shift by developing economies - and newly industrialising countries in particular - away from dependence on strong demand in the West for their products. 

Commanding Heights online

The Commanding Heights is a 6 hour, 3 DVD resource (and also a book) and the website has a huge amount of material which is useful for putting economic theory into context and also a great source of short video clips on globalisation and 20th Century economic history.

Excellent for getting across a historical perspective on some of the big issues in economics.

Lie down and think of the President

Sometimes you get an offer you cannot refuse. I wonder how many women of child-bearing age in the republic of Turkmenistan will be wondering whether to jump at the chance of the equivalent of £125 as a reward for taking the risk of conceiving and delivering more than eight children?

Malthus’ Revenge?

Food security is a growing issue to add to climate change, globalisation and meltdown in the financial markets as a cause for concern. Professor John Beddington, chief science adviser to the government, has warned that as the world’s population increases and grows wealthier, demand for food could outstrip supply ... are we returning to Malthusian misery?