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Strikes in the UK are at a record high. February’s Chart of the Month examines the causes behind this unparalleled increase of discontent in wages and its implications on the UK’s economic recovery. In the last 10 years, there have been two spikes in working days lost to strikes. Over several days in July 2014, millions of people took part in protests, including teachers, firefighters, … Continue reading Chart of the Month – February 2023
Recent decades have seen an unprecedented amount of economic development as ’emerging nations’ have sought to raise incomes per capita and reduce levels of absolute poverty. Their economies have grown, and citizens have experienced an improvement in their overall standard of living. Developing countries share some characteristics such as lower growth, lower standards of living, worse education, and lower life-spans, when compared to developed countries. Many … Continue reading Tourism and Development: the path less travelled
The USS Gerald R Ford, the USA’s latest aircraft carrier, took more than eight years to build. In contrast, by 1945, the US Navy finished the production of an aircraft carrier every week. The US was the only allied country to emerge from the war with its economy not only intact but thriving, and the only economy which saw an expansion of consumer goods despite … Continue reading Bust to Boom: How the American economy thrived during WWII
On the 31st of December 2019, the first report of Covid-19 was submitted by China to the World Health Organisation (WHO). Since then, the effects of the repeated loosening and tightening of preventative measures in the UK, including three national lockdowns, has seen unprecedented change in the UK’s economic performance. This comes on top of the disruptive influence of Brexit. There are twenty-one major economic … Continue reading Slide or Bounce? – The Post-Pandemic Prospects for the UK
In the 1950s, the American economist and statistician Simon Kuznets, as a result of his work on economic growth and income distribution, developed the Kuznets curve: a model which posits that as an economy develops, inequality first increases and then decreases. It was first proposed in a 1955 seminal paper. This hypothesis is expressed on a graph of inequality plotted against income (or GDP) per … Continue reading An Investigation Into the Kuznets Curve
The last 40 years have seen China’s GDP grow by a record 9.1% per annum, attracting a plethora of investors and businesses worldwide. With its newfound capital, it has gained international influence through trade and become the world’s largest trading partner in 2012. China seeks to optimize this trade network through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a scheme unveiled in 2013 by Chinese President … Continue reading The Dark Side of the Belt and Road Initiative
It is only recently that the concept of human nature has been applied to economics, yet its impact can be seen everywhere. Contradicting traditional economic theory, it is believed now that human nature is intrinsic in every action we take from the small scale to the large. The recent GameStop trend was fuelled by individual investors taking an opportunity to turn a profit and retaliate … Continue reading The Psychology of Investing
South Korea is renowned for its rapid economic growth and successes in the manufacturing industries, such as Samsung, and education is considered to be one of the key drivers. Better quality education is related to higher GDP, increased productivity and rising wages due to the positive externalities that arise from its consumption. Furthermore, private tutoring (PT) is a crucial element of education in South Korea … Continue reading Private Tutoring – South Korea
On the 13th of August, 1998, the stock, bond, and currency markets of a recently liberalised Russia collapsed. Confidence in the strength of the ruble and the Russian government plummeted. The stock market even closed for 35 minutes with stocks having lost 75% of their value since January of that year. 4 days later, Russia defaulted on their own state bonds and commercial banks declared … Continue reading Russia, 1998. What Went Wrong?
In 2021, remittances to low and middle-income countries are predicted to total $589 billion. December’s Chart of the Month explains why these remittances (money sent by migrant workers back to their country) are so crucial to developing nations. Life for migrants has been tough since the pandemic hit. Many have been stranded from families overseas or been vulnerable to COVID-19 as their jobs were commonly on the … Continue reading Chart of the Month – December 2021
