UK Economy Revision - Policies to Reduce Unemployment
Here is a streamed (and downloadable) presentation on policies to cut unemployment in the UK economy.
read more...»Unit 4 Macro: Credit Constraints and the Economic Recovery
The credit crunch is widely regarded to have started during 2007 and is certainly not over yet! Indeed the period of severe constraints on credit availability and rising borrowing costs most notably for smaller businesses has now lasted longer than the Second World War. It represents a major barrier to sustained and hopefully more robust economic recovery. This short streamed presentation looks at the importance of the credit squeeze on the UK economy.
A number of new government policy initiatives have been introduced but doubts persist about their effectiveness. Underneath the surface new forms of business finance are taking shape including peer to peer lending and the rise of retail bonds issued by a number of businesses.
read more...»Infrastructure Projects in the News
This blog entry links to some of the significant UK infrastructure projects that are current or planned - all of which cover many aspects of economics including cost benefit analysis, public and private funding, the macro effects of major capital projects and regional / industry implications.
read more...»Paul Ormerod: Whatever happened to all those miners? Shocks and economic resilience
Where have all the miners gone? To judge by the rhetoric of the BBC and other Leftist media outlets, whole swathes of Britain lie devastated, plagued by rickets, unemployment and endemic poverty – nearly thirty years after the pit closures under Lady Thatcher!
The reality is different. There is indeed a small number of local authority areas where employment has never really recovered from the closures in the 1980s. But, equally, there are former mining areas which have prospered.
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Unit 4 Macro: Taking the Pulse of Africa - Growth Outlook is Good
The latest edition of African Pulse published by the World Bank focuses on growth and development prospects in Sub-Saharan Africa and the overall sentiment is that the region is set to continue with a strong growth performance.
read more...»Unit 2 Macro: UK and US Growth Compared
In this short Financial Times video, Vicky Redwood the Chief UK Economist of Capital Economics looks at why economic recovery in the UK has been slower than in the USA since the end of the last recession.
read more...»Unit 4 Macro: Research on the Economics of Migration
The annual NORFACE migration conference at University College London this week has generated plenty of new research papers on the economics of international migration, a topic that of growing significance for students of globalisation, competitiveness, innovation and growth. Some of the key findings are summarised below together with external links to relevant articles and news reports
read more...»Unit 2 Macro: Labour Costs in the European Union
The European Union has just released some new figures on the spread of hourly labour costs among the member nations of the European Union. Labour costs are made up of wages & salaries and non-wage costs such as employers' social contributions e.g. national insurance payments in the UK. Students who have covered aggregate supply and demand theory might be able to consider why changes in labour costs can have an effect on key macroeconomic indicators such as inflation, demand, exports and growth.
Hourly labour costs are different from unit labour costs - the latter takes into account the productivity of people employed. For example, a 5% rise in hourly labour costs will leave unit labour costs unchanged if productivity rises by 5% over the same time period.
read more...»Unit 2 Macro: Investment in UK Economy Remains Low
Capital investment spending in the UK has remained below 15% of GDP for four years and there are few strong signs that investment in Britain will rebound strongly in the near term. No other country inside the Group of 7 (G7) had experienced investment below 15% of GDP in any single year in the last thirty - it is clear that investment in the UK remains stuck in the doldrums and this may have damaging consequences for short term recovery and long-term competitiveness and growth.
Unit 2 Macro: Wealth of Nations and Human Capital
A recent World Bank report asked ‘Where is the Wealth of Nations?’ Calculations presented at the Economic History Society’s 2013 annual conference show that for Britain, the answer is undoubtedly in its people.
Dr Jan Kunnas and his colleagues calculate that Britain’s ‘human capital’ has grown by a multiple of 123 over the past 250 years. The main drivers of this phenomenal growth have been the growth in the workforce and the growth in wages.
The researchers define human capital as the knowledge and skills embodied in individuals – and they measure it by the discounted earnings the population is expected to earn during their time in the labour force.
We have an extended revision note on human capital and economic growth - read it hereThe Changing Wealth of Nations - World Bank reports can be accessed here
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Unit 4 Macro: Getting Back to Growth - Lessons from the 1930s
How Britain escaped from the travails of the Great Depression and achieved 4% a year growth in the years from 1933 to 1937 has important lessons for today’s policy-makers, according to research by Professor Nicholas Crafts, presented at the Economic History Society’s 2013 annual conference.
read more...»Unit 2 Macro: Revision on Interest Rates
It is now over four years since the Bank of England cut their policy interest rate to 0.5%. The Bank along with other central banks has seemingly moved away from changes in interest rates to policies aimed at manipulating the base supply of money in the economy / financial system. Others are focusing on managing the exchange rate. Monetary policy has undergone big changes in recent years as this revision note explains.
read more...»Unit 2 Macro: The Great Productivity Puzzle
GDP per hour – labour productivity – in the UK remains lower than at the beginning of the recession in 2008. A special session at the Royal Economic Society on Friday 5 April held jointly by the Centre for Economic Performance (CEP) and Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) investigated the causes of this mystery. It was also the subject of radio 4 In Business - click here
See also: the Job Rich Depression (The Economist)
Unit 4 Macro: Brain Gain with Scientific Advances in Africa
What if Africa were to become the hub for global science? This is a deeply optimistic piece which stresses the low base of higher education opportunities in Africa at the moment but which reveals the potential of cross country collaboration and the gains that will come from reversing the brain drain. A great example to use when discussing human capital and long-term development. More on the Square Kilometre Array
Revision Quiz: A2 Economics: Economic Growth (1)
This A2 Economics 10-question revision quiz focuses on economic growth.
Launch Revision Quiz: A2 Economics: Economic Growth (1)
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Unit 3 Micro: Minimum Wage and Inequality
The UK national minimum wage (NMW) has been in the news in recent days with several reports suggesting that Coalition government ministers are considering introducing a freeze on the pay floor or going further and reducing the minimum hourly pay rate. The NMW was introduced into the UK in the spring of 1999 and has been up-rated regularly but never cut. It is presently at £6.19 an hour and recommendations on changes to the pay floor come from the annual review conducted by the Low Pay Commission
Unit 4 Macro: Interest Rates and Business Failure Risk
When is the right moment to start tightening monetary policy by gradually raising interest rates? Some macro economists believe that in the UK, the Monetary Policy Committee has already delayed the first upwards nudge in policy interest rates for too long with the result that inflation has remained persistently above target for most of the last five years. Others argue that fundamental economic weakness makes the recovery fragile and vulnerable and that raising interest rates now is the wrong option.
Check out some key macro charts here
An increase of one percentage point in the interest rate that a firm faces during a financial crisis increases its chances of failure by more than five percentage points. Young firms, firms with high bank dependency and firms that don’t export are particularly vulnerable to changes in their debt-servicing costs.
These are among the findings of research by Alessandra Guariglia, Marina-Eliza Spaliara and Serafeim Tsoukas, to be presented at the Royal Economic Society’s 2013 annual conference. The study looks at a large data set of mainly private-held firms in the UK tracked over several years.
Unit 4 Macro: Unemployment in Europe (March 2013 Update)
The scale and depth of the unemployment crisis in Europe is confirmed by fresh figures released by Euro Stat. Unemployment in the Euro Zone was 12.0% in February 2013 and the jobless rate for the European Union as a whole was 10.9%. Last month there were 26.3 million people counted as out of work in the twenty-seven countries within the single market, 19 million of whom live in Euro Zone countries. In the last year alone, unemployment in the Euro Zone has jumped by over 1.7 million but this aggregate figure hides large country differences and persistent regional and local variations. Here is the contextual data to take into the exam:
Unit 2 Macro: Fresh Serving of Acronym Soup - ZIRPs and PLOGs
Economic commentators love their acronyms and abbreviations - they come in handy when reaching character capacity limits on a tweet and also for students fighting the exam clock to complete a timed essay. Two new ones have come to my attention in recent days. What does ZIRP and PLOG mean to you?
read more...»Revision Quiz: AS Economics: Aggregate Supply (1)
This 10-question revision quiz focuses on the basics of aggregate supply.
Launch Revision Quiz: AS Economics: Aggregate Supply (1)
Revision Quiz: AS Economics: Aggregate Demand (1)
This 10-question revision quiz looks at the basics of aggregate demand.
Launch Revision Quiz: AS Economics: Aggregate Demand (1)
Revision Quiz: AS Economics: Multiplier & Accelerator (1)
This 10-question revision quiz looks at the concepts of the multiplier and accelerator.
Launch Revision Quiz: AS Economics: Multiplier & Accelerator (1)
Unit 2 Macro: Revise and Test - AD and AS and GDP
A revision blog and online test on the interaction between aggregate demand and aggregate supply
read more...»Unit 2 Macro: Revise and Test - Aggregate Supply
Updated revision notes on aggregate supply, short tests to check your understanding and links to enrichment reading
read more...»Unit 4 Macro: Cyprus Infographics
Here is a selection of resources on the Cyprus banking crisis and the controversial bail-in of uninsured large depositors. Particular credit to the team at Saxo Bank for an excellent info-graphic
read more...»Unit 2 Macro: Revise and Test - Aggregate Demand
Updated revision notes on aggregate demand and a short revision quiz to test your understanding!
read more...»Unit 2 Macro: Revise and Test - Macro Objectives
Updated revision notes and short online tests to check your understanding on macroeconomic objectives - plus a selection of news article links for extension reading.
read more...»Unit 2 Macro: Revise and Test - The Circular Flow
- The circular flowis a basic way of understanding how
different parts of the economic system fit together
- The circular flow of income shows
connections between different sectors
- It shows flows of goods and services and factors
of production between firms and households
- The circular flow shows how national income or
Gross Domestic Product is calculated
Businesses produce goods and services and in the process of doing so, incomes are generated for factors of production (land, labour, capital and enterprise) – for example wages and salaries going to people in work.
Leakages (withdrawals) from the circular flow
Not all income will flow from households to businesses directly. The circular flow shows that some part of household income will be:
- Put aside for future spending, i.e. savings (S) in banks accounts and other
types of deposit
- Paid to the government in taxation (T) e.g. income tax and national insurance
- Spent on foreign-made goods and services, i.e. imports (M) which flow into the economy
Withdrawals are increases in savings, taxes or imports so reducing the circular flow of income and leading to a multiplied contraction of production (output).
Injections into the circular flow are additions to investment, government spending or exports so boosting the circular flow of income leading to a multiplied expansion of output.
- Capital spending by firms, i.e. investment expenditure (I) e.g. on
new technology
- The government, i.e. government expenditure (G) e.g. on the NHS or
defence
- Overseas consumers buying UK goods and service, i.e. UK
export expenditure (X)
An economy is in equilibrium when the rate of injections = the rate of withdrawals from the circular flow.
If there is an increase in the rate of injections (other factors remaining constant), then equilibrium GDP will riseIf there is a fall in the rate of leakages (other factors remaining constant), then equilibrium GDP will rise
Unit 4 Macro: Growth and Development in South Korea
As part of our revision for the Unit 4 macro paper we have been discussing in school growth and development issues in South Korea. The country now has a per capita income in excess of $30,000 and is a high-income developed country with membership of the OECD. Having escaped the middle-income trap, can South Korea continue to prosper or will the country have to modify their development strategies to meet fresh competitive challenges and changing expectations?
Slow return to a British export led recovery?
Aggregate Demand may be stimulated by an increase in exports. Ha-Joon Chang, Author of the best seller, 23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism considers reasons in a short article for The Guardian why this hasn't happened after Sterling had fallen against other major trading economies. " Compared with ...2007, the pound has been devalued about 30% against the dollar, 50% against the yen, and 20% against the struggling euro. Yet despite the huge incentive to export created by such devaluation, Britain is still running trade deficits because it has lost the productive capacity to respond."
It may help students consider plausible policies to reduce its trade deficit, a macroeconomic goal overlooked in arguments over fiscal and monetary policies to control inflation or output. Finally it may aid evaluation, how different are the most pressing short and long term macroeconomic challengers facing UK governments.
Link to most trade figures.
