The gig economy refers to the segment of the labour market which concentrates on short-term / temporary jobs and contracts. Often these workers can have more than one job, e.g taxi driver who works both for a traditional taxi company and Uber. Like a musician who goes from one gig to the next, the gig …
An exchange rate index is a way of measuring the performance of a currency against a basket of other currencies. An exchange rate index shows the percentage change in the value of the currency against its main competitors. It sets the index to 100 for a particular base year. This enables users to make percentage …
The economic trade cycle shows how economic growth can fluctuate within different phases, for example: Boom (A period of high economic growth usually causing inflation) Peak (top of the trade cycle, where growth rates may start to fall) Economic downturn/recession (where the growth rate falls and may become negative – leading to a fall in national output) …
Profit is the surplus revenue after a firm has paid all its costs. Profit can be seen as the monetary reward to shareholders and owners of a business. In a capitalist economy, profit plays an important role in creating incentives for business and entrepreneurs. For an incumbent firm, the reward of higher profit will encourage …
Sainsbury’s and Asda have announced a plan for a merger. They argue it will lead to lower prices for customers, no job losses and is necessary to deal with the threat of new discounters like Lidl and Aldi and the impending arrival of Amazon. Others are more cautious arguing that the new firm will have …
The fiscal multiplier effect occurs when an initial injection into the economy causes a bigger final increase in national income. Suppose the government pursued expansionary fiscal policy. The aim of expansionary fiscal policy is to increase aggregate demand (AD) and boost the rate of economic growth. This could involve the government increasing public sector investment …
Readers Question: Does the Rahn Curve support the empirical evidence? If not, why not? Can you prove that there is a relationship between the level of Government Spending and GDP growth? The Rahn Curve suggests that there is an optimal level of government spending which maximises the rate of economic growth. Initially, higher government spending …
In the UK and US there is often a mistrust of the government’s inflation figures. People often feel that their cost of living is rising faster than official CPI statistics. In developing countries like Venezuela and Argentina, there is even greater mistrust as government’s have an incentive to modify inflation rates and have the power …