OCR F585 Stimulus material on Estonian economy

This years OCR F585 global economy pre-release stimulus material is about Estonia and its economic performance. This post gives a few extra graphs about the state of the Estonian economy and considers important issues and questions, related to Estonia. Brief synopsis From the early 2000s Estonia experienced rapid economic growth as it benefited from joining …

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Will the Eurozone Breakup?

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 …

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The impact of economic booms on competitiveness

lawson-boom-inflation-growth

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 …

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Back from America and another perspective on Thatcher

I spent the last two weeks in New York, hence the lack of blogging. Fortunately or unfortunately, it meant I missed the last two weeks of discussion surrounding the legacy of Mrs Thatcher. Of course, in America, it was all a bit more black and white. – Mrs Thatcher good, Arthur Scargill bad (well America …

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How sustainable is European austerity?

Readers Question: How sustainable do you think that the austerity measured imposed on European countries are in economic and political terms? This is a good question. Firstly, I feel there is a certain political appeal of austerity. See: Why is austerity politically popular? When austerity was introduced, there was a reluctant support for austerity – …

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Printing money and spending on imports

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 …

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Comparing different recessions

The post 2008 recession has seen the longest decline in real GDP on record. 55 months after the peak output of 2008, the UK economy is still 4% below it’s peak. By contrast, in the same time frame during the early 1930s, the economy had recovered to be more than 2% higher than the 1930 …

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