230 million unemployed worldwide - the economic and social fallout
I was listening to BBC Business World today and came across this revealing and thoughtful interview on the global impact of the huge rise in joblessness. According to the UN’s International Labour Organisation, there are upwards of 230 million unemployed people on this planet, around seven per cent of the workforce. This is a figure set to rise sharply despite an upturn in the global economic cycle - for as we know, unemployment is a lagging indicator. It tends to turn around with a delay after demand and production has started to rise again.
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Warning - Businesses at Risk from Economic Recovery
An excellent recent article in the ACCA magazine examines an interesting phenomenon - more businesses collapse at the beginning of a recovery than during the depths of a recession. Its all to do with working capital…
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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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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.
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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.
Explaining the Malthusian Trap
Tom Aedy outlines the essence of the Malthusian Trap and its contemporary relevance!
read more...»Swine flu vaccines and elasticity of supply
The scale of the ordering of swine flu vaccinations by governments across the world is eye-wateringly large! GlaxoSmithKline plc - one of the world’s biggest pharma companies has reported that governments around the world have so far ordered 440 million doses of its pandemic swine-flu vaccine Pandemrix. GlaxoSmithKline has been engaged in a tense race to get new swine flu vaccines onto the market fighting the likes of Sanofi-Aventis, Novartis AG and AstraZeneca to win contracts for public health programmes. For students of the price mechanism it is a fascinating example of many supply and demand concepts at work:
The challenge of scaling up production to meet huge levels of demand - this has involved out-sourcing
The relative importance of fixed and variable costs in developing and manufacturing/distributing a new drug
The elasticity of supply of vaccines to meet short term health requirements
The oligopolistic race to win and protect market share
Economies of scale in production
The balance of power between the major buyers and the multinational drug suppliers
Price discrimination tactics
The Guardian reports that:
“The company makes the vaccine in Dresden and Quebec but the demand is so great – about 60% higher than for usual seasonal vaccines – that it is also outsourcing production to third-party manufacturers.”
According to the Wall Street Journal
“Glaxo hasn’t released information on cost per dose of the vaccine. However, Chief Executive Andrew Witty said in July that Glaxo was charging wealthy nations $10.26 per H1N1 vaccine shot and developing countries less. The drug maker is also donating 50 million doses to the World Health Organization.”
The Independent reports that
“The United States has begun a massive campaign aiming to vaccinate 250 million people against the illness by year’s end.”
And the Times reports that “total booked orders for the drug are worth about £2.2 billion — a significant sales and profit windfall as a result of the swine flu epidemic”
Banana Price War Must Hit Growers
The supermarkets are spinning the latest price war for sales of bananas as a welcome boost to the spending power of hard-pressed consumers. True in the short term - cheaper bananas in my household will simply encourage me to buy more but ultimately throw most of them away. The medium term impact on banana growers is of much greater importance and it is this issue that was addressed in a timely and useful Big Question feature in the Independent yesterday. Here is the link.
The Big Question: Why are bananas so cheap, and what does it mean for producers?
There is a huge amount of economics in the article not least some evidence on the oligopsonistic power of banana growers and the oligopolistic battle for market share among the major retailers:
“Banana production is an operation on a gigantic industrial scale and is dominated by just five huge companies, Chiquita (formerly United Fruit), Dole, Del Monte, Noboa and Fyffes, which control 80 per cent of the global trade between them.”
“Asda - which sells two million kilograms of bananas a week - is charging 46p/kg. On August 25, the price was 84p/kg and 99p/kg last Christmas. Tesco and Sainsbury’s had been forced to match Asda’s price while the cost of bananas at Morrisons has fallen to 57p/kg and 59p/kg at Waitrose.” (Daily Mail)
More here
Explaining the Malthusian Trap
Dugie Young explores the idea of the Malthusian population trap. Is the prediction of Malthusian misery coming back into focus?
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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
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