Named as the toy of the century, Lego has been around for fifty years but faces huge competition from toy manufacturers around the world. Seven Lego sets are sold each second. On average there are 62 Lego bricks for every person on earth. With a production of about 306 million tyres a year, the Lego Group is the world’s largest tyre manufacturer. Nearly 400 billion Lego elements have been manufactured since 1949. The Sunday Telegraph has a really good article on the renaissance of the Danish business Lego - the world’s fifthlargest toy manufacturer.

The world is witnessing the end of a gigantic wave of mergers and takeovers. Many have been driven by aggressive (and sometimes secretive) private equity firms. Do they destroy jobs in the process? Apparently not, according to a study discussed at the World Economic Forum. A BBC article covers the story.

There is a very positive review of Tim Harford’s new book ‘The Logic of Life’ in today’s New York Times.

Tim Harford is giving a public lecture on his new bok ‘The Logic of Life’ at the London School of Economics on Wednesday 6 February starting at 6.30pm. He will be joined in discussion by Hamish McRae from the Independent. Entry is free on a first come first served basis.

The Royal Economic Society and tutor2u are delighted to announce a competition to find the Young Economist of the Year 2008.

Will big cuts in interest rates avert the threat of recession for the United States? Interest rate reductions ought normally to provide a monetary stimulus to the economy supporting confidence and encouraging consumer spending and business investment. A well-judged relaxation of monetary policy should help to stabilise demand, output and jobs helping to reduce the risk of a painful economic slump. But the Nobel-prize winning economist Joe Stiglitz has claimed that the United States may be on the verge of a 1930s-style "liquidity trap" which may make monetary policy decisions impotent.

Despite rising taxes for people on high incomes, the super-rich continue to race away as the gap between the haves and the have-nots gets wider and wider. This is one of the findings of new research on inequality in the UK from the independent Institute for Fiscal Studies.

Miners from Tower Colliery, Wales’ last deep mine, have marched for the final time marking its closure. 13 years ago the miners of Tower Colliery took the gamble that they could run the pit at a profit and raised £2m to bring about a management buy out of the threatened mine from UK Coal. Their risk-taking paid off and in the intervening years, over 600,000 tonnes of coal has been excavated from the seams.

Jérôme Kerviel, the rogue trader at France’s Société Générale is likely to become as infamous as Nick Leeson in the annals of rogue traders who have upset the financial applecart over the years. Kerviel is estimated to have cost Societe Generale just under Euro 5 billion with this disastrous deals and one of France's leading banks is now counting the cost and watching nervously over its shoulder for a possible takeover bid as the vultures hover.

Another year and yet another stellar growth performance from the booming Chinese economy! Although the data itself is at risk of a major revision at some point in the future, it cannot be disputed that the Chinese economic engine was working overtime last with real GDP estimated to have grown by 11.4 per cent, the fastest pace of expansion in 13 years. But 2008 promises to pose serious macro-economic challenges for the Chinese

All students following the recent trends for green products, fair trade policies and corporate giving should be interested in an excellent summary of the debate at economist.com

A panic over-reaction or the right medicine to ward off the risk of a global big chill? The US Fed Reserve has cut interest rates by 0.75% - the biggest cut in US interest rates for a quarter of a century. Is this the sign that the wheels are coming off the US economy?

A committee of MPs has produced a report highly critical of the surge in financial support designed to simulate the production of biofuels.

The fall in the value of sterling against the Euro is an important macroeconomic development. No one factor explains the scale of the depreciation but part of the fall is due to expectations of lower interest rates by the Bank of England and also a slowdown in the inflow of international money that, in recent years, has come in to help finance the UK housing boom.

Tim Harford is an optimistic economist. Rather than becoming stuck in the daily torrent of noise and news from the global financial markets, trying to making sense of this small move in Chinese interest rates or that short-lived fluctuation in a Ukrainian bond yield, Tim has the confidence and the chutpaz to cast his net far wider to unearth much of the hidden wiring of our everyday lives, and in doing so he brings microeconomics alive at nearly every turn.

Upper School was packed on Thursday night for a meeting of the Keynes society, this week’s speaker was Evan Davis, the BBC economics correspondent and presenter of the popular TV show “Dragons Den”.

The Eton College Keynes Society was privileged to start the lent term by hosting John Micklethwait, Editor-in-Chief of The Economist. There was an excellent atmosphere in Upper School due to the large number of students and guests who attended, despite it being only the second day of the Lent Term.

Liam Halligan writing in the Sunday Telegraph argues that inflationary risks remain for the UK economy and that rapid-fire reductions in interest rates to quell a descent into recession will be dangerous for the economy in the medium term.

There was a stark contrast of pay and lifestyles on two separate pages of my Financial Times today. The front page headline says "Unions to demand pay rise of 7 per cent" and refers to a likely above-inflation wage claim on behalf of its members by the GMB union. And then on page 15, a comment piece by Raghuram Rajan "Bankers' pay is deeply flawed" which attacks the flimsy justifications for the enormous bonus pools made available to untalented investment managers, many of whom are responsible for blowing huge holes in the balance sheets of investment banks in the last two years and whose mistakes then drive up mortgage costs for the rest of us.

There is a great feature on the battle between McDonald's and Starbucks in the Telegraph on the day that it has been announced that Starbucks is replacing CEO Jim McDonald with founder Howard Schultz. The competition for market share in the retail coffee market is a classic example of a contestable market.

Yes Men was released on DVD in 2005 and runs to 85 minutes. The subsequent collapse of the Doha trade talks a couple of years ago does not make this documentary film any less relevant - it is built around three spoof conference presentations by Andy and Mike, two anti-globalisation protestors who have successfully duped conference organisers into inviting them to speak on behalf of the World Trade Organisation!

Larry Elliott, the economics editor of the Guardian has no doubts in his comment piece in today's Guardian - people contemplating a mid winter break to Italy or Southern Spain or a week in Malta or Cyprus in a few months time should delay no longer and buy their Euros now before the pound sinks further. According to Elliott, all of the economic signals points to a further depreciation of sterling against the Euro in the coming months

The economic clouds are darkening for the UK and Gordon Brown has been busy touring the media studios warning of a difficult year in 2008, downgrading expectations so that, if the worst doesn’t materialize, he can at least take some of the credit! But one bright spot worthy of note is the continued high profitability of UK businesses.

New research published by Oxford Economics forecasts that UK GDP per capita will overtake the USA in 2008 for first time since the 19th century.

As we clear away the festive clutter, here are a couple more links to highlights and lowlights of 2007. The BBC identifies the best and worst performers on global stock markets in what turned out to be a rollercoaster year. The Economist, meanwhile, hands out its ‘Business Oscars’, some of which are pretty funny. It also worth knowing that from now on, all content on www.economist.com is free, for the first year after its publication.

The BBC reports that oil prices remain above the landmark $100 mark - what are the main economic effects?

The latest edition of the best-selling European Economy in Focus has just been published

A great teacher event at the British Library focuses on using ICT more effectively in Business & Economics teaching

Hamish McRae writes on the UK ‘jobs machine’ in today’s Independent and asks how much longer can the private sector continue to create new jobs as the economy weakens?

The Royal Economic Society lecture given by Sir Nick Stern was the occasion for the presentation of prizes to the winners of the inaugural RES Young Economist of the Year competition for 2007. Organised by Tutor2u on behalf of the RES, the three winners were introduced by Stephanie Flanders, Economics correspondent of BBC2's Newsnight and their trophies and cheques were presented by Sir Nick Stern ahead of his lecture. His lecture is now available for viewing from the RES site.

Flooding Kenya with cheap beer to reduce consumption! Re-thinking taxation in the United States. Why we are 'locked' into Monopoly this christmas. The negative externalities from diesel and a debate over whether the US dollar in terminal decline - five of my economics picks from the web-blogs and press today.

How can we make the best use of the wide variety of ICT applications and resources to teach Business and Economics? What tricks and tips can save us time and enable us to make learning more enjoyable and effective?Making the best use of ICT is the theme for tutor2u's Spring Teacher Conference. We're meeting at the wonderful British Library Conference Centre to share ideas and discover tried and tested ICT resources and techniques. The date for our conference is Friday 29 February 2008.

Today's pick covers an FT leader on the vulnerability of the UK economy; Tesco's expansion into the USA and whether the global commodity price boom is running out of steam.

In another sign that the UK economy has reached a turning point in the cycle, economists at the Halifax have issued a forecast that 2008 could see that largest ever rise in the monetary value of savings by UK households.

It was a shock to hear that Robert frank, author of one of my favourite books of 2007 'The Economic Naturalist' had suffered a heart attack a few weeks ago. The good news reported in Tyler Cowen's blog is that Robert is making good progress in his recovery.

The Monetary Policy Committee cut interest rates by 0.25% today. Download a presentation containing some charts relevant to the BoE’s deliberations.

Northern Rock shares are trading at or around £1 a share. In his regular piece for the Financial Times, John Kay offers a neat use of the classic game of chicken to describe the manouverings over the future of Northern Rock.

Think of India and you usually think first of a nation of tea drinkers! The Independent reports today about the staggering growth of demand for coffee stores at retail level in the booming Indian economy. The race is on for international coffee chains to enter a market that is conservatively estimated to be growing at more than 40% per year.

Agflation - the sustained rise in the global prices of many foodstuffs seems to be emerging as a major policy issue in many countries and a topic that provides a great bridge for applying microeconomic and macroeconomic ideas. The Financial Times has launched a special series of articles on aspects of food price inflation.

Local area figures for life expectancy have just been released for the UK. There is a difference of over twelve years between the highest and lowest and a very clear north-south divide in the regional breakdowns.

Day by day we see an accumulation of evidence that the British housing market is well and truly into a significant slowdown.

Tim Harford's excellent blog highlights a forthcoming book by Dan Ariely titled Predictably Irrational - the hidden forces that shape our decisions. This is a book I shall look forward to reading in the new year, another contribution to a growing armoury of texts on behavioural economics.

The Alia economics blog has a good feature on the Phillips Curve for the United States and its relevance to the Federal Reserve when setting short term interest rates.

There were three examples today of alleged producer cartels working in different sectors of the economy.

Housing is heading into a severe downturn but the US export sector could provide an important counter-weight to the US economy in the months ahead.

Most people are aware of the limitations of official data on consumer prices when it comes to measuring the average cost of living for the inhabitants of a country. And rarely does the published inflation rate match our own personal experiences since each of us has different spending patterns. But in Zimbabwe, the challenge is infinitely more difficult, nigh on impossible, because there are simply insufficient products in the shops for price samples to be taken.

Black Gold is a 78-minute documentary feature from Mark and Nick Francis which provides an extraordinary vivid and remarkable insight into the lives and challenges facing coffee farmers in Ethiopia. These producers supply some of the finest coffee in the world but who are struggling to survive because of the obscenely low prices they get from multinational coffee exporters and roasters.

Young economist David Herring considers the arguments for and against another up-rating in the value of the UK minimum wage.

We are heading towards the Oxford and Camrbidge interview season, nerves for many and hopes and dreams on the line. Whilst no amount of preparation can deliver a good performance on the day, here are some of the questions I have been firing at some of my students ahead of the interviews in early December. I will publish another set in a couple of days.

Football shirt manufacturers, supermarkets, flag-makers, suppliers of giant TV screens, pubs, brewers, sports retailers, television companies and many other businesses are today counting the cost of England's dismal early exit from the European Football Championships scheduled to take place in Austria and Switzerland in the summer of 2008.

The rising Euro-US dollar exchange rate has now taken Airbus ‘beyond the pain barrier’

A recent report has found that an astonishing 97% of mergers by UK companies fail to completely fulfil their strategic objectives. Some of the reasons why are outlined here.

The value of shares in Paragon Group, Britain’s third largest buy-to-let mortgage provider, has collapsed as the business reported difficulties in raising a new tranche of finance.

These are tough times for Britain’s 58,000 pubs. This BBC news online report flags up a report from the British Beer and Pub Association which finds that beer sales in pubs have fallen sharply since the peak in 1979. Total beer sales for 2007 are down 22% - some seven million pints a day fewer than their peak in 1979.

Time once again to test your knowledge of the important (and not so important) recent business stories...

Hamish McRae was on superb form speaking to the Economics Teachers conference at Cambridge yesterday. Once again the phenomenal growth of the Chinese economy is highlighted by the fact that, this year, for the first time ever, it is the incremental demand from Chinese consumers that is responsible for more of the additional aggregate demand in the world economy than the United States.

It is a classic story of how deep price discounting leads to a sharp rise in affordability and pushes higher market demand for a product. The pressure group Alcohol Concern has released a survey which claims that cheaper alcohol fuelled by price promotions from the major supermarkets has given teenage drinkers a huge incentive to increase their weekly consumption.

tutor2u's 2008 Economics Course Companions make the ideal revision support for the January 2008 exams

We have uploaded a fresh set of streamed chart-room presentations on different aspects of the UK and international economy.

Central to market efficiency is the idea of knowledge on the part of buyers and sellers. The world is full of examples of ways in which this knowledge is far from perfect and firms deliberately aim to deceive. Here’s a recent example from the media: the complexity of misleading airline websites.

The Financial Times is running a series of articles and features to support the annual Enterprise Week. Details here.

There was lots of coverage yesterday of the Bank of England’s latest Inflation Report which carried a significant downgrade in forecasts for GDP growth over the coming months.

It's been another great week for business stories - 10 of which are covered in our weekly business quiz

The veteran BBC business reporter Peter Day is featured in an article in the Daily Mail. Peter's In Business programme beats Terry Wogan and Jonathan Ross as the top downloaded podcast from the output of the BBC.

Edmund Conway has an interesting article in the Sunday Telegraph today in which he links the current global credit crunch to the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the fallout from the Asian financial markets crisis in 1997-98.

There is plenty of coverage today of the news that the average price for a litre of diesel has climbed above £1 for the first time. The Guardian reports that First Group, the UK’s largest bus operator is enjoying a windfall from the soaring cost of fuel with signs that rising petrol and diesel prices are starting to change the transport habits of thousands of commuters.

The latest edition of Economax has just been published, with eight new articles from our team of experienced economics teachers and examiners.

There is much debate about the private returns to accumulating human capital. What are the likely rewards from delaying one’s entry into the labour market to take a degree or complete full-time vocational qualifications beyond the age of 18? How wide is the gap in earnings between those with degrees from the top universities in tough subjects and graduates of lesser-known and perhaps less highly regarded institutions?

The latest edition of the Biz Quiz is now available

Heard the phrase “she won’t get out of bed for less than $1m”? Here’s an amusing BBC headline about ‘supermodel’ Gisele Bündchen – who doesn’t want to be paid in dollars at all… and a link to rapper Jay-Z 'dissing' the dollar too.

Rejected credit card applications are rising, credit card fees are increasing and business debts are growing - 25% of businesses in the UK now have interest repayments that exceed their profits. There are signs that the growth of consumer credit and spending is starting to have a significant impact on the economy.

A second set of Questions of Economics posters is being developed. If you have some quirky and fascinating examples of "economic enigmas" - the sorts of questions that you love throwing at your students and using as a catalyst for discussion, I would love to hear from you!

Is there a case for the Bank of England to move on interest rates when the Monetary Policy Committee convenes for its November meeting this week?

There was a nice bit of supply and demand theory in the Independent last week with an article on how surging prices for mozzarella cheese is biting into the prices of the UK’s leading pizza retailer.

Research, development and innovation are seen to be crucial to the long term success of our economy. So it’s cheering news that, according to the BBC’s Money Programme, Britain is becoming a nation of inventors and the number of people submitting ideas for patents in the UK has never been higher.

Partha Dasgupta's "Very short introduction to economics" is given a favourable review by David Warsh in his latest economics blog

There were two good stories in the news today on the topic of price elasticity of supply and the time lags between planning a change in supply and being able to deliver it to the market.

A brief history of the development of ecommerce.

The Global Competitiveness Report for 2007-08 from the World Economic Forum has just been released. The UK is ranked in 9th place sandwiched between Japan and the Netherlands. China is ranked in 34th place.

The Guardian has produced a very user friendly flash-based guide to volatile oil prices.

We have been discussing consumer surplus as a tool for measuring welfare in lessons this week. Once students have a firm handling on the concept, they can apply it to so many areas.

The VLE is best described as having your own course immediately accessible from any computer with an internet connection. I have been developing the VLE over the last six months and now schools and colleges can enrol their students each of whom has their own individual subscription and access.

The commodity boom continues apace. This week the price of a barrel of West Texas Intermediate climbed well above $90 per barrel and the chances of a “super-spike” in oil prices with values in excess of $100 per barrel no longer seem fanciful. There is much coverage of the impact of oil prices in the media, in particular why it seems that the tripling of oil prices in the last few years has yet to seriously derail the performance of the British economy.

The dollar’s depreciation is gathering momentum and the pound is now worth considerably more than $2 to the £1 at the time of writing. Perhaps £1=$2.10 is the next realistic benchmark in the days and weeks ahead. The CBI released data this week hinting that the strong pound is now starting to hit export competitiveness and orders for manufacturers. Exchange rate charts are available for download.

Do price freezes ever work in keeping inflation under control in the medium term? I am just about old enough to remember the mid 1970s and the long lamented “Minister for Prices and Consumer Protection” Mrs Shirley Williams – introducing price freezes in the UK during those years of high and volatile inflation. Indeed the memories are coming flooding back. There were “price freeze” stickers on countless shop door frontages.

The soaring price of metals is adding to the pressure to further reduce the ‘precious’ metal content of coinage.

Given a choice between own-brand towels and towels produced under fair-trade principals which would you rather buy? And would you be willing to pay a premium price for the privilege of buying fairtrade cotton products? Ray Fishman has a fascinating article in Slate magazine about new research from Harvard economists Michael Hiscox and Nick Smyth.

Lots of coverage today of the revised population projections produced by the Office for National Statistics. The number crunchers have decided that 'The UK population is projected to increase by 4.4 million by 2016. This increase is equivalent to an average annual rate of growth of 0.7 per cent. If past trends continue, the population will continue to grow, reaching 71 million by 2031.

Microsoft has paid $240m for a 1.6% share in Facebook that values the popular social networking site at $15bn. Facebook spurned an offer from Microsoft's rival Google, which was also keen to invest the site, and a $1bn takeover offer from Yahoo last year.

For those of you who have finished half-term: welcome back! If you are still on holiday, then you'll have had plenty of chance to swot on the business news for the latest edition of the Biz Quiz!

There are plenty of stories around about the scarcity of workers in many of the eastern European and Baltic State countries, most of whom joined the European Union in May 2004. I have been writing about this for the new edition of EconoMax which is due out next week.

Will Eton and Harrow eventually become bed and breakfast hoteliers? Probably not in my lifetime, but the Financial Times has a good piece about the increasingly flexible terms on offer for parents and students wanting to buy into the boarding school market.

Tim Harford - the Undecover Economist - has started a new blog available through the Financial Times web site.

A great line-up of sessions at our Autumn Economics Teacher Conference in Cambridge has been finalised

Economist Kartik Kumar writes on the emergence of multi-billion sovereign wealth funds and the threats and challenges they pose.

There was a good example of internal business growth this week with the news that Whitbread plans a further expansion of its Costa coffee and Premier Inn chains

The latest edition of The Biz Quiz is an ideal lesson activity in the run-up to half-term

Blog watchers know that it’s easy to predict a house price crash, but hard to get the timing right. However, new evidence suggests the UK market may be approaching a ‘tipping point’…

The last in a recent series of blogs (links included) that has looked at the changes sweeping the music business.

There was a landmark for Google this week when their share price climbed above $600 for the first time. Having launched at $100 a share at the time of Google’s initial public offering in August 2004, the share price has risen steadily as Google’s position as the dominant search engine on the web has firmed.

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has just published its first ever report on the Indian economy. The report is full of praise for progress achieved in reducing absolute poverty and lifting the sustainable growth rate above 7.5%. There has been little short of an economic transformation. But, in typical OECD style, they press the Indian government to introduce further supply-side reforms to tap into the enormous economic potential of the country.

Have a go at the latest edition of Britain's leading business quiz

Quite apart from the inevitable hassle in trying to find yourself a decent used car at the right price, this BBC news article looks at the problems facing dealers of second hand cars. A flood of new cars on offer with a range of special finance deals has reduced the overall cost of buying a new car.

More than a million workers are to receive a pay rise as increases to the minimum wage come into force. Find out about the new levels here, with links to earlier materials on this topic.

A letter from Dairy Crest about a price increase of 4 pence per pint reveals much about supply and demand

Economists at the OECD have published their latest report on the performance of the UK economy. The OECD's heavy emphasis on the importance of competition and skills in driving the supply side of advanced nations is very evident in their summary reports.

And everyone else for that matter. You might find it helpful to look at the new, (freely available) Economist chart database to learn more about corruption rankings, with links to many other helpful indicators.

Here is a ten-question quiz on consumer prices. Ideal for a Friday afternoon!

Media, Microsoft and Monopoly all feature in the latest edition of The Biz Quiz

A new report commissioned by Carers UK has estimated that since 2002, there has been a 52 per cent increase in the value of unpaid care to £87 billion a year - more than total annual spending on the National Health Service and equivalent to £10m an hour.

Richest people? Top celebrity millionaires? Biggest companies? Most decadent cocktails (?!) Find out more via this link

The middle pages of my Guardian today provided a stark headline “underpaid, easy to sack: UK’s second class workforce.” The Guardian gave over two full pages to unearthing examples of our increasingly two tier labour market. On the one hand, a core of full-time permanent contract workers, entitled to benefits such as overtime, holiday and sick pay and many with access to occupational pension schemes. On the other, a growing mass of temporary workers thousands of whom are migrants dependent on low paid, insecure work through employment agencies.

As election fever begins to grip Britain, students and teachers around the nation are testing their up-to-date knowledge of political stories

We were discussing today in our macroeconomics lesson the difference between a nation’s gross domestic product and a country’s gross national product (or gross national income).

Peter Day’s In Business programme on Thursday provided some well judged insights into the financial turbulence of recent weeks. What is a bubble? What causes it? What do financial bubbles occur with such regularity? What causes greed to overtake cold arithmetic?

Financial institutions have featured prominently in the business & economics news this week. Northern Rock, the Bank of England, and banks in the USA too.

Little more than a week after saying that the Bank of England would not intervene directly to supply a new flow of cash (liquidity) to the wholesale money markets the Governor Mervyn King has sanctioned a £10bn injection of cash into the banking system in a bid to bring down the rising cost of borrowing between the commercial banks.

The United States Federal Reserve, the USA’s central bank, has announced a 0.5% cut in interest rates in a bid to provide supporting for a weakening economy hit by an emerging housing market recession.

In a new paper published in Centrepiece, the excellent magazine on economics from the London School of Economics, Alex Bryson and Paul Willman analyse the long term decline of trades unions in the UK labour market.

Over the coming weeks, many eyes will be trained on the regular flow of new data on consumer confidence to see if the fall out from the collapse of Northern Rock and the slowdown in the UK housing market has spread into a wider deterioration in consumer sentiment. Confidence can be fickle at the best of times, but we know that people’s expectations of the future – about prices, their own jobs and the wider state of the economy – can be a powerful harbinger of turning points in an economic cycle.

Microsoft’s long running dispute with the European Commission is almost over. The fine is a punishment for the firm’s abuse of its monopoly power in the software market. The ruling will be intended to send a warning to all firms in a similarly powerful situation.

Opportunity cost is a fundamental idea in introductory economics and it arises from the basic economic problem of scarcity – there are finite resources available to meet our unlimited needs and wants.

The Royal Economic Society has today announced the winner of its inaugural Young Economist of the Year 2007 essay competition.

A run on a bank is such a rare occurrence that the events of recent days have been manna from heaven for the media! The sight of thousands of customers queuing for hours outside branches of the Northern Rock or enduring long frustrated battles to access their online accounts is a hugely significant moment.

As someone who has predicted six of the last two housing recessions, it is about time I erred on the side of caution. But there are some fairly strong signs that the 12-year housing bonanza is coming to an end! Turning points in market cycles are often the result of shifts in confidence and expectations among buyers and sellers and housing will be no exception.

Test your understanding of political news stories from last week.

At the end of another busy week in the world of business, test your knowledge with our tricky Biz Quiz

There are clear signs that the cost of borrowing money to finance a property purchase is heading higher. Rising mortgage rates are thought to be the direct result of the turmoil in international financial markets over the summer months and early autumn.

Encourage your new business students to get their thinking caps on with this idea for a lesson activity.

Incentives matter in all sorts of ways and we have been discussing them in our introductory economics lessons over the past week.

How brittle is the health of the world’s largest economy, the United States as we head into the autumn months? This week the OECD, an organisation made up of thirty one of the leading advanced rich nations, released a new forecast which suggested that the USA will experience a further slowdown in the rate of economic growth. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has reinforced this sense of pessimism with a forecast of a weakening of global growth during the rest of 2007 and into 2008. Some commentators fear that, unless the United States Federal Reserve makes cuts in official interest rates to provide some ballast for consumer and business confidence, then a US slowdown could conceivably turn into something much more painful, a full-blown economic recession.

My credit card company have conveniently forgotten to send me a replacement card since the last one ran out at the end of July. One less card to worry about and I remain happy to rely on my trusty debit card for virtually everything as we ditch cheques and cash too! The annual growth of borrowing on credit cards by consumers continues to edge lower – the latest figures show it is rising at a rate of a touch over 5% over the last twelve months.

There is plenty of coverage today of the soaring price of wheat on the world commodity markets and the impact this is having on the price of staple products such as a loaf of bread.

The Biz Quiz returns for a new school year with a quiz on business developments over the summer of 2007

There is serious money to be made in the expanding market for dietary products across the world and as the American nation wakes up to the obesity crisis, a report in the Guardian highlights a new list of the USA's fastest growing businesses

A recovery in the UK car industry is signalled by a new report from the Engineering Employers Federation

£2bn sounds a lot when it is written as £2,000,000,000 - but sales of organic food and drink, although rising quite quickly, are actually rather small for a country the size of the UK.

Peter Day visited the City of York for the launch of a new edition of In Business to take the temperature of the British economy sixteen years on from the end of the last recession. 60 quarters of uninterrupted expansion since the autumn of 1992 – a growing economy almost seems to be taken for granted. But this macroeconomic stability masks many uncertainties and fears underneath the surface. Is the expansion still built in solid foundations?

The end of August approaches with indecent haste and I have a clutch of summer book purchases in various states of completion gathering dust in my study and bedroom.

A report in the Guardian today makes positive reading for those committed to promoting an entrepreneurship culture in the UK.

The external value of the US dollar against the Chinese Yuan continues to fall.

A combination of higher tax payments, rising mortgage costs and higher prices for food and other essential purchases is causing a squeeze on consumer spending according to the latest macroeconomic forecast from the Ernst and Young ITEM club.

A large group of business leaders in Northern Ireland have called for the UK government to reduce corporation tax in the province as a means of kick-starting a much needed rise in domestic and foreign investment.

All of these articles relate to some of the causes of changes in the market demand for different goods and services. When reading through them, consider some of the conditions of demand and how they link in to the particular story.

This BBC news online clip looks at the surge in market demand for motorhomes.

According to the International Anti-Counterfeiting Coalition (www.iacc.org ), global trading in counterfeit goods is estimated to have reached hundreds of billions of US dollars each year.

This article from the Sunday Observer looks at the links between oil prices, consumer price inflation and UK interest rates.

Traditionally the funeral market in the UK has been dominated by small family-run funeral directors. But the market structure is changing as listed companies such as Dignity take an increasing share of a growing industry.

‘There are 12m children alive in Britain today who have never experienced anything other than a rising economy.’ In this article on economic growth in the British economy, David Smith from the Sunday Times considers the degree of macroeconomic stability that has persisted for the last fifteen years. He looks at what might derail the economy and bring about a recession.

This BBC news online article reports that employment in the Scottish economy is at a record high and that unemployment continues to fall. But set aside this good news, long term unemployment remains a problem and there are signs that Scotland continues to under-perform as an economy compared to Scandinavian nations.

This BBC report from Rory Cellan-Jones looks at the battle for market share among the leading social networking sites Bebo, MySpace and Facebook.

Bradford City fans are clearly a price-sensitive lot! Despite the pain of relegation into League Two for the 2007-08 season, they have responded in fine style to a decision by the club to slash season ticket prices from £234 to just £138, which equates to £6 per game.

There was a great example of market arbitrage opportunities in a report in the Times a couple of days ago concerning the imminent publication of the seventh (and in all probability the last) Harry Potter book.

The respected Joseph Rowntree Foundation has published new figures translated into poverty and wealth maps of Britain which reveal inequality to be at 40-year high. The data chimes with the widely held view that Britain is becoming a more polarized society with wealthier communities prepared to spend more and more money protecting their possessions in gated communities.

Will rapid food price inflation feed through to a higher rate of inflation for other goods and services? This is a key question at the current time as the world economy has to adjust to a period of much higher food prices. A recent article in the Financial Times focused on the issue.

This article from BBC online looks at the arguments for spending more on flood defences following the impact of the recent floods affecting many parts of the country.

Sean O’Grady has an article in the Independent this morning which focuses on the rising share of UK listed businesses that are partly or wholly owned by foreign corporations. The open nature of our capital markets has always left the UK economy relatively exposed to foreign merger and takeover activity from football clubs to banks and from steel companies to the owners of British airports.

The New Economics Foundation (NEF) has published its latest annual report on happiness and well-being. The Happy Planet Index ranks European countries according to a combination of life expectancy, life satisfaction and carbon footprint.

'The Economic Naturalist - In Search of Explanations for Everyday Enigmas' by Robert H Frank is two hundred pages of scintillating and fascinating economics, written with a lovely lightness or touch and which I devoured in one sitting yesterday. This is a book that simply has to find its way onto the bookshelf of a school or college library - it beats Freakonomics hands down!

Last week Sony announced a sharp fall in the price of the Sony PS3 in the US market. However it has opted to use free games and accessories instead to boost sales. This BBC news online article provides some of the background:

This BBC news online article considers the reasons for the rise in both short term and long term interest rates.

At the Business Teacher National Conference in London last week Michelle Stephenson gave a post-lunch presentation on some of the interactive learning exercises that she and her team at South Cheshire College have been developing, using and testing in the classroom. One of her ideas immediately struck a cord with me, namely an exercise created by John Clarke on the basic macroeconomic performance of each of the European Union countries, used as a starter exercise to introduce AS economists to the EU.

Has the housing boom provided a fresh source of finance for would-be entrepreneurs in the UK? In a paper presented to the Max Planck Entrepreneurship Research and Public Policy Group Conference, Professor David Blanchflower, a member of the Monetary Policy Committee has presented evidence that home-owners are willing to use some of the equity in their property to finance business start-ups

These are difficult times for the Royal Mail. This week the second one day strike of postal workers will cause yet more damage to the goodwill between the Royal Mail and their customers. And hot on the heels of the damage caused by industrial action is the news that Business Post, one of the Royal Mail's strongest competitors has announced that turnover has risen 13 per cent in the first quarter of 2007 compared with the same period last year.

The debate over which policies to tackle obesity are more effective and efficient is renewed today with news of a fresh study published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health and reported on BBC news online.

Luke Johnson has a terrific piece in today's Financial Times about the background of some of our most successful and influential entrepreneurs.

The excellent Tim Harford has a programme on Radio 4 tomorrow night with the enticing title "Repugnant Markets". This is part of the Radio 4 Analysis programme

The International Energy Agency has published its latest forecasts for the world oil market and hints at the risk of an energy crunch as world oil consumption continues to expand set against an eventual decline in global oil reserves and the ability to expand production profitably.

Premier Foods has announced that the price of its Hovis and Mothers Pride branded breads will rise following the surge in world wheat prices. It is another example of how agri-flation is feeding through to the prices of processed foods.

Writing in today's Independent, Stephen King, chief economist of HSBC considers the problems of achieving control both of inflation and the exchange rate.

Top speakers, a full house of enthusiastic teachers and a superb venue made the Business Teacher National Conference 2007 perhaps the best-ever Inset event for Business teachers.

The National Farmers Union has this week called for the suspension of set aside payments from the EU in response to the impact of the floods. They claim that world stocks of cereal are at their lowest level for 30 years after disappointing world and EU harvests in 2006.

News that the troubled business Virgin Media is considering a £5.2bn takeover approach from Carlyle of the United States in what could become Britain's second-biggest private equity brings private equity back into the spotlight again.

A new report from the World Bank highlights the scale of the pollution crisis facing the booming Chinese economy. Sixteen of the world’s 20 most polluted cities are in China.

Developing a successful entrepreneurial culture is critical to our long term economic health. And in today’s Financial Times, Luke Johnson salutes the emergence of well over a thousand serial entrepreneurs as a huge positive for the British economy.

Stunning early sales for Apple's new iPhone provide a great example of the profits that can be made by selling to 'early adopters' - consumers willing and able to pay a premium price to be the first to get their hands on new technology; the first to be seen making use of the latest gadgets and gismos.

Are people 'cheating' by hiring staff to update their entries on social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace?

There was what on the surface a pretty shocking economic statistic revealed last week looks. Most of the media focus each month is on the latest inflation and labour market statistics and the implications of these and other macro indicators for the likely movement in official interest rates. But the figure that caused people to take notice last week was data which shows that the household savings ratio - the percentage of our disposable income that we choose to save rather than spend - has collapsed to just two per cent. It seems that, for now, people have given up on savings. This is the lowest savings ratio for over fifty years.

The new International Migration Outlook for 2007 published by the OECD finds that nearly four million new immigrants entered the 31-member nations of the OECD on a permanent basis in 2005, an increase of 10% from 2004.

The Office of National Statistics has published a new overview of the London economy which provides striking evidence of the divergences in economic performance between London and many other regions of the UK.

Timed for Blair’s resignation as Prime Minister, the CEP has published a series of policy briefings on aspects of the Blair decade. Some of these deal with his economic legacy and they look an excellent resource.

John Kay praises the work of the recently deceased Richard Rorty in his most recent column for the Financial Times

Higher interest rates, rising taxes and the prospect of choppier economic times ahead? Surely these trends might be enough to drive people to drink? The latest evidence from Majestic Wines is that the squeeze on disposable incomes is having little impact on the market demand for their range of wines. And it provides a good example of how premium products might be less sensitive to changes in incomes and consumer confidence than standard economic analysis might suggest.

More comment and analysis today on Blair and Brown’s economic legacy as the baton has changed hands and Gordon Brown has taken leave of the Treasury after over ten years in charge. Here is a selection of interesting features.

The tutor2u group on Facebook gives you the chance to keep in contact with the many teachers and students who use tutor2u.

The European Union competition authorities have blocked a potential £1bn takeover bid for Irish airline Aer Lingus from Ryanair provoking a furious response from the media savvy CEO of Ryanair Michael O’Leary.

I am a pretty hard and fast supporter of the new smoking ban since I feel that it might be one of the most important decisions ever made to improve the overall health of the nation. There is some emerging evidence of health benefits in Scotland where the ban from smoking in public places was introduced over a year ago. But I was taken by The Undercover Economist’s most recent piece which provides a useful and necessary counter-weight.

Reflections on the Tutor2u Economics Teacher Conference held at the London Stock Exchange Media Centre on Monday.

This is what happens when the BBC want to interview an expert about a legal case involving Apple computers. The only problem - they have the wrong man in the chair!

Inflation is back in the news again, are we seeing the end of the great macroeconomic stability of the last ten years?

These are some of the major long term challenges facing the EU – they are useful to be aware of because often, you can bring in longer term problems and issues when making final recommendations in your paper e.g. justifying a particular policy option because it ties in with the need to meet longer term strategic aims.

Revision comments on achieving higher marks for evaluation in AS Economics papers this week.

Essay plan for this question: Should the government leave house prices to market forces, or actively intervene to prevent a house price crash? Justify your answer.

Essay plan on this question: Identify and evaluate the private and external costs and benefits of a large rise in the number of new homes built in the UK.

The BBC Radio 4 programme File on 4 looked at the difficulties in the early stages of the EU's flagship carbon trading scheme last night.

Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Games (MMORGs) are spawning new forms of business activity - and possible clues about the economy of tomorrow

This BBC news online report highlights the fears over the long term damage of the growing scale of alcohol abuse in Australia.

This is a daily multiple choice test for students preparing for their AS exams this coming Friday. Each day from Monday through to Wednesday the blog will provide a pdf file with twelve questions – containing six micro and six macro questions. And the day afterwards we will produce a separate file containing the answers, so you can download and check them yourself.

The Times is running a series of articles this week on the health (or otherwise) of the British economy nearly fifteen years since the end of the last recession.

The European 'big 5' leagues reveal their income and wages bill for the current season. Chelsea alone spent £114m just on wages. The Premiership banked around £2000m, of which only a third came from ticket sales. Where is all this new wealth coming from, and who is getting it?

This revision note covers some of the areas of the AS and the A2 economics syllabuses where price elasticity of supply is important. The revision note is available for download as a pdf file.

Revision essay plan on deflation available for download in pdf format

What is the output gap and why is it significant for both inflation and unemployment? This downloadable pdf format essay plan provides some thoughts and latest data charts on the output gap for the UK.

Pdf format essay plan on this title "Discuss the view that, as an economy approaches full employment, inflation will inevitably accelerate"

Essay plan can be downloaded on this title: "Evaluate the view that a rising level of demand for imported goods and services may be harmful to the long term performance of the economy."

At A2 level you are expected to be able to use analysis diagrams to show the effects of changes in short and long run production costs on a firm’s prices, profits and output. This 2-page pdf file looks at the effect of cost changes.

There are thirteen countries inside the Euro Zone (Slovenia joined in January 2007)and Cyprus and Malta are scheduled to join the monetary union in January 2008/ This two page revision note considers the recent macroeconomic performance of the Euro Zone compared and contrasted with the UK.

Brief update on the latest numbers for the UK housing market together with a couple of charts

In today's Sunday Telegraph, Dan Roberts writes of a new breed of "disposable managers", increasingly vulnerable to shareholders who are prepared to ditch them when the businesses in which they have a stake are perceived to under-perform. The average life expectancy of CEOs and CFOs is shortening with every year and many top managers now have the job security usually associated with Premier League soccer supremos. The average tenure of FTSE100 chief executives is estimated to have fallen from 4.7 years to nearer 4.5 years - less than half what it is in Asia and the USA.

A one page pdf note on the economic importance of trade. The current wave of globalisation is characterised by a fast growth of world trade in goods and services. In 2006 there was an 8% expansion in merchandise trade - the second highest since 2000. Trade to GDP ratios continue to rise for the majority of countries. For the UK, the value of trade (exports and imports) as a share of GDP is now 65% - the highest ever. According to the World Trade Organisation, the dollar value of world merchandise exports increased by 15% to $11.76 trillion in 2006.

A revision note (2 page pdf file) on measuring the standard of living and problems of interpreting the data.

This blog entry links to a powerpoint presentation available for download in pdf format on the topic of market structure, conduct and performance, a way of analysing market structures and their outcomes, and useful for the A2 Economics exam.

Discussing the role of expectations in affecting consumer and business behaviour can add greatly to your analysis and evaluation marks at A2 level. This revision mind map covers some of the areas of the course where expectations can be important in shaping decisions and behaviour.

The team at Deutsche bank has produced a super short research piece on the future of cities – available free on their research web site. In “The future of the world is urban”, the research piece argues that “Ultimately, cities are the product of the division of labour and the exploitation of economies of scale.

I have attached with this entry a pdf file copy of a revision mind map used in final revision sessions with my AS economists -focusing on the areas in which I felt they should channel their revision. This file is available for download as a pdf.

A one page summary of recent developments in the UK economy to give an overview ahead of your macroeconomics papers.

In the last year, the Economist Global Commodity Price Index has climbed by 14%. Micro theory tells us that the prices of many commodities are frequently volatile – this provides a good reason for questions where students can apply supply and demand concepts and also evaluate the effectiveness of policies to influence and perhaps stabilise prices.

Revision notes on poverty and income inequality

Revision notes on poverty and inequality designed for A2 economists

Competitiveness has been variously defined, but a starting point might be the ability of a business / industry / sector / economy to compete fairly and successfully in markets for internationally traded goods and services that allows for rising standards of living over time

I have put up a mind map developed over the weekend which covers the revision that I have been doing with my groups on the economics of the housing market. The mind map includes lots of links and charts which might be useful for teachers and students.

I have put up a revision mind map in online format on aspects of the UK economy's performance during the current phase of globalisation. This might be useful for students preparing for their A2 papers

If you were staying in a budget hotel, would you prefer all the trimmings - or no shampoo, just a couple of towels, no iron, no bath mat - but a few quid off the bill?

Much of Namibia's sparse population lives outside the reach of electricity and telephone lines - or mobile signals. Satellite and solar power are providing an answer.

British Airways has been caught breaking Competition laws. A good case study in collusion and the political and legal constraints on firms.

It is now over fifteen years since the British economy last experienced a recession – defined as a period of at least six months when the value of national output actually declines. Recessions are thought to be an inevitable feature of economic cycles, which suggests that we are due one at some point. But there seems little chance of one occurring at the moment.

The Stern Review is a very important piece of work despite it having come under attack from various quarters. It is a report that calls for action – so called mitigation policies – to reduce carbon emissions now to first stabilise and then reduce the effects of climate change. The Review is over 600 pages long, I have tried to synthesise it into three pages focusing on some of the key ideas that can be used at A2 Economics level.

AS Economists will be going into their exams in a few weeks with the annual rate of consumer price inflation safely back within the allowable boundaries of the 2% inflation target! New data released today shows the annual change in CPI inflation edging down to 2.8% in April compared to 3.1% in March.

There is a brilliant little article on the BBC news website on the battle for software sales to the millions of small and medium sized enterprises (SME) around the world.

Economic recessions are rare and they do not last forever! In this revision note we consider what might lead an economy out of a state of recession and begin the recovery process.

We can find many reasons to question the assumption of profit maximisation. This revision note looks at some examples. Designed for A2 Economics students.

After ten years in office, how has Labour used fiscal policy to influence and manage the economy? Are the government finances in good shape? How might history judge Gordon Brown as he takes his leave of the Treasury? Here are some brief revision notes on fiscal policy.

A revision note on some of the influences on business pricing strategies - designed for A2 economists.

Catching up with some new data releases and research reports on the UK within the global economy and links to coverage of the economic legacy of ten years of the Blair government.

Virtually every business operating in real world markets engages in a strategy known as price discrimination. This pricing is also known as “price targeting” and “yield management” – but whatever the terminology, the aim of this is to raise revenue and achieve higher levels of profit by segmenting the market and charging different consumers different prices.

After 10 years as Prime minister, Tony Blair has announced a date when he will step down. A BBC article looks at his likely 'economic legacy'

In your revision of market supply and demand and the determination of prices it is worth remembering and reflecting that many markets are interdependent i.e. there are often strong relationships between what is happening in one market and second round effects on supply and/or demand in other markets.

Revision note on recent changes in the UK balance of payments on the current account.

Are Economists going soft? When I was a young student of economics, we spent ages looking at the markets for oil and hard metals because that was where the action was. We learned our supply and demand analysis and applied them to the volatile markets for precious metals, most of which none of us had ever heard of let alone touched! Well perhaps the current generation of school economists will be spending more time in the classroom trying to make sense of what is going on in the softer-end of the world commodity markets!

Today South West Trains stands accused of exploiting their monopoly power by raising the fares of many off-peak tickets by as much as twenty per cent.

Capital investment is defined as spending on capital goods such as new plant and machinery, buildings and technology so that the economy can produce more goods and services in the future. This also includes spending on new national infrastructure

Last week saw the tenth anniversary of the decision to give the Bank of England independence. Naturally there has been plenty of coverage in the media of this landmark and I have produced a selection of links to speeches, articles and commentaries for those who want to do some independent research.

Revision note on productivity - designed for AS Economics students

Global brands, love them or hate them, brands are a ubiquitous feature of a globalising world. The latest Global Brands survey for 2007 from Millward Brown places Google at the summit of their rankings

Tim Harford was on superb form when he addressed a meeting of the Keynes Society at Eton College on the 3rd of May.

Events and developments in one country inevitably have spill-over effects onto others. AS economics revision should consider some of these inter-relationships wherever possible. It will certainly help your analysis and evaluation.

AS economics revision note on the economic cycle

I have put together a couple of mock data response papers for my AS Economics students. Both focus on the UK economy. They can be downloaded as word files.

A mock data response paper on investment and long term economic performance - designed for AS students

Revision note on supply-side policies designed for AS economists

The pound seems to have settled at £1=$2 for the moment. But what are the effects of a strong currency? This revision note looks at some of the effects and finds that the wider macroeconomic impact is quite complex:

The Financial Times on Friday raised the problems and risks facing buy to let investors as signs emerge that this fast-growing aspect of the UK housing market may have reached its peak.

Some revision notes on examples of entry and exit barriers in markets

By 2012, the United States will have more private security guards than high school teachers. The USA is becoming a garrison economy and the UK is not far behind!

Business can grow in one of two main ways, either through internal or external expansion. There was a revealing article in the Financial Times a few days ago which reported that one of the world's biggest manufacturers of soft drinks, Pepsi, plans future expansion through takeovers rather than the organic growth of the business.

Stagflation is a dangerous combination of slower economic growth and rising inflation. It tends to come about when there has been an inflationary supply shock in the economy, such as a rise in the cost of imports, or higher energy prices.

The 2007 Reith Lectures are given by one of the world's foremost economists, Professor Jeffrey Sachs.

Will we always have banknotes and coins? Hard to say, but the penny might be the first to go...

Having climbed above $2 a few days ago, sterling seems likely to remain above this level for the time being.

Three Dutch brewers, Heineken, Grolsch and Bavaria, have been fined a total of 273.7m euros by the European Commission (£185m) by regulators for price fixing.

Academics think they've found an answer to this age old question.....

As our consumption of goods and services grows every year, so the date when we move into ecoological debt arrives ever sooner with each passing year.

China's stock of foreign-exchange reserves have climbed to a record $1.2 trillion, a level nearly forty per cent higher than twelve months ago.

Remember the date - the 17th of April 2007. Tantalisingly close to the tenth anniversary of the Bank of England being granted independence and the power to run monetary policy, new data shows that consumer price inflation in the UK has risen to 3.1% - outside of target range for the first time.

A new chart present