In recent years, the gap between average female wages and men’s wages have decreased, however, for various reasons, men’s pay is still higher than women. Reasons for Gender Pay Gap Career breaks to have children (Studies have shown that women without children have a much smaller pay gap than women who take time off work …
We tend to assume education is a merit good. – A beneficial good that has external benefits for society. However, another approach to education considers how education acts as a signal of ability. Signalling in education suggests productivity is independent of education, but education acts as a credential for greater ability. In other words, if …
When the Credit crisis hit, many banks faced a liquidity crisis. This means they didn’t have access to enough cash in the short term. They had assets, but, they were tied up in long term loans. If a bank lends a £100,000 mortgage to someone, it can’t ask the homeowner to sell house and payback …
Readers Question: I thought your explanation about whether to worry or not about the National Debt was pellucid but I would like to know, from an economics perspective, why governments (and people) were not worried about the debt after World War 2 given that it was far higher for many years than the UK debt …
It’s the time of the year when many students are getting to start economics for the first time. It can be a little confusing with so many new concepts and words. But, if we had just one lesson, what could we teach about economics? Society wishes to optimise the distribution of resources. Economics considers how …
Bill Gates and Warren Buffet are two of the richest men in the world. Does the concept of scarcity apply to them? Wealth of Bill Gates In 2011, the wealth of Bill Gates is estimated at $56 billion. This comes from a variety of sources, but his 6% share in Microsoft provides the bulk of …
Readers Question: How can the U.S. economy be growing, even at 2%+, when the unemployment rate is so high. The unemployed don’t pay taxes, and obviously can’t spend their earnings. The US economy may be growing by 2%, but, it is still along way below potential output. It is merely recovering from a deep recession. …
Discuss Economic Policies to Improve the Health of the Nation Can we use economics to improve the nation’s health? For many years rising living standards led to improved health and life expectancy. Greater national income enabled more to be spent on health care. Combined with improved medical technology, life expectancy rose. However, in many western …