The Sahm rule is a way of predicting a recession from changes in the unemployment rate. “(The) Sahm Recession Indicator signals the start of a recession when the three-month moving average of the national unemployment rate (U3) rises by 0.50 percentage points or more relative to its low during the previous 12 months.” (Sahm Rule) …
Periods of high oil prices frequently lead to periods of recession shortly after. There are two main reasons for this. Higher oil prices reduce disposable income leading to lower spending. Higher oil prices push up inflation causing Central Banks to increase interest rates. Oil prices and recession With oil prices rising above $100 because of …
A graph showing net lending (+) and net borrowing (-) by sector in the UK economy. This shows how public borrowing is mirrored by a rise in private sector (household+corporate) saving. The two extremes are the financial crisis of 2009 and Covid lockdowns of 2021. In both cases, these events led to a rise in …
Putting aside the very real human cost, war has also serious economic costs – damage to infrastructure, a decline in the working population, inflation, shortages, uncertainty, a rise in debt and disruption to normal economic activity. From some perspectives, war can appear to be beneficial in terms of creating demand, employment, innovation and profits for …
A look at the main causes of unemployment – including demand deficient, structural, frictional and real wage unemployment. Main causes of unemployment 1. Frictional unemployment This is unemployment caused by the time people take to move between jobs, e.g. graduates or people changing jobs. There will always be some frictional unemployment in an economy because …
A definition of the law of demand and explanation of why higher price leads to lower demand.
The UK population is projected to increase by 9.7 million over the next 25 years from an estimated 64.6 million in mid-2014 to 74.3 million in mid-2039. (ONS). Approx. 50% of the population increase is expected due to net migration. This is a look at the economic and social impact of a rise in the …
Readers Question: What are the types of unemployment? Firstly, we can make a distinction between: Supply-side unemployment (the natural rate of unemployment). These are usually microeconomic imbalances in labour markets. Demand-side unemployment (Unemployment caused by lack of aggregate demand in the economy). In recessions, we can expect demand deficient unemployment (sometimes called cyclical unemployment) to …