Blog and updates
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22 Feb 2023
Marginal Cost - Pret Ditches the Smoothie!
Can you hear Pret customers tearing up their monthly subscriptions? Pret-a-Manger is to stop selling shakes and smoothies because they can't afford it and instead will offer iced-drinks.
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22 Feb 2023
Does a Four-Day Week Lift Productivity?
A trial involving 61 firms and over 3,000 workers has seemed to validate the notion that a four-day working week has helped boost productivity at the margin.
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20 Feb 2023
Supply and demand in action - why the price of milk has soared in the UK
Why did milk prices reach an all-time wholesale price record in December?
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20 Feb 2023
Economies of Scale - How Singapore Airlines Makes 19 Million Meals a Year
How to make 50,000 meals a day and take into account the fact that food can taste different in the sky?
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20 Feb 2023
Time to rethink how the World Bank operates
One for Year 13 economists. Larry Elliott looks here at the future of the World Bank in the aftermath and asks the pertinent question about whether an institution that emerged in the aftermath of...
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20 Feb 2023
One Year Universal Free School Meals Programme for London
What a story to start a new week. The Mayor of London is drawing on higher than expected tax revenues from business rates to fund a one-year universal programme offering free meals to all primary...
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19 Feb 2023
Leprechaun Economics - How real is Ireland's super-fast economic growth?
A debate is raging about whether we can truly believe the super-charged economic growth that is taking place in the Irish economy. Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman has labelled the rapid...
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19 Feb 2023
International Competitiveness & Supply-side Policies
In our revision blast session last week, we looked at measures of competitiveness and focused on macro and micro supply-side policies that might help improve the UK's relative standings in...
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18 Feb 2023
Wonderful examples of cross-industry innovations
This is one of those twitter streams that arrives once in a while and provides a veritable gold-mine of interesting examples of when industries draw on ideas from others to fast-forward the...
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17 Feb 2023
Nestle to raise prices (again)
Some excellent revision material here for Year 13 Economics students; Nestle have announced that continued cost rises mean that they are going to have to increase prices again.
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16 Feb 2023
Should home insulation in the UK be subsidised?
Improving the energy efficiency of the UK’s ageing housing stock has become increasingly important considering increasing energy prices - how strong is the case for government financial support to...
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16 Feb 2023
McDonald's Raises Prices Again
The decision by McDonald's to raise prices on five core menu items brings into play many aspects of business economics such as the likely PED, the effect of rising costs, food price inflation, the...
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14 Feb 2023
Brexit has dealt a blow to UK investment according to MPC member
One of the external members of the Monetary Policy Committee, Jonathan Haskel, has estimated that Brexit has effectively imposed a productivity penalty equivalent to £29 billion on the UK economy....
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13 Feb 2023
Social Capital and Resource Management - Reforestation in Nepal
A half term hat tip to Prairna Sharma for spotting this timely article from Eric Solheim lauding Nepal for their success in increasing forest cover. This is a great example of Elinor Ostrom's work...
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13 Feb 2023
The UK Hand Car Wash Market
You'll find plenty of hand car wash businesses dotted around the towns and cities of the UK. The hand car wash industry has come under increasing criticism in recent years both in terms of...
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13 Feb 2023
Why are the oil giants making such big (supernormal) profits?
This BBC article looks at the profits being made by the big oil companies and attempts to explain them.
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13 Feb 2023
Market Power - OFCOM investigates mobile phone and broadband suppliers over pricing
OFCOM have decided to investigate mobile phone and broadband suppliers who introduce price increases mid-contract.
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12 Feb 2023
Interest Rates and Aggregate Demand and Supply
With central banks in many countries including the UK and the USA raising policy interest rates, we have added two short topic videos to our reference section on how increased interest rates might...
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12 Feb 2023
Rocket and Feather Pricing - Britain’s biggest gas supplier accused of ‘profiteering’
Norwegian state-owned energy firm, Equinor is accused of following 'rocket and feather' pricing and exploiting consumers. As a result, it posted annual earnings of £62bn and is intending to hand...
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