Group items tagged

This article talks about the Oil equilibrium and it relates it to supply, demand, opportunity cost and other external factors that affect the equilibrium. It talks about Europe's demand is "dead" and it points out the fact that they are looking at alternatives than fuel. it talks of how the demand for oil is decreasing as alternate ways are being used to generate heat and power but oil is still vital as a source of fuel. Only 2% of global fuel liquid supply is comprised of biofuels and the rest relies on oil. other factors discussed include geopolitics.

This article focuses on the upcoming challenges and goals of the United Nations climate talks in Doha, Qatar. The talks aim to discuss how to remedy global warming that could lead to a planet up to 6 degrees warmer in the future. To do this, carbon emissions must decrease by about 5% each year. Topics at the talks may include current issues of greenhouse gas pollution and deforestation, especially with improvements of the carbon market. Businesses may soon face strong encouragement to accept these proposals, as climate change begins to result in not only impact on society but also private costs of businesses. These externalities, previously external but becoming increasingly internal, may soon force large business leaders to reconsider their impact on the environment.

The article talks about positive externalities in relation to hybrid cars. The marginal private cost is higher than the marginal social cost therefore there is an excess demand for P1 price. it then talks about how the government wants to subsidize hybrid cars that are more eco friendly and gas efficient but they aren't that subsidized as other projects are more important such as health care

This article discusses how oil is becoming an inelastic good. Although people can arrange their lives to reduce their consumption of oil, quickly there comes a point where it is not possible to purchase a smaller amount of oil. Oil would definitely be considered an essential good.

The article evaluates elasticity in terms of oil supply and demand. it states that there are still untapped oil reserves which are more expensive to obtain and requires more time. As a result, oil is becoming less elastic. it talks of possible ways of reducing oil consumption such as public transport or getting a more fuel efficient vehicle which is unlikely as it is expensive. it also evaluates the the elasticity of supply. it talks off how suppliers need a minimum price/barrel in order to keep a balanced budget so suppliers are reluctant in increasing supply in order to reduced the prices. It provides data over a 10year time period which analyses the oil consumption and supply of oil in terms of different uses and change in costs. It also relates it to the recession stating that job loss has lead to less people commuting decreasing demand and increasing price

This article talks about an earthquake and the lack of water available.This article essentially talks about how the demand for water was high but the price remained therefore people with more use for the water werent able to get the resource; it; some needed it for baby formula whilst others for cleaning dishes. The writer argues that if the price of the water was raised, as it was scarce, then people with higher priorities wouldn't mind spending the extra money. Economist Eric Cramption then dismisses an argument against price allocating resources; the poor would get poorer. . 

This article is interesting because it talks about the chain affect of low supply. The articles talks about how the global failure to harvest maize and soya is causing the supply of pig-feed to be low. This causes the price of pig feed to increase and makes it hard for farmers to continually purchase it. This isn't only affecting the farmers, but it is affecting the public. Farmers can't maintain healthy pigs so the supply of pork and ham decreases, which causes the price to increase. This means people aren't as willing to buy pork and ham. The competition between the large amounts of farmers also doesn't help the supply of pig-feed.

This is a fairly recent article that talks about supply side policies implemented by the new head of the "Bank of England", Mark Carney. The article mainly discusses their new strides to reach unemployment rates, which heavily involves controlling inflation and interest rates. It is interesting how it talks about how Keynesian supply side policies were not effective post war era because they let inflation spiral out of control. The author believes in Mark Carney's aggressive take on the issue as it plans to control inflation, unemployment and has a contingency plan.

This article is a fairly recent article that talks about international trading. Particularly, it talks about a free trade agreement that will soon be finalised between countries that could potentially represent 1/3 of global output. This free trade agreements seeks to reduce barriers in some countries allowing for easier trade and aims to increase the share of knowledge between the countries, trying to make the knowledge similar to a perfect competition scenario. However this agreement may lead to the alienation of power-house China, a heavily influential country that had not been invited to join the agreement. this could have potential backfires such as trade embargos, but for now we will have to wait and see.

This article talks about how Japan is keeping tariffs on bean imports in order to protect the country's crop rotation system. 

This article talks about how wine is reaching a equilibrium between it's supply and demand. Global demand for wine is at a low right now, but the price of grapes is increasing. This means companies can't afford to supply the same amount of wine, which actually means they reach a balance with the decreased demand. This is a good representation of how a decrease in demand isn't always bad. 

This article talked about the negative externality of Jinko Solar company in China. The company washed the pollutants with fluoride exceeding normal limits from factory into a river. The pollutants caused mass die-off fish and a cluster of cancer cases. Many Chinese resident gathered around outside the factory and hold violent protest, which forced the company to shut down. Government also halted the company and fined $75,000. From this article we can see how the product had negative externality to the third party and how government react upon it.

This is an article on Healthcare in the USA and it talks about how the government spends their money and how they might spend in the future. The article also talks about some changes that may save up to $1 trillion in the next 10 years.

This article is talking about how the result of the presidential election effect the health care. Mitt Romney will probably end the health care whereas Obama will absolutely keep it. Health care is a public good, it has positive externality and should be encouraged. However, the cost of providing health care is very high. According to the article, 'Affordable Care Act won't be fully in place until 2014'. Two candidates has different solutions. Obama choose to keep it, and Romney choose to end it due to the high cost. From this article we can see the limitation of government intervention of economy, and how different parties and people have different opinions.

This article, written in Ghana, talks about the necessity of education, and how it should be considered a public good and should be provided for free by the government. The author of the article talks about how education changed her life and how it can save impoverished students. However, many of these students do not have access to education, because it is not a free public good.

This article talked about the oligopolistic competition in smartphone market. Several firms such as Apple, Android, Microsoft and Nokia controls more than 80% of market share. It is a very typical oligopoly market structure. And we can see firms are colluding and competing. Microsoft and Nokia formed alliance to compete against Apple. Microsoft also kept releasing new product, such as the Windows Phone 7 last fall. Smartphone market is very centralized and competitive.

This article talks about how businesses are failing to take advantage of the aggregate demand. There is available demand (maybe hard to see) and companies, by taking too long to hire, are missing out on the demand and, hence, potential profit. 

This article takes about the Reserve Bank has turned to a growth. The author explains how the aggregated demand (even not visible) isn't the main factor.

This article is fairly recent and introduced me to another way of measuring economic growth in industries. the IIP stands for the Index for Industrial Production and it is discussed in the article that this value has corresponded to what has been expected, a negative number that is close to zero. This however is because there are many factors that are affecting aggregate supply, such as wage price inflation and the increase in land, a factor of production. However the author doesnt seem to be too worried about aggregate supply, rather He is worried that aggregate demand is on its way down.

This article talks about an increase in wages in India and that land prices is a key factor in wage changes. Also they are talking about a reserve bank, how it turned to grow and essential role of aggregate demand in it operating.

The article is talking about the economy of US right now. The aggregate demand is far lower than potential and government is cutting expenditure rapidly. However, the author thought that's not the right way of doing it. Although the money is short, government is still supposed to take necessary actions to induce recovery.

This article talks about how the mobile market is driving economic growth in not only the U.S, but also in Asia markets. 

This article is a very recent article, published on the 7th of Feb, and is actually written by Peter Coy, one of the people introduced to us in the "Help Wanted" task. this article in short talks about how people are unemployed and argues the incentive for people to work with the increased unemployment benefits. Furthermore it brings up an interesting point of how they experimented and found out that anybody who has been unemployed for over 6months is likely not to find a job.