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!

Revision: Labour Market Failure

Markets fail when they do not reach an efficient and/or equitable outcome from society’s point of view. At AS level, you will have studied many examples of possible market failure ranging from the provision of public and merit goods through to externalities and the welfare consequences of monopoly power in markets.  At A2 level, you are asked to explore some issues relating to labour market failure. This revision note flags up a few of them:

Revision note:
Revision_Labour_Market_Failure.pdf

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

Measuring the Black Economy

Moonlighting, ghosting,working for cash in hand, undeclared business profits, fraudulently claiming welfare assistance, failing to register a business for VAT purposes and organised crime. All of these ‘economic axtivities’ are said to operate in the shadow or informal economy and no one including the authorities have much of a handle on just how large is the size of the black economy.

Bhutan and Gross National Happiness

Is there a trade off between wealth and well-being? I missed this Newsnight report from Mark Easton which appeared on BBC2 last month - but came across it whilst revising my work schemes for our new courses next year. This is a terrific eight minute video on life in the absolute monarchy of Bhutan - a country without traffic lights and which has banned plastic bags and adverts for Pepsi and Coca Cola. The video clip is excellent perhaps as an introduction to discussion on living standards or even the basic economic problem.

Tim Harford’s essay on happiness which was published a couple of years ago is still well worth a read.