A look behind the causes and consequences of the economic crisis, and why it has been difficult to solve. Background to Economic Crisis The 1990s and early 2000s was a period of economic prosperity – Low inflation and high economic growth gave an impression of economic stability, but in other areas of the economy there …
Readers Question: Hello I recently saw a programme How China Fooled the World – with Robert Peston and I was wondering what threats and opportunities does the growth of economies like China and India provide to the UK economy? According to the IMF, in 2010, the Chinese economy was $5,878 billion – second only to …
Here in Oxford, there is water everywhere. Yesterday, the main road into town (Abingdon Road) was closed due to flooding, and the cost to business and householders will be quite significant. There is a danger of even worse flooding to come. In one sense, it is an act of God. No one can do anything …
Just five years after the start of global credit crunch and the UK housing crash, it seems incongruous to be talking about another UK property bubble. It is a paradox that the UK has experienced five long years of recession – the worst decline in living standards in recent times, and yet, property prices still …
An interesting question at the moment is to what extent does temporary cost-push factors lead to a permanent rise in underlying inflation? Temporary cost-push factors include rising commodity prices, rising food prices, higher taxes. These goods are often volatile so the increase is often temporary. In the case of taxes, the price increases last for …
Emerging markets are defined as economies which are making the transition from a low income / developing economy to a high income ‘developed’ economy. Key emerging markets include: China, India, Brazil, Mexico. Emerging markets are mostly based in South East Asia (excluding Japan) and Latin America. Emerging markets often have a high rate of economic …
I’m a big fan of Waterstones. It’s a good bookshop. It’s not Amazon; it even pays UK taxes. I like the atmosphere of bookshops and would be sad if they disappear from the High Street to be replaced by drones delivering books from anonymous warehouses somewhere off the M4. Even though Amazon is often cheaper, …
After faltering for several years, the UK economy shows signs of real recovery, with rising spending, investment, exports and even manufacturing growth. At the start of 2014, there seems to be a virtuous circle of falling unemployment, falling inflation, and rising GDP. After one of the longest and deepest recessions on record, these signs of …