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It is an article about supply side policies in Africa specially investing in human capital in order to increase the potential output of the African countries. We know that education creates positive externalities and the benefits of education and training are not just felt by those who receive education, it will help the economy as a whole because it will increase the potential output of the economy. Greater regional integration and investment in social entrepreneurship and industry are also necessary for inclusive growth. Competition hast the effect of encouraging greater efficiency. Therefore, any policies that increase competition will increase efficiency and improve the productive potential of an economy. After reading this article I research a bit about the economic growth in Africa and I found this: Six of the world's ten fastest growing economies of the past decade are in sub-Saharan Africa. A clutch of countries have enjoyed growth in income per person of more than 5% a year since 2007.

This article deals with the new resolution that has been passed by the EU government demanding that the free trade pact with the US be under discussion. This is to safeguard the movie industries and online media of countries like France against foreign competition. With the influence of American culture and Hollywood films in every country around the world, the EU is determined to maintain its own culture and industries. This is a good example of how countries set up trade barriers to protect their own local industries against powerful international competition.

I think we will see the change of the market of smartphone through the windows phone is about to start to pre-order. Windows phone is one of the biggest competitors of Iphone over the world. In this case, the supply of the smartphone increases. And I believe the demand or price of iphone is going to chance because of it, after people consider about the oppotunity cost of either buying iphone or windows phone.

Yes I do agree with you that the "windows fones" are going to create a huge competition with the apple iphone and i think this is a positive aspect to the phone market because now the iphone will probably not dominate the phone market anymore and it's price will drop, making it more availible to people. Also this is a positive aspect that there is competition because it will lower the prices of telephones in generally making it more availible to everyone. Adding to the competotion aspect, it will force the to companys to finance their reserch even more, to try and beat their opposition, which will improve the technology of telephones of our day!

This article talk about the maximum price in New York and New Jersey after the sandy huracane. The government has set new laws in order to reduce the price for the neccessity products. However those laws are causing shortages in New York and New Jersey. Government-imposed price controls are making the disaster worse a week after Sandy hit shore. The producers can´t increase the prices for goods considered neccesarie for the consumers.The businesses aren´t allowed to raise their prices more than 10 percent within 30 days of a declared state of emergency. If the businesses increase above the maximum prices they will have to pay penalties. When there is a situation of scarcity (shortage) the people will try to buy the products in the black for a higher price. When high prices are prohibited from serving their function the result is a shortage where there are more buyers than sellers. Buyers still compete with other buyers to try to get the scarce gas, but because price competition is illegal their competition takes less beneficial forms.

This article disclose a description of the situation about education in Asia. There are a lot of kids who want to get an English-language education in countries like USA or UK, but they would like to stay closer to their families, because not everybody can easily leave home and go to foreign country alone. Because of the high demand for schools that give international-level-education in English, there are more and more schools like that. But still I think supply of that type of education and schools is miserable, and that might be one of the reasons why the prices are so high. For example, in Kazakhstan we have a British school - Haileybury. It has an IB program as well as Riverstone International School does, the one that I go to. But! Riverstone is situated in Idaho, USA, and charges about $15,000 for one year of High School. Haileybury - aroung $32,000. The reason why I mentioned the location of Riverstone is because of the huge difference between being in US and Kazakhstan. Staying here in America helps to study English and understand cultural difference, being back in Kazakhstan, helps to stick to your family, but one will never fully undestand that international tone and go beyond certain level of English. Plus the prices are very different even if we would add tickets, insurance, etc, to go to America is even cheaper and has more benefits and positive sides. So in the conclusion, I just want to say that these type of schools is demanded by a lot of Asian (and not only Asian) students, but can be afforded only by affluent middle classes. Thus I hope there would be more supply of that type of schools, which led to competition between schools and cheaper prices (or our education system will change and we will have one standard system everywhere).

Price controls on many staple food items ordered by Ethiopia's government early this month have reduced grocery bills for many low-income families. But now shopkeepers are upset and some basic items are disappearing from store shelves. Economists are concerned about the long-term effect of the government's price-fixing strategy. The consumers responded by going to local retail shops on the first day of the new low prices to stock up on much needed basic good. how ever chaos has broken out between shop keepers and consumers as the shelves aare being cleaned of basic and even normal goods. The shopkeepers responded complaining that the weeks of low prices were unbaraible because of consumers being unhappy of even the lowest prices. The Ethiopian government defended it self that the price caps were needed to help the economic crises but 4 independant economist say that it would help the economy recover, but the government ignored them saying it would. Critcs warn that it will only help in the short term and only worsen the economy in the long term.

Price controls on many staple food items ordered by Ethiopia's government early this month have reduced grocery bills for many low-income families. However, shopkeepers are now upset and many basic items are disappearing from store shelves. Economists are concerned about the long-term effect of the government's price-fixing strategy as the price controls have triggered chaos and tension in the local marketplace. 'Ceiling price have been put on items such as meat, bread, rice, sugar, powdered milk and cooking oil due to merchants taking advantage of global price hikes. The consumers have greatly benefitted yet storekeepers are unhappy, some products they bought before the price controls must now be sold below cost. In a free market economy, the preferred way of doing this is to increase the supply and increase competition. The Ethiopian government has been heavily criticized. Despite the upheaval, government officials are hoping their experiment in price-fixing will help to curb inflation. Recently released figures show the inflation rate jumped from 10.2 percent in November to 14.5 percent last month.

This article talks about Ireland having the highest tobacco pricesses in Europe. The european commision is stating that the Irish government "is against EU law, distorts competition and keeps tobacco company profits high." The Irish government says that by keeping the prices high on tobacco its a good way to control smoking in the country and that its policy of high prices is with the World Wide Health Organisations regulation policy. what the European comission is trying to do acoording to this article is to encourage Ireland to take off the price controls. but they refused and are going to court against the EU regulations in Luxemburg.

Officials want price controls put on the transportation of cement In Israel. Various government ministries are fighting over who should have the decision to impose price controls in the first place. The treasury thinks it should share responsibility over determining these factors with Transportation Ministry. However Transportation Ministry believes it should not. This argument comes after a government meeting, where they were tasked in finding ways to "up" the cement competition.

Danish government aims to reduce corporate tax to 22% by 2016. It also aims to increase international competitiveness by offering tax credits, reducing energy tax and public investments. This amendments is implemented in the hope of stimulating growth and make it more attractive for foreigners to run a business in Denmark. Reducing corporate taxes allow companies to have more capital for investments. This could potentially increase factors of production. This wil give corporate incentives to produce more efficiently. In all, this policy can produce a shift in the supply curve to the right, giving positive supply-side benefits.

It is a nice article about the central bank in my country Poland. The central bank in poland uses changes in interest rates to keep the inflation rate within the targeted range of 2.5% plus or minus 1%. This week the central bank has reduced the key rate by 25 basis points to 3 percent. As we know, a decrease in inflation will lead to the increase in consumption and investment. The consumption is the total spending of consumers in domestic products. With lower interest rates, consumers will borrow more money from the bank and they will spend more, so the AD curve will shift to the right. Investment is defined as the addition of capital stock to the economy. Lower interest rates will encourage the producers to spend more on investment. Another thing to take into consideration is that the decrease in inflation will make the exports from Poland more competitive in foreign countries where the inflation rate is much higher. Targeting inflation, whether explicitly or implicitly, is said to be beneficial as it results in a reduction in inflationary expectations. If the workers do not expect higher inflation then they will not make demands for increases in wages any higher than the expected rate of inflation and this will keep the costs of labour from rising excessively. Poland has enjoyed uninterrupted annual growth for the past two decades, and for a while after the financial crisis of 2008/9 the economy continued to defy the global downturn. However last year gross domestic product growth slowed to about two percent, less than half the pace in 2011, as infrastructure spending tailed off and the gloom from the euro zone started to filter through to previously bullish Polish consumers.

In the article author describes the world trade between the countries - exports. Exports are one of the four components of GDP. In comparison to the 2011, the exports in 12 largest countries declined in 2012. Only US, China and Canada had an insignificant growth last year. Declining incomes are the main reason for low consumption, consumers keep purchasing less imports. Author also considers difference between exports in 2008 and 2012. German exports fell by three percent, while Indian exports were 50 percent higher. It is a huge difference, but if one remembers the reasons for changes in net exports from the chapter 14, it is not that serious. The last reason was the difference in inflation, i.e. "if inflation in the US were relatively higher than in Canada then US goods would be less competitive in Canada and may reduce the export revenues which the US earns from its exports to Canada. " Thus, looking at India and Germany this difference in growth is justified.

The article does not talk about the whole aggregate demand, but rather focus on one component that contributes to aggregate demand. The article talks mainly about exports in Spain, contributing to its nation's economic growth. Spain's exports figures have increased despite the recession phase. The exports have broke a record of the least trade deficit since 1998. Exports increase to 222.6 billion euros in 2012 from 215.2 billion euros in 2011, which is the highest exports since 1971. Spain's trade deficit decreased 34% as imports fell 2.8%. This is due to changes in exchange rate and improvements in competitiveness. Apart from that, measures like labor law changes have improved investors' confidence.

The most recent searches by Rabobank say that commercial wine are at their lowest prices in over a decade. Many wine companies globally have had to tighten their supply. The tighter supply situation has eliminated much of the unsustainable competition that had been undercutting pricing. Markets that do not pay much for bulk wine will be outbid by markets that will pay higher prices. Europe will see decline in imports, and therefore also consumption of wine. I found this article interesting because there are quite a few non-price determinants shifting the supply curve and therefore changing the market price equilibrium. This article sums up many concepts that we have learned over the past 6 weeks.

Apple, in the past, has been notorious for setting high prices for its products. Its beautiful, expensive products were, however, sought after by many, yet with it's new product, the iPad mini, Apple is starting to make products that are not only highly-desirable, but at the same time, less-expensive. Apple products are price elastic because it is not a necessity and there are a myriad of substitutes. Apple is well aware of this information, and as a result, is lowering its prices to take advantage of price elasticity and the law of demand. As the title states, "Its all about price elasticity" and the iPad mini, with its reduced price will be competitive in the tablet market.

This article talks about how members of the WTO have a possitive view towards Japan because they didnt apply protectionism policies even though their situation was critical at a certain point. Japan would have not been able to go through all the issues that have affected the country in the past few years if it wasn't for taking the right decissions. In order to boost up the economy, and local producers the government did not intervene so there would still be competition from international producers thus encouraging local producers to work hard to improve the quality of their goods and recover as quick as possible from the natural and economical catastrophes the country has gone through.