Readers Question: How does a current account surplus change demand in an economy? A current account surplus means that the value of exports is greater than the value of imports (of goods and services). Net exports is a component of Aggregate demand. (AD) = C+I+G+(X-M). Therefore a current account surplus means that the net exports …
No one doubts the commitment of many in the EU to seeking a way to prevent the Euro breaking up. The Euro project is deeply embedded in the European establishment. But, are they fighting a lost cause? Are the structural problems with the single currency so severe, they would be better off pursuing an orderly …
Readers Question: Why do countries that experience a boom risk losing international competitiveness? An economic boom implies that an economy is growing above its long term trend rate. This means that the rate of economic growth is high, but there tend to be inflationary pressures because demand is growing faster than supply. The impact of …
Readers Question: In response to the post on ‘printing money, imports and inflation’, why can’t the British government just print lots of money and import goods from abroad to relieve the pressure on its budget? In theory, they could do that. But, if you print money and spend it on imports, you would see a …
Readers Question: I’ve recently been studying monetarism and I have a question with regards to printing money. It is well known than printing money leads to inflation as demonstrated by the Fisher equation, but say if the new money created was all spent on imports i.e. all the newly printed money leaked from the domestic …
Another guide to inflationary pressures is the producer price index (PPI). Producer inflation measures the price of goods produced by manufacturing firms. This is sometimes referred to as ‘factor gate prices’ In the year to February 2013 the output price index for home sales of manufactured products rose 2.3%. In the same period the total …
Readers Question: to what extent did the EU recession cause the UK recession? In economics often several factors occur at the same time, and it is difficult to give a weighting to the importance of each factor. To some extent, people will emphasise the factors which best suits their outlook / beliefs. It is no …
In Jan 2013, UK industrial production was 2.9% lower than Jan 2012. Manufacturing on a seasonally adjusted basis fell by 3.0% in January 2013 compared with January 2012. Industrial production is over 15% lower than at the start of the recession in 2007. Industrial output (production industries = Mining + manufacturing + energy + water) …