Oh no its worse than we thought!

Today it turns out the recession is worse than we thought with a much larger fall in national output than initially reported. This despite suggestions that things were getting better.

This apparent contradiction may be due to the data being old and the rumours of improvements being more recent. This report refers to FIRST QUARTER data, that means January to March,

The BBC report is here

Recession bottoming out?

The OECD, an organisaion made up of the 24 richest countries, is an important forecaster of global economic trends. They suspect that the recession may be reaching a point where it gets no worse and that the most catastrophic scenarios have been avoided. The BBC story on this can be found here.

Top Economics Universities

Recently The Times published its University league table. The Times uses a deeply flawed method to rank universities that fails to weight factors properly. In fact one major error is to give more ranking points to universities that give more 1st class degrees - in other words the ones with low standards get more points!

The way academics rate each others departments is on the quality of their research. 2008 was the year university departments were assessed (by the Research Assessment Exercise or RAE) on the quality of their research and so by definition had the strongest academic staff.

Note that the quality of teaching is not noticeably different across universities. The other major consideration for you as students is the quality of the people you study with. So combine entry requirements and research quality to decide which university is best.

Top 10 Universities for Economics

The Times

1 Oxford

2 Cambridge

3 London School of Economics

4 University College London

5 Warwick

6 Exeter

7 Durham

8 St Andrews

9 Nottingham

10 Birmingham

RAE - Real Top 10
1 London School of Economics
2. University College London
=3. Warwick
=3. Essex
=3. Oxford
=6. Bristol
=6. Nottingham
=6. Queen Mary
=9. Southampton
=9. Royal Holloway
=9. Manchester

The moral of the story? Most people are years (often decades) behind on what universities are actually doing in a subject and just go on name. Who would have picked Royal Holloway?

Rising unemployment across countries

The economic downturn has affected some countries much more than others. There is a good chart on the economist website that shows this. Can you guess which EU coutry has seen a rise in unemployment four times the size of that in the UK?

The chart and comparison can be found here

Lessons for monetary policy after the Global Financial Crisis

In a speech given today at the Annual Conference of the Society of Business Economists in London, Spencer Dale – Chief Economist and member of the Monetary Policy Committee – talks about inflation targeting and the lessons that should be learnt from the financial crisis.

The speech can be found here

Opportunity Cost and the price of life

The BBC has followed the assessment of a new drug by NICE for use in the NHS. The clear problem for them is 'is it worth the money?' However how can you put a price on life.

This is relevent to the concepts of opportunity cost and the assessment of the value of life for Cost-Benefit Analysis.

The Price of Life

UK Unemployment figures up

UK unemployment hit a nine year high and is set to rise further.

The Times story is here

Inflation figures released

The latest figures show the annual RPI rate - the country's broadest measure of inflation - fell to -1.1% in May after recording -1.2% the month before, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics, which collects them each month.

Inflation fell less than expected on the official CPI measure, being 2.2% from 2.3%, that's still above the government target rate of 2% in a highly deflationary period. The weakness of the pound seems to have been the main cause of this, forcing up the prices of imported goods and inputs.

The Telegraph coverage can be found here

Recession Tracker

The BBC have a 'Recession Tracker' site that provides up to date data. It would be a good idea to visit this site regularly.

BBC Recession Tracker

Lecture on Introduction to Economics

This link takes you to a 'mini-lecture' on introductory economics. There is a soundtrack and a number of images which come up automatically. This is from a text-book that is designed for first year university students in the USA. The level is fine, but not all the lectures and chapters are appropriate to our course.
Tell us if you like it and we will link more lectures as we go along.

http://www.wwnorton.com/college/econ/stec3/economics/chapter01/minilecture.htm

Mr R and Mr C

Why study Economics

This obvious question is, nonetheless, answered here.

http://whystudyeconomics.ac.uk/jobs/links.htm

UK Economy recovering?

This link to the Tutor2u Economics blogs looks at the unexpected early recovery of the economy from recession.
Lucky escape for Brown if it's true!
http://www.tutor2u.net/blog/index.php/economics/comments/video-clip-growing-signs-of-economic-recovery/#extended