Capitalism is an economic system dominated by free markets and private ownership of wealth, assets and business. Within the broad church of capitalism, there are different forms – from unregulated ‘Turbo-capitalism’ to ‘responsible or ‘social welfare capitalism.’ In practice, all ‘capitalist economies have a degree of government intervention. Turbo Capitalism This refers to an unregulated …
A look at the main macroeconomic objectives (economic growth, inflation and unemployment, government borrowing) and possible conflicts between these different macro-economic objectives. The main macro-economic objectives Economic growth – positive and sustainable growth (The UK, long-run trend rate is around 2.5%) Low inflation (UK target 2% +/-1) – Low unemployment / Full employment (e.g. around …
The stock market is a place where traders buy and sell shares, government bonds and other assets. The stock market shows the price of shares and facilitates companies to raise revenue from issuing shares. Investors buy shares for both dividends and the prospect of capital gains. the US stock exchange based in NY (NYSE) has …
A bank is a financial institution which is involved in borrowing and lending money. Banks take customer deposits in return for paying customers an annual interest payment. The bank then uses the majority of these deposits to lend to other customers for a variety of loans. The difference between the two interest rates is effectively …
Economic growth is an increase in real GDP; it means an increase in the value of goods and services produced in an economy. The rate of economic growth is the annual percentage increase in real GDP. There are several factors affecting economic growth, but it is helpful to split them up into: Demand-side factors (e.g. …
There are two main strategies for reducing unemployment – Demand side policies to reduce demand-deficient unemployment (unemployment caused by recession) Supply side policies to reduce structural unemployment / (the natural rate of unemployment) A quick list of policies to reduce unemployment Monetary policy – cutting interest rates to boost aggregate demand (AD) Fiscal policy – …
The World Bank publishes several measures of global poverty, which measure poverty by different levels of income. The most common is the percentage of the population who live on less than $1.90 a day. This is a measure of absolute poverty. There are also measures of relative poverty which compare income against the national average. …
Readers Question: To what extent are higher government debt levels a constraint on economic growth? There has been much debate about the extent to which high levels of government debt might slow down rates of economic growth. In particular, a 2010 paper “Growth in a Time of Debt,” by Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff seemed …