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The average earnings of non-supervisory retail worker in September 2014 was calculated to be lower than the average earnings ten years ago. Meanwhile, private-sector average hourly wages were lower last month than they were the same month back in 2010. Although the US is currently in its "recovery" stage (from the business cycle), the average wages of the workers has still yet to prove this. In fact, the wage rates are contradicting.

The latest wealth report shows the distribution and development of wealth in Switzerland. According to the report, income and wealth increased in Switzerland in the past 10 years. Since 1998 the average gross income per household increased by 7%. From 2009 to 2011 the monthly average was at 9'565 Swiss Francs.

The Nigerian government must diversify the economy if the country is to survive falling global oil prices, said World Bank VP and Treasurer, Arunma Otteh. She said that Nigeria ranks 152 out of 188 in the HDI, and ranks below the average for sub-saharan Africa. Life expectancy in Nigeria is 53 years, 8 years lower than Ghana and 21 years lower than Brazil. Nigeria also ranked 136 out of 168 most corrupt countries in Transparency International's 2015 report. This affects the flow of FDI to the country. Nigeria's rapid GDP growth over the past decade hasn't translated to strong human development or competitiveness. Nigeria can no longer only depend on oil, which not sells for as low as $26/barrel which accounts for 95% of the country's foreign exchange.

This article highlights how the GDP is not the only factor in measuring the development of a nation, but how corruption and business confidence can play a role. This is seen by the decreasing oil prices, which has affected the Nigerian economy greatly.

This article discusses the sugar market in the U.S. On average, U.S. consumers pay twice as much for refined sugar as the rest of the world. This is largely due to sugar policies in the United States. In America, the federal government offers loans to sugar cane and beet processors who are to pay sugar growers a minimum price set by the USDA. The idea is that processors will obtain a market price for their sugar that is sufficient to pay back the loans. However, the loans are "non-recourse," meaning that if the market price of sugar declines, processors can forfeit to the USDA the sugar they put up as collateral. In order to prevent sugar processors from offloading sugar onto the USDA and to protect processors from lower-cost foreign competition, the federal government has imposed a two tier system of tariff rate quotas. It also restricts the total amount of sugar that domestic processors can sell by setting market allotments which are designed to drive up the price by creating artificial scarcity.

In the fourth quarter, New Zealand's terms of trade declined as weaker prices for dairy and meat saw export prices falling more than import prices. The merchandise goods terms of trade fell 2% in the fourth quarter, export prices fell 5.7%, and import prices dropped 3.7%. Terms of trade measure the buying power of New Zealand's exports abroad. In the fourth quarter dairy export prices fell 13% while volumes fell 0.9% and the value of exports fell 6.7% to $2.9 billion. The average price for while miles power has dropped 18% at the four fortnight Global Dairy Trade actions this year to US$1890 as global milk supply continues to outweigh demand and weaker dairy has hit the broader economy.

According to this article from the Deloitte University Press, the length of recovery has little to do with the probability that a recession might occur. Dr. Daniel Bachman claims that modern business cycle thought and recession data suggests that business decision makers should look elsewhere to gauge where the economy is headed. Since WWII, the average US business cycle expansion has lasted 56 months. The last three expansions have been exceptionally long and the current expansion is already longer than most of the expansions in the 1950s-70s. Therefore, it is possible that something such as a the role service in the economy has changed but the sample is small and the uncertainty is high. In fact, most economists who study business cycles do not view them as cycles. The world's first industrialized economy, the UK, suffered banking panics in 1825, 1847, 1866, and 1890 and the fact that a crisis appeared every 20-25 years suggest that there was some form of regular force at work in modern economies that lead to a cycle. However, as economists began to use statistical techniques, they discovered that the cycles in the data were probably illusions. As, a result, economists have mostly rejected the idea of business cycles repressing an inherent, regular feature of the economy. Instead, they view the economy as experiencing random shocks, both positive and negative.

This article describes how the events in Paris affected the economic growth. This illustrates how more factors than taxes and employment can make a difference in level of economic activity. A decrease economic activity might cause the government to intervene by reducing the interest rate, creating incentives to increase consumption. A demand-side policy like this could help the economy get back on its course.