Poverty is fueling the protests in the Middle East. This article is relevant to this week's topic because lack of education and unhealthy environment leads to low-quality human resources, and thus the slowdown in the economic growth.
Talks between US President Barack Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao are being billed as the most important meeting between the two countries for 30 years. It comes at a time when relations have been strained by issues such as the trade imbalance and China's growing military might.
This article is about the recent increase in commodity prices. This could significantly alter terms of trade for many countries. For developing countries that depend on commodities, a rise in their prices could increase terms of trade; for developed countries that import commodities, the price increase will hurt terms of trade.
This article is about the recent meeting between US President Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao. One of the topics of discussion was the Chinese currency. America believes that the yuan is devalued to give China an advantage in trade.
The Venezuelan government devaluates its currency for the second time this year in an attempt to meet importer's demand, tame inflation, minimize outflow of domestic currency, and maximize revenue from oil sale.
This article is about the effect of the single euro currency on Ireland and the rest of Europe. Because the economic health of one nation can threaten the Eurozone as a whole, the single currency means that the EU must bail out a financially troubled Ireland or risk the currency's collapse.
The decision may significantly raise the future cost of borrowing for over-indebted eurozone governments.
It is part of a new permanent scheme - to be funded by eurozone governments, but not the UK - to replace existing bail-out funds that expire in 2013.
"The Member States whose currency is the euro may establish a stability mechanism to safeguard the stability of the euro area as a whole. The granting of financial assistance under the mechanism will be made subject to strict conditionality."
American politicians are hoping for concessions on currency rates from China at talks this week. They believe that the Chinese government controls its exchange rate to keep its currency artificially weak, giving Chinese exporters an advantage.
The objective of this article is to describe how the transformation of the trade and industrialization regime is taking place in Ecuador and what are the systemic factors which condition the realization of this transformation. A long-run perspective of economic policy and growth in Ecuador (considering the whole of the twentieth century) reveals that growth has been relatively fast compared to other countries in the region, with exports as the driving force of that growth
This article is talking about how different car companies are starting to sell electric cars because consumers have become interested in helping the environment. In response, car companies have started to produce environmentally friendly cars to apease the consumers. This shows non-price discrimination in the consumer because they are no longer looking for the lowest prices, they are looking for the most environmentally friendly.
Colombia-based multi-utility EPM has launched a prepaid electric power program for marginalized communities. EPM has monpoly over the electricity and water-supply which makes the firm narturally monopolistic.
This article shows a natural monopoly in the market for chocolate. There are four main chocolate companies and the tests talked about in the article are to try and see which chocolate is voted the best. The chocolate companies are competing to stop themselves from being kicked out of the market because they stop selling and to stop one of the companies becoming the main producer for chocolate because this would mean the market would become a natural monopoly and the other three would have to shut down.
This article is about an agreement between three of Europe's biggest gas monopolies, Russia's Gazprom, Italy's Eni and France's EDF, to share the South Stream gas pipeline project. Natural gas is a natural monopoly because of very high startup costs and capital costs (for example the building of oil pipelines).
This article is about a mining company in Zimbabwe. Since the company is licensed by the government to mine there while other countries aren't, they have a natural monopoly.
This is an opinion column for the SF Gate that describes monopolization of the taxicab market in the city of Oakland by the Friendly Cab Company and the problems have arisen as a result. The author also offers solutions to the problem, which includes lowering the gate fee and lowering the license fee.
Carrefour Indonesia is in hot water with the Business Competition Supervisory Commission. Carrefour has been accused of causing unfair business competition by purchasing over 50% of market shares in the modern market.
In this case, monopoly is not rewarded, but rather punished.
