European Economics: Resources on the CAP
This blog entry will provide a regularly updated set of links to resources to the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy and attempts to reform this contentious and complex system of farm support.
Check below for suggested links
read more...»Unit 2 Macro: Brazil Overtakes UK in Economic Size
The Guardian has reported new research from the CEBR that Brazil is set to overtake the UK to become the sixth biggest economy in the world. The U.S., China, Japan, Germany and France occupy the top five places.
Typically the Sun newspaper gets their economics muddled with this piece of sloppy writing
“BRITAIN will fall to seventh in the league table of the world’s richest countries next year when it is leap-frogged by buoyant Brazil.”
Brazil richer than the UK? The Sun is confusing the size of GDP with the level of real GDP per capita (adjusted to a purchasing power standard). And as our Timetric chart shows below there remains an enormous gap in average living standards between the UK and Brazil.
read more...»Unit 4 Macro: Human Capital and Economic Growth
In A2 macroeconomics the underlying causes of economic growth and development and constraints on both of these are covered in more depth. One of the concepts students might be familiar with is that of human capital.
I have always summarised the idea of human capital as being a measure of the overall quality of the human input available to produce goods and services in an economy. The ONS have published a new study on the value of human capital in the UK and they draw on a definition given by the OECD
read more...»Unit 4 Macro: Prospects for the African Economy
In recent times there have been several new reports focusing on growth and development prospects for the African continent. Contained within them is plenty of useful background analysis and comment for students and teachers who spend time looking at developments and issues affecting Africa as part of their economics studies. Follow the links below for more details:
read more...»Economics of Deforestation
The Human Development Report 2011 reported that deforestation is a severe problem. In the last two decades, Latin American and Sub-Saharan Africa have experienced severe forest losses, especially when compared to the rest of the world.
For economists the economic and social costs of rapid deforestation represent a telling example of the tragedy of the commons where the pursuit of individual self-interest can risk a permanent destruction of natural resources that undermines the sustainability of communities and societies for current and future generations. The United Nations calculates that deforestation and degradation is responsible for nearly 20 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions.
Will the REDD programme make a difference?
REDD stands for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries and is designed to provide financial incentives funded by advanced nations for developing countries to preserve their forests and instead invest in low-carbon paths to sustainable development.
The UN estimates financial flows of up to $30bn could come from REDD and related initiatives - the scheme effectively allows rich countries to offset their carbon emissions from domestic industries and consumers by funding clean low-carbon development projects in developing countries. But it is highly controversial and opposed by many organisations such as Friends of the Earth and the World Rainforest Movement.
In this blog we have put together some web resources on the issue of deforestation - focusing on causation, consequences and also on some of the policy approaches that might work to bring about behavioural change.
Economic Corruption - Global Rankings for 2011
The scale and depth of corruption - defined by Transparency International as the abuse of entrusted power for private gain varies greatly across the world. No country can ever score a perfect score for eliminating corruption from their economy but the annual rankings of perceived corruption provide a useful way of identifying the best and the worst performers (most of whom are plagued by extreme poverty, war and failed government). Systemic corruption damages human lives and can undermine almost everything that international organisations seek to do to promote development and poverty reduction.
Several countries have made sizeable progress in tackling and reducing endemic corruption and are thus better placed to attract sustainable inward investment as part of their development strategies.
Here is a link to a video on the Economic Corruption rankings for 2011 produced by Transparency International
read more...»Unit 2 Macro: Mobile Phones and African Economic Growth
The increasing access to and usage of mobile phones is said by many development economists to be having a significant impact on growth and development in many African countries. A 2005 London Business School study reported recently in the Guardian found that for every additional 10 mobile phones per 100 people in a developing country, GDP rises by 0.5%.
The chart below tracks mobile phone ownership per 100 of the population for Sub Saharan Africa and also South Africa and Kenya
read more...»Millennium Development Goals - Uneven Progress
This blog brings together some recent videos on progress made towards meeting some of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
The Millennium Development Goals include ambitious targets to
o Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
o Achieve universal primary education
o Promote gender equality and empower women
o Reduce child mortality and improve maternal health
o Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
o Ensure environmental sustainability and develop a global partnership for development
Great Economics Blog to Follow - Danny Quah
Professor Danny Quah from the London School of Economics has a superb blog and I recommend it heartily to economics teachers and students. It is particularly excellent for understanding developments in the global economy, not least Danny’s work in plotting the changing centre of gravity in the world economy over the long term. Here is the link to use.
The LSE Public Events team has just released their programme for the New Year, there are plenty of really interesting talks coming up and you can access the Spring 2012 Events Programme by clicking on this link
Unit 4 Macro: India - the Road Ahead
Here is a short 12 minute video on prospects for the India economy produced by economists at the International Monetary Fund. It covers some of the key current issues including high inflation in a supply-constrained economy, partial progress in reducing poverty and the impact that poor infrastructure has as a constraint on further growth and development. Click on the video link below
read more...»Africa’s Hopeful Economies
This month’s ‘Economist’ includes an excellent article which is well worth a read for development economists looking at this fascinating continent. A few statistics from the article follow and the full article can be found here.
read more...»Jim O’Neill - The Growth Map: Economic Opportunity in the BRICs and Beyond
Jim O’Neill the Chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management has a new book published early next week and it looks like being a tremendous resource for teachers and students wanting to deepen their understanding of crucial changes in the global economy. The Telegraph has been publishing extracts from the book - to have a view please click on the links below:
read more...»Stephen King - Great Article on Macroeconomics
Stephen’s piece in the Independent on Monday would make for a terrific Unit 4 discussion with your A2 students. Here is the link to follow Ten things people thought they knew about economics
You can follow all of Stephen King’s recent economics articles in The Independent by clicking here
Unit 4: Pillars of Prosperity: The political economics of development clusters
The limitations (or barriers) to economic development outlined in many A-level Economics text books will include factors such as primary product dependency, corruption, civil war, debt and human capital inadequacies. However, none will point towards the state’s ability to enforce contracts and protect property rights in conjunction with the state’s ability to raise tax revenue; but this is exactly what Timothy Besley and Torsten Persson have looked to prove in their new book, “Pillars of Prosperity: The political economics of development clusters.”
read more...»Unit 4 Macro: China and India - Notes from Martin Wolf
Pete Davies from Greenhead College attended a superb talk by Martin Wolf CBE (Financial Times) at Leeds Business School last week. The focus was on the Great Convergence between developed and emerging economies, and Peter kindly took some excellent notes from the talk which will be of great use to teachers and students covering this key globalisation / development topics. They can be downloaded below as a word file - many thanks to Peter for making them available through the blog!
Martin_Wolf_Lecture_Oct_2011.docx
Global Economy - making it clear
I have just come across this page on the BBC website which act as a portal, collecting together a variety of stories around a topic, and is therefore really useful to refer students to. It is listed as a Special Report; I am not sure if it is new or not so apologies if you have been aware of it for a long time already; however, if you have not, it seems worth highlighting here.
read more...»Unit 4 Macro: Should TNCs make full disclosure on factory wages?
Peter Day’s World Business programme on BBC this week is an evocative report on the travels of two people who have explored where we get most of the clothes and the shoes adorned with global brands.
read more...»Top 10 resources on inflation on YouTube
What follows is a list of the ten video clips I use when teaching inflation as a topic.
They are a mixed bunch. Some are useful for class use, others work as pointers to a series of video clips from one producer. What I’ve tried to avoid, however, are links to the teach yourself Economics resources (though obviously they have their place) that are out there.
read more...»Tour of the US income distribution – “The L Curve”
Everyone knows about the Lorenz Curve but with the OWS events of late I came across the ‘L Curve”.
The red line represents a graph of family income across the population. The height of the curve at any point is the height of a stack of $100 bills equalling that income.
On the scale of the football field graph shown here the bottom 99% of the population measure their incomes in inches. The top 1% measure their incomes as stacks of $100 bills feet or even miles high! The total wealth of the few people in the vertical spike equals the total wealth of the rest of the population combined.
read more...»Unit 1 Micro: Economists attack food price speculation
Food prices are now rising by up to 10% a year in Britain and Europe and a new forecast from the United Nations predicts that prices can be expected to rise at least 40% in the next decade. Whilst conventional theories of changes in supply and demand conditions can be used to explain some of the increase in food prices, many economists are concerned that speculation by hedge funds and other investors has amplified the natural volatility of prices driving food prices away from fair values and contributing to a huge rise in global food poverty and hunger. These days, cocoa, fruit juices, sugar, staples, meat and coffee are all now global commodities, along with oil, gold and metals.
Is this the moment to legislate to limit the scope for speculative activity in food markets? The video below provides an excellent introduction to speculation in food markets - it features Neil Kellard, Professor in Finance at the University of Essex
read more...»Unit 4 Macro: World Food Day
Here is one of the short information videos launched by the World Bank on the occasion of World Food Day - excellent as an introduction to the economics of high and volatile world food prices. Every night, 1 billion people go to bed hungry because food is too expensive.
read more...»Keynes Prize: The Economics of Cities (3)
In the third extract of the winning essay for the 2011 Keynes Prize in Economics, Ross van der Watt asks “What should be done to revitalise cities in decline?”
read more...»Can the “invisible hand” solve Africa’s poverty?
At last night’s Senior Economics Society at Oundle we had a riveting talk by Hywel Rees-Jones, Managing Director of CDC, which covered so many areas of the issues of development economics. The talk was entitled “Can the invisible hand solve poverty in Africa?” Whilst conceding that some of the statements were broad generalisations across a variegated continent, Hywel discussed some of the key issues facing Africa.
read more...»Keynes Prize: The Economics of Cities (2)
In this second extract from his prize-winning essay, Ross van der Watt focuses on the question “Should Rapid Urbanisation in Developing Countries be encouraged or resisted?”
read more...»Keynes Prize: The Economics of Cities (1)
In this first extract of the winning essay in the 2011 Keynes Prize for Economics, Ross van der Watt asks “How important are Cities to Economic Growth?”
read more...»The Return of Protectionism?
The US senate has pushed through the bill which aims to punish China for allegedly undervaluing its currency. Is passed into law it would allow Washington to impose tariffs on imports in order to protect its domestic industries. The role and impacts of tariffs and other forms of protectionism form a big part of the ‘international trade’ section of most Economics courses and this article could be a good starting point for those discussions.
Hard Choice in Kenya
This short video report from Will Ross for the BBC from the island of Lamu, considers a number of economic concepts.
read more...»Unit 1 Micro: Waste Mountains as Above Ground Mining
This remarkable ten minute video is superb when you are studying or teaching the economics of recycling! Whereas recycle rates for metals and paper have been growing year by year, currently less than 10% of plastic trash is recycled—compared to almost 90% of metals— in part because of the complicated and costly problem of finding and sorting the different kinds.
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 4 Macro: USA edges closer to naming China as a “Currency Manipulator”
The U.S came closer to finally calling the Chinese a currency manipulator and retaliating in the new round of protectionism fears. A good summary of the key issues here.
