Readers Question: Why do foreigners often hold U.S. dollars? How does the holding of dollars by foreigners affect the welfare of American? The Dollar still is the world’s reserve currency. With about 67% of the world’s currency reserves held in dollars. Up until the First World War, the British Pound was the most widely accepted …
What would be the impact of the US placing a tariff on the import of steel and aluminium into the US A tariff on imports of foreign steel would raise the price of imported steel and encourage US firms and consumers to buy domestically produced steel instead. At the moment, American producers find it cheaper …
Boom and bust economic cycles involve: Rapid economic growth and inflation (a boom), followed by: A period of economic contraction / recession (falling GDP, rising unemployment) Causes of boom and bust cycles 1. Loose Monetary Policy If monetary policy is too loose, it means real interest rates are too low given the state of the …
Diminishing marginal utility of income and wealth suggests that as income increases, individuals gain a correspondingly smaller increase in satisfaction and happiness. In layman’s terms – “more money may not make you happy” Alfred Marshall popularised concepts of diminishing marginal utility in his Principles of Economics (1890) “The additional benefit a person derives from a …
If you speak to someone of the older generation, it is not long before they will start saying something like: “When I was a lad, you could get a pint of beer for only 10p, its outrageous how much it costs these days” Economies are more likely to experience inflation than deflation. Despite fall in …
The natural or (equilibrium) level of unemployment is determined by calculating the level of unemployment when the labour market is in equilibrium. Diagram Showing Natural Rate of Unemployment The labour force includes everyone of working age who is either working or looking for work. The Aggregate Supply (AS) of labour is every one who is …
Distribution of income refers to the relative incomes that people have within an economy. For example, in the UK the poorest 10% of people have roughly only 2.5% of the nations total income. The richest 10% have approximately 35%. This suggests there is a degree of relative poverty because the richest have a bigger % …
In the real world, labour markets are rarely perfectly competitive. This is because workers or firms usually have the power to set and influence wages and therefore wages may be set to levels different than anticipated by Marginal Revenue Product (MRP) theory. Imperfections in the labour market cause wages to differ from a competitive equilibrium. …