Has competition in postal services delivered?

Two years on from the liberalisation of the postal services industry, has this supply-side policy to make the market more contestable made any noticeable difference to the quality of service, prices and investment in delivery? A new report casts doubt on the changes to the industry since the market opened up to competition at the start of 2006 to businesses such as UK Mail. Robert Peston reports for the BBC in this video clip. His feature asks whether the universal service provision is a millstone round the neck of the Royal Mail which remains in deep financial trouble.

Attention grabbing

The deadline for submitting an entry to the RES economics competition is just a week away! Students entering the competition might like to know that the initial round of judging will be taking place on the 12th June! On this day a team of teachers drawn from across the country will be enjoying a day away from the classroom with just one aim in mind, to read and find essays that grab their attention and which stand a chance to make it into the final short list!

With so many essays to read and judge, writing a lively introduction that engages with the reader is really important if you want your essay to stand a good chance. Each of the judges will have their own thoughts on what makes a good answer. From my point of view, I am looking for an essay that I really want to read to the end - so your opening does make a difference! The best essays will have at their heart a clear economic idea or policy (often it is better to narrow down your idea and develop it properly rather than try to paint on too broad a canvas). And we are looking for students who make the connection between their idea and policy and how this might be used to ‘improve peope’s lives’. You will need to persuade the reader, making good use of evidence and drawing on your background reading.

In short, please dont regard your answer as a normal homework essay! We want to see you going beyond the usual AS or A2 syllabus and taking a few risks!

Good luck this week ... we are really looking forward to reading your answers.

Don’t forget to stick to the rubric of the competition - clear presentation, spell-checking and all of those other ‘critical non-essentials’!!

Two weeks to the RES deadline!

There are two weeks until the final deadline for submitting essays for the 2008 RES competition. Here at school we had our own internal competition to give students a chance to win a small prize for an early entry. I thought I would give a flavour of the topics covered

Open source software
Feed-in-Tariffs
Economics of mass collaboration
Micro-finance
Lump sum taxes
Free trade
Carbon trading
Globalization
Welfare and happiness policies
Flat rate taxes
Auctions

There were certainly some interesting essays from the two dozen that I read - it is so much fun reading an essay without having to give it a mark or apply some dodgy assessment criteria to it. Hopefully my students will find a bit of time away from revision to do a little more reading for their essays and work on their style and arguments before the 12th May deadline arrives!

Submitting your essay for the RES competition

A steady flow of essays is already arriving as students gear up to meet the RES Economics essay competition deadline on the 12th of May. There are plenty of interesting titles and ideas being put under the microscope!

Revision: Natural Monopolies

This revision note is aimed at A2 economics students and those studying for the International Bacc. It looks at the idea of a natural monopoly and considers examples of industries with characteristics of natural monpoly in Britain and how competition policy has sought to oversee efficiency and welfare for producers and consumers.

Revision note:
Revision_Natural_Monopoly.pdf

Tesco adds to contestability in digital downloads

News today of yet more competition in the increasingly contestable market for music and film downloads. Tesco Digital is launching a new platform-neutral service which eventually will offer 3.3m music tracks compatible with iPods and other MP3 players. At the moment, the downloable tracks are only available in windows media player format. The move heralds yet more pressure for high street retailers such as HMV who are also building an online presence. Do you think that Tesco’s move will be a success?

Economics features in the new edition of Latte

The Summer 2008 edition of Latte Magazine is published later this week and, once again, it provides lots of useful and interesting resources for Economics teachers.

Battle of the energy drinks

I popped into my local Sainsbury’s this morning for the groceries and I came across a staggering price differential between Red Bull - 250ml individual cans on sale for 88p or a pack of 4 for £3.29 - and Sainsbury’s own-brand caffeinated drink Blue Bolt which has been on sale for some time at just 26 pence for a 250ml can - less than one third of the price of a can of Red Bull.

Revision: Console wars

I will be using this table with my A2 microeconomics group as a revision exercise - partly to discuss competition in a contestable market; the factors that determine pricing power and other micro concepts such as elasticities of demand, economies of scale and hardware product cycles. How else could the data be used? Suggestions please! I have made the original word document available for download below.

Console prices
Console_Prices.doc

Economics Revision Workshops Summer 2008

The programmes for our intensive one-day revision workshops for AS & A2 Economics are being finalised as we prepare for what should be a really useful series of revision days.