The most disgusting thing since sliced bread

I almost spat out my breakfast this morning when I read this piece of news: Rat meat in demand as inflation bites. Apparently with the price of beef at £2.50 per kilo, the poor in Cambodia can no longer afford it and have to resort to rodent meat, despite that being four times what it cost a year ago. We’ve all learnt about bread and potatoes in our lessons about Giffen goods but this is a rather peculiar example which might not quite make it to the textbooks just yet.

More here from the Guardian: Cambodians eat rats to beat global food crisis and from the BBC: India’s poor urged to ‘eat rats’

BMW - Bavarian Monopolist at Work [24 May 2012]
Unit 2 Macro: Cyclical and Structural Economic Issues Facing the UK [23 May 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Revision Presentation on Elasticity of Supply [16 May 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Revision Presentation on the Price Mechanism [16 May 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Price Elasticity of Supply [13 May 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Income Elasticity of Demand [13 May 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Price Elasticity of Demand [13 May 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Revision Blogs on Markets and Intervention [10 May 2012]
Made in China - but not quite so cheaply…... [7 May 2012]
Unit 2 Macro: Monetary Policy and Inflation Glossary [5 May 2012]
Unit 3 Micro: Evaluation Question on Supermarkets [11 Apr 2012]
Unit 3 Micro: Revision on Monopoly Price and Output [6 Apr 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Revision on Producer Surplus [4 Apr 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Revision on Maximum Rents in Housing [1 Apr 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Brazilian coffee buffer stock hit by falling prices [29 Mar 2012]
Unit 3 Micro: EU Imposes Further Price Cap on Mobile Phone Companies [29 Mar 2012]
Life in the Slow Lane - UK Growth in 2011 Lags the Euro Area [28 Mar 2012]
Beyond the Bike - Monetary Policy in Africa [28 Mar 2012]
Price of Stamp increases to 60p [27 Mar 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Government launches New Buy Loan Guarantee Scheme [12 Mar 2012]
Unit 4 Macro: Focus on India - World’s Cheapest Computer [26 Jan 2012]
Unit 4 Macro: Focus on India - Supply Side Issues [25 Jan 2012]
Economics at the Movies - Foods that Make Billions [15 Jan 2012]
China’s newest 5 year plan - and how it could change the world! [12 Jan 2012]
Unit 3 Micro: Tacit Collusion in the Supermarket [27 Nov 2011]
Beyond the Bike - What is the value of life in Africa? [19 Nov 2011]
Pasty Prices - Something to Chew Over [19 Nov 2011]
Behavioural Economics: Bittersweet Symphony - The Psychology of Food [8 Nov 2011]
Unit 3 Micro: Unilever hit by rising costs [6 Nov 2011]
Unit 3 Micro: Time of Use Pricing for Energy [2 Nov 2011]
Unit 3 Micro: Economies of Scale and the Kinect [31 Oct 2011]
Unit 1 Micro: Google Maps to Charge for Usage [31 Oct 2011]
Unit 3 Micro: Price Discrimination in the E-Book Market [31 Oct 2011]
Unit 1 Micro: Is the Sun Dipping on Solar Subsidies? [27 Oct 2011]
Unit 1 Micro: University fees and elasticity of demand [24 Oct 2011]
Unit 1 Micro: Economists attack food price speculation [24 Oct 2011]
Unit 3 Micro: Tesco Behaving Badly - Price Anchoring [17 Oct 2011]
Unit 4 Macro: World Food Day [16 Oct 2011]
Fat tax: Denmark [5 Oct 2011]
Unit 1 Micro: Homework Assignment on Market Prices [2 Oct 2011]
Unit 1 Micro: The Supply and Demand Rap! [28 Sep 2011]
Unit 1 Micro: Exercise on Equilibrium Market Prices [27 Sep 2011]
Putting the “discrimination” into price discrimination! [26 Sep 2011]
Unit 1 Micro: Exercise on Market Demand [25 Sep 2011]
Unit 2 Macro: Economic Growth and Inequality [14 Sep 2011]
Unit 2 Macro: Value Added in Production and GDP [11 Sep 2011]
Unit 4 Macro: Baltic Dry Index and Global Weakening [19 Aug 2011]
Unit 1 Micro: The Price of Football [2 Aug 2011]
Unit 1 Micro: Economics of Volatile Corn Prices [12 Jul 2011]
Unit 3 Micro: Oligopsony - Dairy Losses Drive Farmers from the Fields [10 Jul 2011]
The Future of Food Retailing? Tesco in South Korea [27 Jun 2011]
AS Micro: Fears over a century of hunger [22 Jun 2011]
Poor Economics - Esther Duflo at the LSE [3 Jun 2011]
A2 Micro: Price Discrimination [19 May 2011]
Unit 3 Micro: Monopsony Power in Markets [19 May 2011]
Unit 3 Micro: Perfect Competition [19 May 2011]
A2 Micro: Minimum Efficient Scale [18 May 2011]
Unit 1 Micro: Tackling Obesity - Alternative Approaches [15 May 2011]
AS Micro: What´s really behind the oil price rise? [10 May 2011]
Interest Rates Held at 0.5% once again [5 May 2011]
AS Micro: Rising Global Food Prices [2 May 2011]
AS Micro: Mock Exam Question on Sugar Prices [28 Apr 2011]
AS Micro: Importance of Elasticity of Supply [23 Apr 2011]
AS Micro Revision: Public and Private Goods [21 Apr 2011]
Key AS Micro Terms: Costs and Profits [16 Apr 2011]
Key AS Micro Terms: Prices [15 Apr 2011]
China set to become exporter of inflation [14 Apr 2011]
In Praise of Farmers and Farming [13 Apr 2011]
RES Essay Competition - Obesity and a Fat Tax [7 Apr 2011]
AS Macro Key Term: Aggregate Supply Shock [6 Apr 2011]
AS Macro Key Term: Bubble [4 Apr 2011]
Information Failures: Tesco and Second Hand Cars [3 Apr 2011]
AS Macro Key Term: Relative deflation [2 Apr 2011]
AS Micro Revision: Banana Prices [1 Apr 2011]
OCR F585 June 2011: Data Charts [30 Mar 2011]
Keeping Track of UK Macro Objectives [18 Mar 2011]
Timetric: Mortgage Lending and Mortgage Rates [14 Mar 2011]
AS Macro Revision: Investment Spending [12 Mar 2011]
Information Failure: The UK Illicit Drug Market [28 Feb 2011]
Combining monetary and fiscal policy to curb inflation in China [16 Feb 2011]
The US-China Trade Deficit [14 Feb 2011]
Economics Q&A: Should the CAP be scrapped? [14 Feb 2011]
Economics Q&A: What factors help to explain rising food prices? [14 Feb 2011]
The 25 Countries Whose Governments Could Get Crushed By Food Price Inflation [5 Feb 2011]
Ways to watch movies - cross elasticity of demand in action! [3 Feb 2011]
EU Economics: Hopes for a low carbon future in Europe [3 Feb 2011]
Tracking Commodity Prices - Free Chart Download [26 Jan 2011]
5 Fresh Links: Reforming the EU Common Agricultural Policy [25 Jan 2011]
5 Fresh Links: Focus on Inflation [23 Jan 2011]
Shorting the market - the vultures target HMV [23 Jan 2011]
Tesco - Time to start a price war! [19 Jan 2011]
The Impossible Hamster and Economic Growth [18 Jan 2011]
Economics Q&A: How might rising food prices affect food retailers and manufacturers in the UK? [16 Jan 2011]
Environmental Economics: Five Fresh Links [13 Jan 2011]
Engineering Approaches to Growing Populations [13 Jan 2011]
A Motorbiking Triumph [13 Jan 2011]
Economics Q&A: What are some of the benefits and drawbacks of a period of rising world food prices [4 Jan 2011]
Behavioural Economics - Public Policy and Behavioural Change [30 Dec 2010]
Heinz Means Strikes [29 Dec 2010]
HMV on the brink? [9 Dec 2010]

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