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.
China’s growth starts to climb back above the 8% target
China’s leaders have set ambitious targets for economic growth - with an aim of reaching 8% growth of real GDP in 2009, a year in which world trade has shrunk and much of the developed world has been mired in recession. An enormous stimulus programme seems to be having an effect with the latest data showing a pick up in output and annualised growth of GDP climbing above 8.5%. Exports remain weak and many Chinese manufacturers are finding that the prices they are able to get from advanced economy importers continues to fall - the terms of trade have moved against them. Lifting domestic demand has become a key macroeconomic objective for the Chinese government. China has poured £354billion into spending on infrastructure in order to boost its domestic economy as exports have suffered.
This BBC news video reports on the latest Chinese growth figures.
See also
BBC: China economic growth accelerates
The Times: The dragon roars again after new figures put China’s output on a growth hat-trick
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
Rated: 
(5/5), based on 1 review
Public debt and intergenerational equity
With government borrowing set to rise above £175bn this year and total public sector debt already approaching 60% of GDP and set to surge much higher in the coming years, attention is now focusing on who will pay for this almost total collapse of fiscal discipline. There truly is no such thing as a free lunch - next year the costs of servicing the national debt will be over £60m a day.
The latest National Institute report makes for somber reading. They project that an economic recovery built around exports may do little to reduce the size of government borrowing and escalating debt and that a structural budget deficit in excess of 6% of GDP is likely to persist. Ray Barrell’s quote in this article in the Times is a classic example of the problem of inter-generational equity:
read more...»
GDP per Capita - A Cool Way to Show the Data
I came across a cool interactive resource on GDP data whilst doing some research tonight on the BRICS.
read more...»Rated: (5/5), based on 2 reviews
Will Japan go bankrupt?
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard has a provocative piece in the Telegraph today on the demographic timebomb ticking underneath many Asian economies. The Japanese government has borrowed enormous sums in a bid to sustain aggregate demand and keep the economy afloat and avoid yet another deflationary slump. But the ratio of government debt to GDP is now - according to the author - perilously high.
“Japan is about to go bankrupt. It is on the cusp of a fiscal crisis that will change perceptions of Asia dramatically. The IMF says gross public debt will reach 218pc of GDP this year. This is compounding very fast. It will be 246pc in 2014...But I am absolutely certain that pundits consigning the dollar to its death have missed an even more dramatic currency and debt story in Japan.”
The rest of the article can be found here
Human and social capital and pathways to prosperity
Tom Aedy picks an article by Michael Milken in the FT and focuses on the importance of human capital in a competitive global economy - Milken calls this the world’s most valuable asset.
read more...»Rated: 
(2/5), based on 1 review
Gloomy summary
Here is a summary of four reports posted on the Business and Economics sections of the BBC News website over the last few days. Be warned - none of them are particularly hopeful, the green shoots of summer giving way to autumn mists.
Beijing worries that supply is outpacing demand
Not all investment contributes to growth - and in an economy where super-charged capital spending has been a driving force of economic expansion over several decades, there is always a risk that a country that invests over forty per cent of GDP on capital goods can eventually suffer an investment-led slump. Japan learned to her cost the dangers of being over-capitalised. Is China recognising the same symptoms in time? This article from the Times makes for fascinating reading.
“Beijing is eager to keep GDP growth above the level of 8 per cent supposedly required to maintain social stability and job creation. But there are fears that huge imbalances between production capacity and actual demand could lead to price wars, corporate failures and severe setbacks for the country’s stellar expansion trajectory.”
Read Beijing moves to halt growth as supply starts to outstrip demand
Argentina’s Last Tango saved by UNESCO?
In the midst of all the heavy economic and financial news, I would like to propose something on a lighter note – as UNESCO have just declared the Tango part of the world’s Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in an attempt to preserve it and a list of other national legacies under threat from global change. Also under consideration for inclusion in the list is Belgium’s Procession of the Holy Blood in Bruges while China has nominated several of its artistic traditions, including the Tibetan opera. Such heritages, say UNESCO, “transmit from “generation to generation” and give “communities and groups a feeling of identity”.
Most Popular Topic Tags on the Economics Blog
recession, demand, economics, unemployment, price, prices, inflation, investment, costs, profit, downturn, trade, supply, debt, confidence, euro, gdp, competition, employment, capacity, production, risk, china, oil, incentives, exports, housing, expectations, pay, manufacturing, sterling, food, profits, property, tutor2u, mortgage, globalisation, banks, revision, slowdown, borrowing, usa, retailers, emissions, airlines, innovation, deflation, dollar, supermarkets, entrepreneur, efficiency, monopsony, elasticity, aqa, welfare, consumption, economist, productivity, saving, keynes, opec, wealth, depression, moodle, depreciation, jobs, credit crunch, competitiveness, cars, google, stocks, infrastructure, economic cycle, environmental, strategy, tim harford, externalities, carbon, vle, subsidy, evaluation, management, eu, losses, protectionism, spare capacity, inequality, environment, poverty, monopoly, bank of england, construction, behavioural, macroeconomics, output gap, budget deficit, carbon trading, steel, wages, japan, commodities, oligopoly, currencies, imports, bbc, stagflation, contestable, cpi, agflation, farming, newsnight, choices, skills, regulation, survey, taxes, government failure, itunes, minimum wage, lse, climate change, paul mason, population, intervention, aviation, keynes society, fiscal stimulus, amazon, single market, pricing, dan ariely, cartel, eton college, pollution, interest rates, shareholder, london, rationality, redundancies, market failure, rpi, mpc, shipping, behavioural economics, germany, robert peston, india, rsa, reputation, facebook, income elasticity, stakeholders, current account, brazil, coffee, savings, microsoft, monetary policy, crowding out, barriers to entry, collapse, nationalisation, multiplier effect, suppliers, economies of scale, price discrimination, development, uk economy, quiz, quantitative easing, currency, apple, surplus, tesco, free, labour market, behaviour, tragedy of the commons, opportunity cost, open source, vat, smoking, poverty trap, ireland, growth, merger, edinburgh, ownership, discrimination, global, cost benefit analysis, oecd, supply chain, shareholders, scarcity, balance of payments, petrol, liquidity, duopoly, iphone, starbucks, trade deficit, happiness, etonomics, scrappage, human capital, capital, subsidies, immigration, eurozone, takeover, exploitation, ecb, paradox of thrift, taxation, wiki, advertising, iceland, utility, wants, labour force survey, cost of living, brand, poland, blog, speculation, foreign exchange, spain, indirect tax, robert frank, northern rock, roger bootle, ocr economics, hbos, animal spirits, heathrow, hotels, freight, federal reserve, kaletsky, price war, information failure, crude oil, gini coefficient, transport, creative destruction, leverage, sony, us economy, migrants, waste, information, fishing, milk, tax, government borrowing, budget, eu enlargement, anchoring, obama, entrepreneurship society, aggregate demand, peter day, recovery, needs, internet, forecast, european union, discounting, real income, copper, deficit, public sector, contestability, nissan, companies, david smith, fairness, standard of living, aqa economics, blogging, martin wolf, renewable, twitter, sentiment, labour mobility, collusion, imf, accelerator effect, geoff riley, income tax, obesity, guardian, fair trade, pubs, consumer welfare, res, disposable income, national debt, devaluation, consumer surplus, corus, vacancies, global economy, broadband, sub-prime, tariff, joint venture, vehicles, startups, yuan, immobility, income elasticity of demand, edexcel economics, redundancy, tata, walmart, relative poverty, youth unemployment, accelerator, tickets, coal, cash, pensions, edmund conway, base rate, russia, diesel, marginal cost, external shocks, movies, liquidity trap, contestable market, libor, stephanie flanders, fixed costs, comparative advantage, allocative efficiency, training, satisficing, hot money, rory cellan-jones, status races, price mechanism, healthcare, deleveraging, congestion, social entrepreneur, apprenticeships, hyperinflation, economic efficiency, migration, veblen goods, credit, financial times, evan davis, automatic stabilisers, age structure, cyclical, king of shaves, monopoly power, reserve currency, ryanair, wheat, ucas, scotland, carbon tax, positional goods, drugs, aldi, ebea, stimulus, deindustrialisation, chris coleridge, yahoo, organic growth, barclays, liberalisation, equity, richard thaler, pay cuts, royal mail, diseconomies of scale, logging, tax burden, bonds, savings ratio, will king, pension, demography, structural, gillette, job losses, ocr, nhs, house prices, cross elasticity, brics, redistribution, biofuel, nelson thornes, schumpeter, slump, markets, footfall, british airways, paul krugman, green revolution, income distribution, price capping, logic of life, ft, contraction, enterprise, the economist, eastern europe, general motors, natural monopoly, health, o2, deforestation, enlargement, producer welfare, economic welfare, asda, supply-side, research, landfill, social costs, long tail, jim o'neill, diane coyle, economax, energy, podcast, share prices, tariffs, external shock, profit margin, fiscal drag, green shoots, ftse, philip allan, hedge fund, students, buy to let, elasticity of supply, disincentives, ben bernanke, market power, retailing, trend growth, resources, declan curry, nokia, undercover economist, hysteresis, chris anderson, bric economies, dynamic efficiency, price fixing, fiscal policy, winners curse, zimbabwe, hamish mcrae, toyota, market structure, global business, john kay, compound interest, contestable markets, frictional, hedging, claimant count, repossession, public good, law of unintended consequences, royal economic society, sustainability, probability, sustainable growth, cambridge, robert skidelsky, vertical integration, economics teacher inset, rentokil, price regulation, business cycle, fairtrade, freemium, yields, national institute, nairu, costa, nobel prize, robert shiller, market, gender pay gap,All tags
ECONOMICS TEACHER RESOURCE NEWSLETTER
Join over 4,000 other Economics Teachers in the UK and around the world who receive the tutor2u Economics Resource Email newsletter. Get special offers, first news of latest resources, teaching ideas, conferences and workshops.
Recent Threads on the Economics Teacher Discussion Forums:
Posts in: General Economics Teaching
Good hotel in London for school trip
Competitive Markets
Diminishing Returns
Complementary goods - HELP Please!
URgent Help Needed
Equilibrium concept
The price of life
Extended Project Qualification
Economics course structure
Bank of England School Trip
