Personal debt in the UK fell for the first time since records began in 1993. Personal borrowing fell by £600m in July, taking the total owed by individuals down to £1.457 trillion. Personal debt still exceeds total UK GDP. The main cause of the fall in personal borrowing was homeowners who were able to repay …
Heroin is a classic example of a demerit good: People ignore or underestimate the costs of consuming heroin. In other words people make bad choices about deciding to consume this very addictive good. Heroin consumption also has negative externalities for the rest of society. Heroin addicts become less productive, often unable to hold down a …
Readers Question: Is Real GDP per head a better indicator of living standards compared to growth of Real GDP? Why? Real GDP per capita shows the average income of a country. If Liechtenstein has 0% growth of Real GDP in 2008, average incomes will reamin $118,000. A country like India may have GDP per head …
The G20 summit held in London is occuring against a backdrop of the worst global downturn since the Great Depression. The OECD warned that GDP for its 30 member countries is likely to fall by a record 4.3 per cent this year, against the 0.4 per cent drop that it forecast last November. The group …
You are welcome to ask questions on Economics. However, due to volume of questions, I can no longer promise to answer all questions. I will post the answer on this blog, for everyone to benefit from. I shall try to answer the economics question and / or point to other resources but please bear in …
Readers Question: we say that higher fiscal spending leads to higher economic growth but does this negative public saving also not lower investments hence lowering future growth opportunity? so is the current growth stimulus at a cost of future growth? Cutting taxes and boosting spending will lead to higher borrowing. This will hopefully boost aggregate …
Readers Question: How could you calculate the price elasticity of demand for petrol in the united states when the figure is 0.48? To calcuate the elasticity of demand, we divide the % change in quantity by the % change in price. For example, if the price of petrol in the US increased by 60% …
Readers Question – what on earth is the black market and how does the immigrant have an impact on that? The black market is a colloquial term that refers to economic activity that is not regulated by the government. It involves economic activity where people don’t declare tax returns or pay VAT e.t.c. It is …