Ireland has often held up to be a model country. Firstly, in the boom years, Ireland was a model of low taxes and deregulation. It’s rapid economic growth saw praise from both sides of the Atlantic. But, after the crash, Ireland has experienced a deep fall in GDP and the model of growth proved highly …
Currency wars are said to occur when countries seek to devalue their currency to gain a competitive advantage. However, if one country seeks to become more competitive through devaluation, it means other countries become less competitive. Therefore, they may respond by weakening their currency too. Thus, we may get a situation of competitive devaluation where …
A useful tool for students is the idea of an ‘economist toolkit’. This is essentially a few key ideas that can be used to help answer different questions. Let us consider a question. – Discuss the impact of an increase in interest rates? Macro-Economic Toolkit This question is quite open-ended. First of all, consider the …
Readers Question: If there is a significant slowdown in the rate of Chinese economic growth – how will it affect the UK and other global economies? Summary The Chinese economy has been growing very rapidly, and is now one of the biggest economies in the world. The size of the Chinese economy means it has …
Readers Question: I was really hoping you might be able to inform me of the effects that zero inflation (which the UK is currently experiencing) might have on aggregate demand in the economy? Firstly, this post will help consider the impact of zero inflation on AD and economic growth – Is zero inflation a good …
In the UK, there are quite a few different measures of inflation. All measures seek to show the annual change in living costs. However, different measures of inflation give different inflation figures. For example, RPI can often give a higher rate of inflation than CPI. CPI can also be misleading. For example, an increase in VAT …
Bank of England base interest rates are currently 0.5%. Economists are divided about when interest rates will rise. Some point to the evidence of a strong economic recovery to suggest interest rates could rise by mid 2015. Others argue that the strong global deflationary pressures mean that UK inflation is likely to stay very low …
Readers Comment from UK debt under Labour. In 13 years from 1997/8 to 2009/10, the Labour Government increased debt by about £420 billion. In the 5 years from 2010/11 to 2014/2015, the Coalition Government will increase debt by about £600 billion. These are the facts. Yes, though I’m always nervous about extracting facts like …