Currency convertibility means that a particular currency can be easily and readily changed into another currency. Free convertability is a factor of a hard currency. (A hard currency is expected to be stable and retain its value in long term, e.g. Dollar, Japanese Yen) Convertibility is a feature of fully flexible exchange rates. Restrictions on …
Costs of production relate to the different expenses that a firm faces in producing a good or service. Types of costs Fixed costs – costs that don’t vary with output Sunk costs – costs that cannot be recovered on leaving industry, e.g. advertising Variable costs – costs relating to how much is produced (e.g. raw …
A look at how GDP per capita in $US gives different values when measured at purchasing power parity. GDP at Purchasing Power parity (PPP) takes into account variations in living costs. PPP is an attempt to work out how much currency will be needed to buy the same quantity of goods and services in different …
Readers Question: What do people mean by countries/society/financial implosion? Financial implosion implies a serious financial crisis where a country experiences a severe economic and financial crisis. The concept of implosion suggests that a crisis in one part of the economy would have a knock on effects to other parts as well – leading to a …
The French are not too happy. The rating agency Moody have stripped France of their triple AAA rating – downgrading French debt to AA. [link] It probably wouldn’t be so bad, but their English neighbours still retain a AAA rating, despite having a much higher budget deficit. As the English would say, that’s just not …
Readers Question: The government keeps claiming that their harsh (but very necessary) austerity policies are working and that they have reduced the national debt by 24%, yet your graphs seem to totally disprove this claim. If anything, your graphs seem to show that the national debt is continuing to rise quite steeply, despite the government’s …
In 2009, US and EU unemployment rates both stood at 10% – but since then EU unemployment has increased to 12% and US unemployment fallen to 7.9%. (see: US v EU unemployment) These contrasting fortunes in unemployment are a reflection of diverging rates of economic growth. Whilst, Europe has entered a double dip recession, the …
Readers Question. Can you explain why the Government and Economic Commentators are talking about a multiplier (in relation to budget cuts) of between 0.5 and 1, whereas I always thought that the GDP multiplier was bigger than this. Just to summarise a multiplier of 0.5 would mean fiscal consolidation (spending cuts) of £1bn, would lead …