Definition of The Business cycle – The Business cycle refers to the cyclical nature of economic growth. Typically the business cycles involves a period of rapid growth followed by slower growth or in some cases a recession. The business cycle is sometimes referred to as the ‘trade cycle’ or just economic cycle. Some business cycles …
The Bank of England was given autonomy to set interest rates in 1997. The government set the Monetary Policy Committee MPC a target of inflation – 2% For the period 1997-2008, the Bank helped preside over a long period of economic expansion. They avoided a boom and bust economic cycle – keeping inflation low. However, …
The Euro was introduced in 1999. Criticisms of the Euro Project Include A fixed exchange rate can cause an imbalanced economy. Some countries in the Euro have become uncompetitive because of higher inflation. But, there is no devaluation to restore competitiveness. This has led to high current account deficits, low growth and high unemployment. No …
Some of the main economic criticisms of Thatcher’s economic policies Unnecessarily deep recession in 1981 Margaret Thatcher came to power in 1979 inheriting an economy with high inflation. She introduced strict Monetarist policies such as high interest rates and high taxes to try and control the money supply. This reduced inflation but at the expense …
Readers Question: What do people mean by countries/society/financial implosion? Financial implosion implies a serious financial crisis where a country experiences a severe economic and financial crisis. The concept of implosion suggests that a crisis in one part of the economy would have a knock on effects to other parts as well – leading to a …
The past few years have seen a rapid rise in real food prices – especially, fruit, vegetables and meat. At the same time, we have seen falling real incomes for low-income decile groups. The consequence is that those on low incomes have been changing their diet in response to higher prices. With squeezed real incomes, …
In 2009, US and EU unemployment rates both stood at 10% – but since then EU unemployment has increased to 12% and US unemployment fallen to 7.9%. (see: US v EU unemployment) These contrasting fortunes in unemployment are a reflection of diverging rates of economic growth. Whilst, Europe has entered a double dip recession, the …
Readers Question: why does economic growth not get noticed by the man on the street? Recently, the ONS released a report saying that real wages were 62% higher than in 1986. This is the result of sustained economic growth. (Real wages take into account inflation.) In April 2011 the average full-time employee in the UK …