The River Cam in Cambridge. Recently, we looked at why water can be more expensive than beer, even though water doesn’t attract excise duty Water is the most important commodity in the world, it is indispensable for life, yet, it is also one of the cheapest. In many circumstances we can say water is a …
Readers Question: What is the economic answer to why do fast food stores offer free refills on sodas? Firstly, the marginal cost of refilling soft drinks like coca-cola is very low. The stores will buy drinks in bulk. The cost of filling up a drink is merely a few cents. So they don’t have significant …
Why Is Water More Expensive than Beer when Alcohol is taxed? If you go into a pub. You can buy a pint of beer for £2.20. Less than half a pint of mineral water or lemonade can costs £1.30. So per litre, water is more expensive than beer. Yet, beer has a significant tax placed …
The UK ‘Public sector Debt’ is now approximately £800 billion (July 2009 – ) Question: Who do we owe it to? People and financial institutions who bought the UK bonds and gilts. These are mainly financial bodies such as pension funds, investment trusts. The irony is that many people in the UK who have private …
The Baltic Dry Index is a measure of the international price for sending commodities by sea. It is calculated by combining the price of different shipping sizes for dry commodities. Commodities include metals, grains, crude oil. The Baltic Dry Index developed in the mid-eighteenth century. It gained the name Baltic Dry index partly because at …
In a recent post, UK personal debt, we looked at why UK debt had fallen for the first time since records began. Nevertheless, personal debt is still over £1.45 billion. Within this debt are many overburdened with debt from a variety of sources from personal loans to credit cards and store cards. Debt consolidation is …
T-Mobile and Orange mobile phones have stated that they intend to merge to form a new mobile phone company. The merging of brands will take over 18 months as they decide which brand to promote. Currently, the market share of the four leading mobile phone providers is O2 27% Vodafone 25% Orange 22% T-Mobile 15% …
After returning from New York last Monday, I’ve been met by a barrage of 20mph signs around Oxford. Most roads in the city centre have been limited to 20mph. As both a cyclist and driver, what are the costs and benefits of this decision? Benefits of 20mph Zones Slower speed of cars will make cycling …