House prices fall where there is a decline in demand and/or excess supply. The main factors that cause a fall in house prices involve: Rising interest rates (making mortgage payments more expensive) Economic recession / high unemployment (reducing demand and causing home repossessions). Fall in bank lending and fall in availability of mortgages (making it …
When reading economic articles in the past few years, you may frequently come across the reference to the ‘zero lower bound’ or ZLB. What is the Zero Lower Bound rate? In short – when interest rates can’t fall any further below 0% Examples of ZLB UK interest rates were cut to 0.5% in March 2009 …
The Labour Party manifesto commitment has numerous spending commitments. These are financed by a mixture of government borrowing and tax increases. Would the increase in spending and borrowing lead to higher interest rates? In summary – the most likely effect would be a short-term fiscal expansion, which could lead to higher growth, a rise in …
The Lib Dems have proposed a budget rule that would run a persistent current budget surplus of 1%. This means that current spending (day to day costs of government) should always be less than tax revenue. Borrowing would only be allowed to finance capital investment after an independent watchdog found that the return would be …
In 2008, Zimbabwe had the second highest incidence of hyperinflation on record. The estimated inflation rate for Nov 2008 was 79,600,000,000% That is effectively a daily inflation rate of 98.0. Roughly every day, prices would double. It was also a time of real hardship and poverty, with an unemployment rate of close to 80% and a …
Economic growth means an increase in real GDP. Economic growth means there is an increase in national output and national income. Economic growth is caused by two main factors: An increase in aggregate demand (AD) An increase in aggregate supply (productive capacity) See latest stats on economic growth Demand-side causes In the short term, economic …
How does a recession/economic downturn influence how firms will set the price of goods and services? A recession is a period of negative economic growth – falling real incomes and rising unemployment. In a recession, consumers are likely to have lower income and be more sensitive to prices. There is also the threat of unemployment …
A significant issue in the US political economy is the perceived transgressions of Chinese economic policy. These tend to revolve around: Undervalued Yuan – making Chinese imports cheaper Current account (trade) deficit. China exports more goods and services than imports – switching demand from US firms to Chinese firms. Copyright infringements and lack of intellectual …