A look at some arguments for and against public/private healthcare provision. Should healthcare be left to the free market or should the government provide universal healthcare? Arguments for Public Health Care Healthcare is not a profit maximising industry. Doctors and nurses don’t need financial incentives to do a good job but are motivated by aims …
Capital goods are fixed assets which are used in the productive process in order to produce a finished ‘consumer’ good. Capital goods are not bought for their own utility; they are bought in order to be used in the productive process. Examples of Capital Goods Factories Offices Machines Printing press Combine harvester Assembly line In …
Although controversial, what are the potential advantages of privatising public services? Firstly, privatising means outsourcing of public services to the private sector. For example, this might include Competitive tendering – where private companies are allowed to bid for the right to provide meals for hospitals. NHS outsourcing treatment to private hospitals. To deal with waiting …
Companies often offer student discounts – from 10% to 50% off. What is the logic behind this student discount – is it compassionate pricing for hard-up students or is there good economic logic to increase profits for firms? Charging different prices to different groups of consumers is known as price discrimination. The idea is that …
Definition of a free good. A free good is a good with zero opportunity cost. This means it can be produced by society in as much quantities as needed with little or zero effort.
Readers Question: how can the government avoid public sector failure? Firstly, it makes a change to consider a question like this. Usually, the question is – Why is the government inefficient? Why do we get government failure? Should we privatise public services? But, here we can examine whether the tendency to government failure can be …
Question: How will Brexit affect the UK budget deficit / national debt / public finances? One of the low points of the Brexit campaign was when the chancellor of the exchequer George Osborne announced a vote for Brexit would lead to higher taxes and lower spending straightaway. Dubbed the ‘punishment budget’ it probably had the …
Readers Question: The government keeps claiming that their harsh (but very necessary) austerity policies are working and that they have reduced the national debt by 24%, yet your graphs seem to totally disprove this claim. If anything, your graphs seem to show that the national debt is continuing to rise quite steeply, despite the government’s …