Business and Economics

By Mary Mellor, Emeritus Professor, Northumbria University author of The Future of Money Pluto 2010 Things have not been going well for the bitcoin experiment recently. There have been accusations of money laundering, enabling the global drugs trade, tax and capital control evasion, fraud and theft (leading to the collapse of the MtGox exchange). Prices have fluctuated wildly and monetary authorities are suspicious, if not actively hostile. What is bitcoin? It is a privately issued digital currency. It can be earned by...

By Adam Walker, Economics Correspondent Are Academic Attitudes Degrading The Manufacturing Industry? Over the past 30 years the UK has gone from housing a manufacturing industry to being an almost entirely service-based economy with a particular emphasis on the financial sector. On The London Economic we have discussed this in a number of articles including Jack Peat’s article on 3D printing aiding British manufacturing and one of my previous articles on whether London’s service sector is draining the UK. Regardless of the...

By Valentina Magri A missed goal and a missing report. They are the main drivers of a revitalised debate over immigration in the UK. The missed goal concerns net flow of migrants. According to recent data over migration in the UK, David Cameron is unlikely to meet his migration target of under 100,000 migrants by 2015. The Office for National Statistics estimated a net flow of 212,000 migrants to the UK in the 12 months to September 2013 (compared to...

By Artur Salles Lisboa de Oliveira, writer for Exame The Brazilian economy benefited significantly from the commodities boom throughout the 2000’s, allowing it to keep a strong inflow of capital which led to rising reserves and currency stability. Despite these favourable conditions, authorities didn’t succeed in promoting economic growth by addressing crucial issues such as infrastructure bottlenecks, high energy costs and excessive bureaucracy. Instead of tackling these aspects, the government exhibits a strong inclination to replicate the failing policies of...

By Jack Peat, Editor  We looked into the internet phenomenon known as Clickbait; we didn’t expect to uncover this mindblowing secret! Ten reasons why posting content to an online audience differs from attracting readership in the real world. Ok, perhaps we don’t have ten, but we do have one thing; your attention. You see, the internet is like a vast ocean home to a unique ecosystem of animals without properties of the material world. In the same way marine creatures...

By Adam Walker, Economics Correspondent  Since the global recession struck we have cut society into two vastly unequal groups as a means of pigeon holing blame. The one per cent - those with a total household income that exceeds £300,000 annually – have become targets in the financial downturn. The credit crunch in 2007, the Icelandic Banking crisis in late 2008 and the Eurozone Sovereign Debt crisis in 2010 have all at one point referred back to this section of...

By Valentina Magri The Bank of England (BoE) gave us both good and bad news during the presentation of the last inflation report in February. The good news: the UK will be one of the fastest-growing advanced economies, with a GDP growth equal to +2.6 per cent. The bad news: this growth relies too much on consumer spending. Indeed, the inflation report shows that consumption contribution to GDP have risen from 0.4 percentage points of the second quarter of 2013...

By Jack Peat, Editor of The London Economic  The great London housing crisis is a potent example of how capitalist structures fail when left to their own devices. Mayor of London Boris Johnson believes we would be utterly nuts as a society if we "slammed the door" on wealthy foreigners buying property in the capital. Loosely translated, this means that London residents are competing with the top one per cent of wealth in the world in a market that is...

By Stephen Angus Peter Junor China’s urbanisation plan is designed to boost the economy by increasing domestic consumption and connecting more people to the global workplace. The government also hope to improve living standards for everyone, but urbanisation can have drastic and irreversible effects on the environment while also reshaping the cultural fabric of the country which has historically been very rural. The last couple of years have seen the urban population outnumber the rural population for the first time in...