Interactive guide to selected EU economic data
The Telegraph website has a useful interactive guide to a selection of data on member countries inside the European Union. Our chart shows indices for GDP and there is also information the allocation of EU spending by country, population size and density.
Size of UK GDP overtaken by Italy
Edmund Conway reports in the Telegraph that the impact of the recession and the depreciation of sterling against the Euro has caused Italy to overtake the UK in terms of size of economy.
The BBC web site has a useful short article on GDP and its measurement
Sugar prices and production and investment incentives
World sugar prices are close to a 30 year high with values on the Chicago mercantile exchange hovering just under $30c per pound. For countries whose sugar exports account for a large proportion of their export earnings, the steep increase in world prices has brought about an improvement in their terms of trade and - because demand for many foodstuffs is price inelastic, a favourable change in their balance of trade. A good example of this is the African country of Mozambique, a nation almost destroyed by a long running civil war that eventually ended in the early 1990s but which has also been hit in recent years by severes drought hit many central and southern parts of the country, including previously flood-stricken areas. And where half of the population must survive on less than $1 a day.
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Norway - your guys take a lot of beating!
Roy Hattersley makes a rare appearance in the economics blog today. He has an interesting piece in The Times on the relative prosperity of Norway - a country that lies outside the European Union but which has negotiated access to the EU single market. With very low unemployment (of less than 3% of the labour force, super high per capita incomes, a sovereign wealth fund worth more than £250bn and continued strong revenues from oil exports, Norway is unlikely to test the waters of EU membership anytime soon. A good piece for students of economic integration in the EU.
Paul Mason on the future for the dollar
Paul Mason’s excellent short video report appeared on Newsnight last Friday and it considers whether the US dollar (currently weak in global currency markets) will continue to ebb away as the reserve currency of choice for international transactions? The Yen and the Euro are making strides and there is pressure from the Chinese for a new currency to emerge perhaps as a development of the special drawing rights organised by the IMF. The BBC video links to a follow up discussion featuring Irwin Steltzer and Linda Yueh from Oxford University. A good discussion-starter for A2 macroeconomists.
Watch Are dollar’s days as world currency numbered?
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Croatia and Iceland look to be in front line for EU entry
Croatian fans will be crying into their beers tonight with the news that they have failed to qualify for South Africa 2010. But their politicians seem to be making decent progress along the road to joining the European family of nations. The latest report on the progress made by countries seeking membership of the European Union suggests that Iceland and Croatia will be next in line to enter the EU single market. There is a report here from the Financial Times. And this article from the BBC reports the EU Enlargement Commissioner as saying that Croatia should complete entry talks next year.
Here are some links to previous blogs on EU enlargement
Let a falling pound rebalance the economy
Stephen King has a superb article on the importance of exports and a cheaper currency to prospects of recovery in today’s Independent.
“If consumer spending, government spending and investment spending are going to be weak, the only likely source of growth is exports. One way to boost exports is to adjust the relative price of goods and services produced in Britain, and an obvious way of doing this is to encourage sterling to fall. Unlike the individual eurozone members, the UK still enjoys exchange-rate flexibility.”
But he makes the point that a lower currency on its own provides little more than a quick palliative to the fragily economic situation - the UK needs to reinforce our competitive advantage in many different industries by improving non-price quality, keeping costs under control and investing in productive capacity rather than simply relying on a weaker sterling to boost the profitability of exports.
Pain in Spain - on the brink of depression
In our introductory AS macroeconomics we have discussed the differences between a cyclical recession and a depression. Much depends on the scale of the contraction in real national output from peak to trough of the cycle. This article from the Telegraph looks at a dire outlook for the Spanish economy which - not long ago - was one of the fastest growing countries in the European Union with a rising relative per capita income.
Quoting a report from Madrid research group RR de Acuña & Asociados, the peak to trough loss of GDP is likely to be more than 11%. “The group said Spain’s unemployment will peak at around 25pc, comparable to the worst chapter of the Great Depression......The construction sector will shrink from 18pc of GDP at the peak of the boom to around 5pc, making it unlikely that there will be any significant recovery before 2012. Even then growth will be “slow, weak, and fragile”.
A huge rise in the Spanish government’s budget deficit has left them little wriggle room for a fresh fiscal stimulus.
Spain and Ireland are frequently quoted as two EU countries whose property bubbles have been well and truly smashed with huge macroeconomic consequences. The slump in property represents a very large internal demand-side shock for a country heavily dependent on construction and also tourism for value-added measures of GDP.
Volkswagen looks to China on the road to being the biggest car maker
Volkswagen has a hugely ambitious long term aim - by 2018 it wants to overtake Toyota as the world’s biggest car manufacturer.
With this in mind it makes clear sense to focus capital investment in countries where the projected growth of demand for new vehicles is strongest. The relatively mature markets of Western Europe and North America look less attractive compared to emerging economies such as China and Brazil.
This week Volkswagen has announced a Euro 4 billion plan to expand capacity and output in China. In the short term the commercial need is to have sufficient capacity in place to meet the surge in demand brought about by the deep cuts in taxes on new cars introduced by the Chinese government as part of its economic stimulus programme - there has been a temporary cut in the purchase tax on cars with 1.6 liter engines to 5%. In the first half of 2009 Volkswagen has already sold over 620,000 cars in China!
Long term however the market demand for automobiles is forecast to rise by more than 10% per annum. Volkswagen has engineered joint ventures with Chinese manufacturers to build cars at plants in Nanjing and Chengdu - it is not beyond the realms of possibility that within eight years, it could be assembling over two million cars a year in China - a staggering volume of production and one designed to maximise the economies of large scale production.
More here from the BBC news site
Sterling and the Economic Recovery
Despite a recent appreciation against the US dollar and the Euro, sterling remains well below its value of two years ago. But has the weakness of the pound - which has given the British economy a competitive boost at a time of recession - delivered the extra impetus for demand that we have been searching for? Edmund Conway considers this in his column in the Telegraph today - Weak pound might not be enough to rescue UK economy -
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