Is your essay worth £1000?

The Royal Economics Society's essay competition for A Level economists offers £1000 for the best essay from an A Level student (£500 for the second best).

The 2009 essay title is certainly topical:

'Are economic recessions inevitable?'

Anyone interested in entering the competition should see SDW for further details as soon as possible.

Spotting the green shoots

With the recession only just officially confirmed, it is way too early to be talking about the 'green shoots of recovery'.

But what will these shoots look like and how do we spot them when they emerge?

This short BBC video interview with four economists helps to understand the signs. It is likely to be a long time before we spot them though.

Recession tracker

The word 'tracker' raises my blood pressure - a series of blunders by my mortage broker resulted in me moving from a 'tracker' mortage to a fixed rate mortage some 5 months ago. The dramatic decrease in interest rates since then is having little impact on the family finances!

That aside, the BBC's 'recession tracker' is a great resource for economics and business students. It gives the latest data and news on GDP, unemployment, interest rates, house prices and repossessions on a single page.

Check it out here.

Impact of exchange rates on business

My Year 11 GCSE students have had a quick introduction to exchange rates in today's lesson. Tomorrow we will be considering the importance of exchange rates to business. A great illustration of the problems created by changes in exchange rates is to be found in today's news, with British Airways experiencing rising costs due to the fall in the value of sterling on foreign exchange markets.

Click here to read the short BBC article about the impact of the exchange rate on BA's costs.

Other useful weblinks

Robert Peston on the impact of the weak pound on retailers such as Next

Latest on the falling pound

The New Capitalism

Robert Peston is undoubtedly the face of reporting when it comes to the events of the last three months. He has led with 'scoops' (some have said inside information) of troubles in the financial sector and definitely been one step ahead of the story.

His analysis of what went wrong and what the future of capitalism holds is well worth sixth form students of economics reading. You can read what he has to say here and you might want to follow his blog (if you aren't already) by clicking here.

Microsoft in the dock ... again

Year 11 students have just completed work on monopolies and the role of the competition authorities. The behaviour of Microsoft was raised more than once! 'Bundling' has been an issue that has vexed competition authorities in the EU and the US - giving away products free with Microsoft's operating system. The argument has been that Microsoft has restricted competition unfairly by given away products for free as part of Windows - taking advantage of its monopoly of operating systems.

Think about what you are using to read this blog. My bet is that most of you, like me, are using Explorer. Why are you using it? Because it's free and it came with your PC. Now think about other firms producing brower products. How do you compete against a free product? How do you break into this market?

The EU competition commission has reached a prelimary conclusion to these
questions:

Microsoft's tying of Internet Explorer to the Windows operating system harms competition between web browsers, undermines product innovation and ultimately reduces consumer choice

Leam more about this breaking story by clicking here.

Third runway for Heathrow

Year 13 economists have a field day on transport economics this week. This Friday they are lucky enough to have Alex Hynes, the Commercial Director for London Midland come in to give a presentation on the rail industry. Very timely given the January module examination!

Tonight the BBC breaks the news that the Government has given the go-ahead for a thrid runway at Heathrow airport. Lots of relevant issues here for students to mull over as a way of revising some of the key bits of the specification - environment, sustainability, externalities, cost-benefit analysis to name but a few.

Well worth reading more on this.

Useful weblink

Heathrow runway 'gets go-ahead'