Group items tagged

In this article author describes the main news - new additional jobs and overall improving economic state of Australia: "Full-time employment jumped by 17,800 and part-time employment was up by 53,700." The total workforce has been increased, altogether, it served as a sign of the improvement in economic conditions of the country. To keep the growth at the same level, the monetary policy has been eased up. Previous rate cuts are beginning to have a positive effect on the economy. The housing market shows some improvement. But the strength of Australian dollar is the main source of concerns: "The Australian dollar jumped by more than half a cent to $1.036, as traders became less hopeful that another interest rate cut was on the way."

The article is written about a survey that was consucted in Australia to study the elasticity of food items. 15 food groups were surveyed and compared to each other. Milk, bread, fresh fruit and vegeatbles were seen as the most inelastic. Even when prices were increased people bought these items and could absorb the price increase easily. Normally sales would have increased with a drop in prices and decreased with a hike in prices but not in these cases. This clearly shows what we studied this week about how essential products are inelastic. The article also discusses how Aussies in comparison with the American and Canadian are more likely to give up meat in case of a price increase.

This article shows how the environment can influence the aggregate supply in the economy. The article states that heat stress from global warming may be having an impact on outdoor work productivity in hot regions like northern Australia, Southeast Asia and the southern US. And the calculation tells us thatin temperate regions, people work continuously, but in the hottest places, the working day is split between 80% work and 20% rest. Therefore, people and government should pay attention to the environment problems nowadays because it will lead to a change in nation's GDP. And economists also should consider environment as a determinant of aggregate supply.

This article talks about how global warming is causing a decrease in work productivity, which would lead to a decrease in production. It states that in the hottest months of the year, labour capacity decreases by around 10%. They estimate that by 2050 the temperature would have risen by 1.8 degrees. At this temperature labour capacity would decrease by 20%. So overall this could have huge effects on the economy as production will decrease, and therefore there will be over aggregate demand. this then would cause inflation.