Unit 4 Macro: Linda Yueh - New Column on the Global Economy
The BBC's Chief Business Correspondent Linda Yueh @lindayueh has new page on developments in global economy http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/correspondents/lindayueh/ - definitely one for students and teachers to follow. The opening article focuses on a concept that we have been pushing in our own macro coverage in recent times, namely the emergence of a multi-polar world economy with growth coming from a bigger number of countries / regions and less dependent on the advanced western economies. Read the article here
Unit 4 Macro: Growth and Development Challenges for China
Here are some notes taken from a talk given by Linda Yueh on the Chinese economy at the RSA in London on the 18th April, 2013
read more...»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 4 Macro: Growth and Development in Angola
A brief overview of economic developments in Angola, one of the fastest growing countries in the world - contains updated links to study resources on Angola.
Unit 4 Macro: FDI in Africa
Revision blog on the economics of foreign direct investment in Africa with a special focus on investment from China and other BRIC countries
read more...»Unit 4 Macro: China’s Presence in Europe
This is great for understanding key shifts in global trade and investment. The Economist offers this short video on the rising prominence of Chinese money in property and currency markets and FDI from Chinese businesses within the EU.
read more...»Unit 4 Macro: Dissecting the Middle-Income Trap
The Middle-Income Trap has become a popular and much quoted concept in development economics. Much discussion on the policies and strategies to lower the risks of growth slowdowns before a country has achieved high income status. But how relevant is the middle income trap? The absence of a clear definition of the idea makes it difficult to measure, this article from the Economist has a go and is highly relevant for students taking courses in development economics, especially EdExcel Unit 4.
Thailand launches strategy to escape the middle income trap (Feb 2013)
Revision notes here on the middle income trap
Peter Mandelson famously said that he was ‘intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich’. As
Peter Mandelson famously said that he was ‘intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich’. As was the case with many aspects of New Labour, he was working firmly in the Leninist intellectual tradition. Some 20 years earlier, the then leader of the Chinese Communist Party, Deng Xiaoping, stated that ‘to get rich is glorious’.
The Chinese have certainly put the philosophy into practice. An intriguing article in the Wall Street Journal at the end of last year by James Areddy and James Grimaldi, described the deep intermingling of China’s richest men with the Communist Party. For example, Liang Wengen, who owns a major construction equipment making firm and whose personal wealth is estimated at $7.3 billion – billion! – is a member of the key political body, the Communist Party Congress. Overall, the elite political institutions in China have no fewer than 160 individual billionaires as members.
read more...»Unit 4 Macro: China’s Mass Internal Migration
This is a quite remarkable short video looking at the largest human migration on earth as up to 1bn Chinese people each year go home to their roots. The FT's Patti Waldmeir reports on the phenomenal combined buying power of China's 260m migrant workers and looks at the type of gifts they are buying this year. Consider this in the context of Chinese growth and development, the deep and persistent gaps in living standards between urban and rural areas and the challenges facing Chinese policy-makers as they seek greater regional balance in their development process. What opportunities are there for Western businesses in the Chinese countryside?
read more...»Paul Ormerod: Today Singapore and Japan, Tomorrow China
It has suddenly become fashionable to be concerned about China’s growth rate slowing down. This is not a matter of a short-run cyclical downturn, with normal service being resumed shortly as the economy roars ahead once more. It is a worry that there will be a permanent slowdown by the end of this decade. Instead of annual growth rates around 10 per cent and even more, the Chinese economy will settle down to the much more sedate rates seen in the West in the 1950s and 1960s in the range 3 to 5 per cent.
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Unit 4 Macro: Global Economic Power Shift Continues
There are several research organisations out there producing regularly updated forecasts on what is likely to happen to the relative shares of global GDP and income per capita over the long run. Typically the forecast stretches out to 2050 and necessarily involves plenty of uncertainty. But these over the horizon studies are quite interesting in their own right because they remind us of the changing drivers of growth in the world economy.
Here is one of these reports - World in 2050 The BRICs and beyond: prospects, challenges and opportunities - produced by economists at PriceWaterhouseCoopers
read more...»Developments in the Chinese Economy - new scoop it board
Do you need to keep informed on China for your exams? If so, I recommend you follow @MoTanweer on twitter and in particular his new scoop.it board on China desgined as a study resource for Pre-U students. You can find it here http://www.scoop.it/t/china-pre-u
Counting the Cost - Prospects for the Global Economy?
The latest edition of Counting the Cost has this useful analysis of the prospects for the global economy in 2013 - and in particular the state of the Chinese economy and whether the growth numbers and forecasts for China can be trusted.
read more...»Sweden issues international garlic smuggling warrant
This has to be my new favourite story, and it will work particularly well for A2 but for AS too, with elements of micro as well as macro.......
Did you know that China produces 80% of the world's supply of garlic?
Did you know that in 2001 the EU introduced a 9.6% duty on imported garlic in order to protect European growers?
Did you know that police in Britain, Ireland, Austria and Poland arrested smugglers for illegally importing at least €3m worth of garlic into the EU last year alone?
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Unit 4 Macro: Land Grabs and Development
Land
Grabs have become an important and controversial issue
in development economics in recent years.
Unit 4 Macro: The Middle Income Trap
The middle income trap exists for some countries that make significant progress in reducing extreme poverty and experience structural change and growth but then find it difficult to make the climb from being a middle-income country to achieve high-income fully-developed status. GDP growth rates often slow down and a country can struggle to build and maintain international competitiveness. Research from the World Bank finds that only 13 of the 101 countries deemed to be middle-income countries in 1960 had achieved high-income levels in 2011. Different studies find different thresholds for where growth tapers off, ranging from $8,500 to $18,500 at 2010 prices, adjusted for purchasing power parity.
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Unit 4 Macro: Economic Growth - the Solow Model
The economist Robert Solow (pictured) developed the neo-classical theory of economic growth. Solow won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1987.
read more...»Unit 4 Macro: Links on International Financial Flows and Development
Here is a series of links to recently available resources on international financial flows and their impact on growth and development
read more...»Unit 4 Macro: Professor Justin Lin: how do developing economies grow?
I am linking in this blog to some of the ideas and arguments contained in "The Quest for Prosperity" the new book on economic development from Professor Justin Lin - in particular the case he makes for the need for a new development economics - devel econ 3.0!
read more...»Unit 4 Macro: Emerging economies in 2013 - Easterly and Moyo in Debate
This 34 minute debate features Professor Bill Easterly and Dambisa Moyo - looking at prospects for emerging countries in 2013
read more...»Unit 4 Macro: The Rise of Resource Nationalism
In many countries, resource nationalism has become more frequent in recent years, indeed it has been one of the key stories in 2012 as several countries have introduced new resource taxes, natural resource licence reviews and expropriation of assets from private sector companies. This Financial Times news video looks at the trends including resource nationalism within countries as provinces and regions look to exert great control on the revenues from oil, gas and mining projects.
See also: Economist: Foreigners beware - oil and mining in Indonesia
Resource insecurity: New report from Chatham House
Interactive resource: New political economy of natural resources
read more...»Unit 4 Macro: Mo Tanweer - Debunking the Myths of China
Mo Tanweer (Head of Economics at Oundle School) gave a phenomenally detailed and relevant talk at our Teaching the Global Economy Conference in London last week. Student Economist Mark Austen has provided us with some revision notes taken from the talk (reproduced below) and we have a streamed version of the presentation made available from Mo using Slide Share - enjoy!
read more...»Unit 4 Macro: Paul Collier on Key Development Issues
At our Teaching the Global Economy at the RSA (London) in November 2012, the distinguished development economist Professor Paul Collier spoke on some of the leading development issues of the moment. A-level student Mark Austen was there to scribe some notes on the talk and the subsequent Q&A discussion. Here are his notes together with some connecting links and other resources. We hope that you find them useful.
read more...»Unit 4 Macro: Growth in the Emerging Economies - Can It last?
I am linking here to a recent (October 2012) lecture and discussion at Gresham College in London. The three eminent speakers look at the limits to world economic growth from an environmental and economic perspective. Will inflation caused by rising primary product prices be likely to be the key constraint on economic growth? Douglas McWilliams, Thras Moraitis and Mike McWilliams consider whether this constraint will bite at a sufficiently slow rate for the impact of the extra growth in emerging economies to mean that the West will have to grow more slowly.
read more...»Unit 4 Macro: Revision Resources on the BRIC Countries
Here are some regularly updated revision resources on the economics of the BRIC countries - Brazil, Russia, India and China
read more...»Unit 4 Macro: Looking to 2060: A Global Vision of Long-term Growth
The balance of economic power is expected to shift dramatically over the coming half century, with fast-growing emerging market economies accounting for an ever-increasing share of global output, according to new OECD research. Here are some links to their report and to media coverage.
Unit 4 Macro: Teaching Trade in a Different Way
I am launching into a short course in international trade, balance of payments and links to economic development issues. The standard fare is inescapable and there will be plenty of opportunity to cover theories of comparative and competitive advantage, evaluate the costs and benefits of protectionism and look at key trends in the balance of payments, terms of trade and capital accounts for developed and developing countries.
This time, in an attempt to freshen things up I am starting by looking at the work of Cesar Hidalgo and Richard Hausman at the MIT Media Lab and the Observatory of Economic Complexity. I first came across their work whilst reading Tim Harford's last book Adapt. They are mapping vast amounts of trade data from across the world to explore the extent to which export complexity, dynamic advantage and per capita incomes are connected. The data visualisations are tremendously interesting and I will be asking my Year 13 students to explore their site and choose some data of their own that sheds light on revealed comparative advantage in the world economy.
read more...»Rural life in China - never had it so good
This looks worth keeping an eye on - the BBC is "spending a week on the road looking at both the challenges ahead for the
world's most populous nation and the advances it has made." - this is in anticipation of the leadership changes which are about to take place in China. The first report looks at changes which have taken place over the last 50 years in a rural village near the Great Wall - others will follow later this week. Here is a link to Week in China , which contains all the video reports being added this week; Tuesday's looks changes in the cinema industry, including the demands of the WTO that China raise its annual quota of foreign film releases allowed into the country from 20 to 34; Wednesday's looks at the construction boom in Shanghai and by way of contrast Thursday's looks at Guizhou, the poorest province in the country, to illustrate the growing wealth gap in the country.
There is also a link to a series of graphics illustrating China's Economic Miracle which shows some of those mind-blowing statistics about the country's economy.
Keynes Prize - Winning Essay - Global Imbalance from the Rise of the East
In this prize-winning essay, James Richardson answers this question set by Professor Danny Quah from the London School of Economics
‘Global imbalance from the Rise of the East shows only that the
East is big enough to be culpable but not mature enough to be responsible.’
Discuss
The unprecedented growth of the East has, in economic terms, defined the decades either side of the millennium. Led by China, which has enjoyed average real annual GDP growth of between 8% and 10% over this period [1] and which, according to Jim O’Neill, is now economically significant enough to be included in the G7 [2], Asia has propelled itself to the forefront of the economic scene. Indeed, the continent now accounts for 5 of the 20 largest economies by GDP [3], and projections by Jim O’Neill’s team at Goldman Sachs suggest that China could overtake the USA as the largest economy in the world ‘as early as 2027, perhaps even sooner.’ [2] The Rise of the East, then, is as undeniable as it is impressive, but is it sustainable?
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Unit 4 Macro: Wage Inflation and Chinese Competitiveness and Growth
Unit 4 essay from Max Goswami-Myerscough
China has undergone high levels of wage inflation since the turn of the century. As stated in the extract, a US Bureau of Labour report showed that between 2002 and 2008 real hourly wages more than doubled in China’s manufacturing sector. Comparatively, wages only rose by 20% in the US. In addition to this, according to Jim O’Neill, by 2009 over 5% of the population of China (approx. 65 million) had incomes of around $35,000 p.a. China has been considered to be one of the main outsourcing destinations for cheap labour over the years but this may change if such high levels of wage inflation persist.
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