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John B

Is Education a Public Good or a Private Good? - Innovations - Blogs - The Chronicle of ... - 1 views

chronicle.com/...28329

Public goods

shared by John B on 01 Dec 13 - No Cached
  • Advocates for more generous support of students frequently bemoan what they perceive as a social shift from viewing higher education as a “public good” to viewing it as a “private good.”
  • The concept of public goods is central to economic analysis of the role of government in the allocation of resources. Public goods are defined by two characteristics: 1) Non-excludability: It is not possible to exclude non-payers from consuming the good. 2) Non-rivalry in consumption: Additional people consuming the good do not diminish the benefit to others
  • Advocates for more generous support of students frequently bemoan what they perceive as a social shift from viewing higher education as a “public good” to viewing it as a “private good.” What they mean is that the public gets benefits from people going to college and should not be transferring responsibility for the costs of education to students themselves.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • This is not an either/or question. The benefits of college are not all public and they are not all private. The debate should be over what fraction of the cost of postsecondary education students should bear and how large society’s subsidy to them should be. It should not be over whether education is a “public” or a “private” good.
  • John B on 01 Dec 13
     
    This article is telling us about how the higher education (college) is allocated. If it is a private good or a public good. I would say that for the moment, it is a good that is can be excluded for people who cannot afford it. Therefore it is not a public good.
Yassine G

RealClearMarkets - The Federal Government's Increasing Tax Impact On the Private Sector - 0 views

www.realclearmarkets.com/...the_private_sector_100558.html

private sector tax impact government resources

shared by Yassine G on 10 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • Yassine G on 10 Nov 13
     
    this article is very interesting. It illustrates how the government could affect the private business. This could be by imposing taxes on them. This article is talking about the American Federal government. In this case, the government is imposing more and more taxes which is increasing the cost on businesses. This affects negatively their ability to supply and global combativeness. What i also liked about the article, is the amount of measured data it contains. there are many numbers that help you understand what happened and what will happen.
Amanda Anna G

Macroeconomic challenges no longer constitute risks - Finance Ministry - The Malta Inde... - 2 views

www.independent.com.mt/...ks-finance-ministry-4159471616

macroeconomic-activity

shared by Amanda Anna G on 08 Mar 14 - No Cached
  • The Ministry for Finance notes with satisfaction that the European Commission considers that, compared to the last year, the macroeconomic challenges in Malta no longer constitute macroeconomic risks.
  • “the macroeconomic challenges in Malta no longer constitute substantial macroeconomic risks and are no longer identified as imbalances in the sense of the Macroeconomic Imbalance Procedure (MIP). It further notes that “risks to the sustainability of private and public sector debt and the stability of the financial sector appear contained. “
  • The Ministry also welcomes the Commission’s conclusions that “as regards public finances, Malta is expected to meet its nominal deficit targets in 2013 and 2014.”
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • “the housing market has stabilised and thus risks arising from over-exposure to property are limited”; that “private debt is on the decrease”; that “the corporate deleveraging is taking place in an orderly manner and credit market pressures are limited.”
  • “trade performance has been positive” and that “the current account balance is in surplus." In particular the Commission also noted that "the export performance of the Maltese economy has been successful".
  • “The report, unlike the one published last year, is confirming that across various fronts, the Maltese economy and public finances are getting in good shape and are meeting the ambitious targets set by the Maltese Government,”
  • Amanda Anna G on 08 Mar 14
     
    This article is about the economy in Malta. The macroeconomic challenges Malta have been facing are now no longer risks and imbalances in the economy. This is due to, among others, that the housing market has stabilized and the private dept is on the decrease. 
Amanda Anna G

Beer Store Monopoly's End Would Mean Higher Prices: Study - 0 views

www.huffingtonpost.ca/...re-prices-study_n_4760946.html

monopoly

shared by Amanda Anna G on 12 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • Ontario beer drinkers can expect to see prices rise if sales are allowed in convenience stores, according to a new study carried out for the province’s Beer Store.
  • The study, to be released Monday at the Toronto Board of Trade, says consumers can expect to pay about $10 more for a 24-pack of beer if the Beer Store’s monopoly ends.
  • The study says privatization in Alberta and British Columbia led to higher prices in those provinces. It also calculates that, if Ontario had followed Alberta’s lead on beer sales, the Ontario government would have missed out on $5.4 billion in revenue over the past 20 years.
  • Amanda Anna G on 12 Feb 14
     
    This is an interesting article about monopoly. In the article, it is argued that as beer also gets allowed to be sold in convenience stores and not only in the beer store which has been a monopoly of beer, then there will be a rise in price. The government argues that it would have gained revenue if sold in convenience stores, as a study said that privatization in Alberta and British Columbia led to higher prices in those provinces.
Haydn W

Royal Mail shares soar 38% as Labour complains of knockdown price | UK news | The Guardian - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...mail-share-price-buyers-profit

The Guardian Royal Mail Demand Supply Equilibrium UK `Shares FTSE100 Stock

shared by Haydn W on 12 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • Royal Mail shares soar 38% as Labour complains of knockdown price
  • Ed Miliband blames government for underpricing in 'fire-sale of a great British insititution' as investors make £284 paper profit
  • The government has been accused of shortchanging taxpayers by selling off Royal Mail at a knockdown price after shares in the privatised postal service rose by 38%
  • ...14 more annotations...
  • Miliband, the Labour leader, said the jump in the share price – which made an immediate £284 paper profit for almost 700,000 Royal Mail investors – showed that the privatisation was a "fire sale of a great British institution"
  • Royal Mail stock, which the government sold at 330p, leapt to 455p
  • Royal Mail's market value rose by £1bn to £4.3bn – confirming that it will join the FTSE 100 list of Britain's biggest companies.
  • The government had valued Royal Mail at a maximum of £3.3bn, and had attacked analysts' valuation of £4.5bn as "way out".
  • Frances O'Grady, general secretary of the TUC, tweeted: "Privatising #RoyalMail has become little different from selling five pound notes for four quid."
  • George Osborne said the privatisation had been a huge success.
  • Asked whether the shares had been sold too cheaply, the chancellor said: "All privatisations are done at a discount.
  • The National Audit Office, the public spending watchdog, will investigate the pricing of the float, but Cable dismissed the huge share price rise – which was bigger than that experienced on the 1980s flotation of BT and British Gas – as "froth and speculation" and said "what matters is where the price eventually settles".
  • The stockbrokers Peel Hunt said: "This is not 'froth'; it's real people buying, selling."
  • Joe Rundle, head of trading at ETX Capital, described the share price surge as a "dazzling stock market debut".
  • Private investors who bought their shares directly from the government will have to wait until at least Tuesday if they want to sell. About 690,000 people were granted 227 Royal Mail shares worth £749.10 (at the 330p float price) following overwhelming public demand for the shares.
  • The public applied for more than seven times the number of shares available to them, which meant nearly everyone did not get as many shares as they had asked for.
  • More than 36,000 people who applied for more than £10,000 worth of shares were prevented from buying any at all. About 40 people applied for shares worth £1m or more.
  • It is understood that about 20% of the shares available have gone to sovereign wealth funds – including those of Kuwait, Norway and Singapore – and other foreign funds. Royal Mail's 150,000 employees collected 10% of the shares free of charge, worth about £2,200 each at the flotation price and now worth £2,900. Employees were also allowed to buy a further £10,000 worth, but are not allowed to sell for three years
  • Haydn W on 12 Oct 13
     
    This article shows how demand for shares in the newly floated UK postal service Royal Mail has pushed the price up from 330p a share to 450p. This is the price in which demand is seen to be equal to supply, something the UK Government are being criticised for failing to notice as they believed 450p was a far to high price. The move itself if highly controversial and has been a hotly debated topic ever since it's proposal with many employees fearing that jobs will be lost.
  • Yassine G on 12 Oct 13
     
    I think this is really normal. Simply because private companies tend to have higher efficiency rates and therefore make more profits, this is the business part of the reason. Now if we consider the economical reason, I think that higher profits (deviants) will attract a lot more shareholders, this means higher demand. from the other side, shareholders will be willing to keep their shares as the company is making more and more profits, therefore less shares supply. So in short, more demand, less supply of shares could not lead to anything else except hiher prices and greater value of the company.
Pietro AA

Effects of dumping radioactive waste in ocean need more study, scientists say - 1 views

www.tampabay.com/...2157923

radioactive waste externalities negative production energy

shared by Pietro AA on 21 Dec 13 - No Cached
  • Pietro AA on 21 Dec 13
     
    I found this article very interesting because it has to do with externalities and common goods. I think this article may be associated with the article "Trajedy of the Commons" which we read because instead of talking of men's overconsumption of grass lands, it talks about the overcosumption of the ocean's self-purifying system. Generally, when talking about production of electricity through fission power plants, there will be unusable waste that is highly harmful for men and the environment because it emits highly ionizing radiation. But producers of that energy simply throw that waste in the oceans and wash their hands of the problem. The cost of society for that energy is equal to the producer's cost plus the cost for that damage the nuclear waste does. The marginal social cost is greater then the marginal private cost. But since, in a free market, it the private who determines the quantity consumed, there will be too much nuclear electricity produced with respect to society. "too much" means that resources are not optimally allocated and therefore there is a market failure.
Samuel Choi

RBI cautious on response to gold import surge - 0 views

economictimes.indiatimes.com/...45233692.cms

balance-of-payments government gold india imports current-account

shared by Samuel Choi on 08 Dec 14 - No Cached
  • Samuel Choi on 08 Dec 14
     
    India, the world's second-largest gold-consuming country, is battling a balance of payments crisis as the gold import industry grew exponentially in a short amount of time. Though the spike in the import numbers is clear, no clear action has been taken yet; policymakers, however, agree that restrictions must be placed on private trading houses. Private jewelry exporters are the main customers and account for a massive number of the bulk for the demand of gold. "India sharply restricted gold imports in early 2013 as the country battled a balance of payments crisis triggered by the U.S. Federal Reserve's announcement that it would start to ease its programme of quantitative easing. But it eased some of the measures after India's current account deficit fell sharply from the record high of 4.8 percent of gross domestic product in the fiscal year ended in March 2013 to 1.7 percent in the quarter ending in June."
Mariam P

Childhood asthma "admissions down" after smoking ban - 3 views

www.bbc.co.uk/...health-21067532

negative externalities

shared by Mariam P on 23 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • Talisha R on 23 Nov 13
     
    This article talks about how the number of children submitted to hospital with asthma has decreased by 12% after smoking bans were put in place. This shows that the externality created by smoking is negative, it does not only affect the individual but the society as well therefore the social costs are greater than the private benefits. It shows how government intervention helps reduce the negative externalities.
  • Clemente F on 26 Nov 13
     
    The article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-21067532 This article talks about how the "number of children admitted to hospital with severe asthma" has decreased by 12% in the first year after the ban on smoking in public places. It is also thought that people are opting for smoke - free homes as well, further reducing the negative externalities of smoking.
Dina B

' The NHS must be preserved from commercial interests' - 1 views

www.independent.co.uk/...mercial-interests-8978361.html

Public Good

shared by Dina B on 04 Dec 13 - No Cached
  • Dina B on 04 Dec 13
     
    This article, written by Stephen Hawking, talks about how the NHS (british heath care paid for by the government) is a great public good and should not be made private and given a charge. He talks about his personal experience.
Haydn W

Taxing Carbon Is Like Taxing Diamonds | Mary Manning Cleveland - 0 views

www.huffingtonpost.com/...bon-is-like-tax_b_3965170.html

Huffington Post Price Elasticity Fossil Fuels Carbon Emissions Demand Supply

shared by Haydn W on 19 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • Taxing Carbon Is Like Taxing Diamonds
  • To reduce carbon emissions, we must tax fossil fuels -- but, say the pundits, we can't do so because the tax would be regressive, clobbering the poor.
  • Imagine that we impose a sales tax on diamonds. Would we worry about the burden on middle-class purchasers of one-fourth-caret engagement rings? What about the part of the tax "passed back" onto the DeBeers Group? Not much sympathy for global monopolists either.
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • Surprisingly, a carbon tax would operate much like a diamond tax, for reasons both of demand and supply.
  • Demand: The wealthy actually consume a disproportionate amount of carbon. Discussions of a carbon tax usually focus on the price of gasoline. One gallon of gas produces about 17 pounds of CO2. One metric ton is 2,204 pounds. So a $100 tax on a ton of CO2 comes to $0.77 per gallon -- a significant cost to low-income commuters and small truckers.
  • But the very poor don't drive or travel or occupy much space; the rich fly planes, including private jets; drive to low-density suburbs; occupy and heat multiple houses and hotels; and buy lots of stuff. Clearly the rich consume much more carbon per capita than the poor.
  • Demand elasticity for oil is low, about 0.5; so a 1 percent increase in oil price would cause a 0.5 percent decrease in consumption. That makes sense, since in the short run, it's hard for people to cut energy consumption, especially if they must drive to work. But, though numbers are hard to come by, elasticity of supply is much, much lower, for two reasons. First, oil production takes decades and billions in capital investment; producers cannot quickly increase or decrease supply. Second, oil producers form an international cartel, an organized mega-monopoly, which holds down production to drive up prices. Since they're already charging what the traffic will bear, they can't much raise prices to cover a tax.
  • As economists long ago figured out, buyers and sellers share a tax in inverse proportion to elasticity. Therefore, if supply elasticity of carbon is, say, 0.1, while demand elasticity is 0.5, the suppliers will pay five times as much of the tax as consumers. That reduces that $0.77 per gallon gas tax to only $0.13. Moreover, precisely because most of the tax falls on suppliers, it will generate plenty of revenue to help those unfortunate long-distance commuters and small truckers, to build more public transportation, to invest in renewable energy, and even to cut super-regressive taxes like the payroll tax.
  • According to Edward Wolff, in 2007, the top 1 percent in the U.S. owned 43 percent of non-home wealth, mostly securities, including of course energy company stocks and bonds. The top 10 percent of wealth holders owned 83 percent.
  • A May 2013 federal study of the Social Cost of Carbon estimated costs of additional CO2 emissions for 2010 to 2050 ranging from $27 to $221 per metric ton in 2050, depending on assumptions.
  • So we have good news and bad news. Good news: The cost of reducing carbon emissions will fall hardest on the 1 percent, who consume the most energy and own the energy companies. Bad news: Ditto. Expect a fight!
  • Haydn W on 19 Oct 13
     
    This article talks about the economic implications of imposing a tax on carbon emissions and how this would affect the different social classes of society in different ways. The article makes specific reference to economic theory and the elements on elasticity.
  • Jakub B on 20 Oct 13
     
    Taxation almost always decrease the economic surplus and therefore it makes a decline in effectiveness. In this case, the energy companies will be the most affected group.
Haydn W

Ukraine Uncertainty Depressing Growth and Investment | The Moscow Times - 5 views

www.themoscowtimes.com/...495734.html

Macroeconomic Activity Moscow Times Ukraine Russia

shared by Haydn W on 08 Mar 14 - No Cached
  • As world leaders increase or trash their political clout depending on their audience and the statements they make about the situation in the Ukraine, some analysts were revising Russian GDP growth estimates to as low as 1.1 percent for the year.
  • Wednesday was a calmer day on the stock markets, following a dip of 10.8 percent Monday morning that vaporized near $60 billion of valuation from Russian companies.
  • Although Russia has seen some short-term budget benefits from ruble devaluation and increasing oil prices, the current impasse is not helping to fight stagnation or attract investment.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • The ruble strengthened slightly to 36 against the dollar and 49.4 against the euro Wednesday evening. This was well above the lows reached on Monday
  • Tightening fiscal policy was topped by possibly impending U.S. sanctions, including economic ones, followed by President Vladimir Putin's claims that Russia may use force in Ukraine if necessary.
  • The heap of these latest events has caused some analysts to revise their overall economy forecasts.
  • PSB Research said Wednesday it would decrease its initially modest GDP growth estimates for the year from the range of 1.5 to 1.8 percent to 1.1 to 1.3 percent.
  • Political standoff will also further stimulate the outflow of capital, Fedotkova said, as investors are reluctant to channel their money into the country that may be possibly involved in any kind of military activity
  • As for businesses, a recent survey done by the Gaidar Institute suggests that more than a third of CEOs and owners of private companies would consider investing in production this year if the price for equipment went down and if the macroeconomic outlook were more certain, Vedomosti reported Monday. At the same time macroeconomic uncertainty was a headache for only 10 percent of surveyed state-controlled companies. No margin of error was given for the survey.
  • Haydn W on 08 Mar 14
     
    This article explains how the recent stand-off crisis in Ukraine is having a negative effect on the Russian economy, with the Rouble taking a further fall and GDP growth estimates being revised downwards. Predictably sanctions imposed by the west on Russia in response to the occupation of Crimea, an autonomous region of Ukraine populated largely by ethnic Russians, have affected businesses in Russia. We learn from the article that some $60 billion valuation has been lost by Russian companies in light of the tensions. This article relates to the macroeconomic concept of circular flow being a complex process with international trade and governments being involved majorly in proceedings.
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