ECONOMICS FOR GLOBAL BUSINESS
Question (Part A)
How successful have the British Government and the Bank of England been in running the British Economy over the last 2 years?
Introduction
This essay will demonstrate the measures of success that the British Government and Bank of England have delivered for the periods of 2010 and 2011. In order to achieve this outcome it was first necessary to briefly describe some background to how the Bank of England became so involved and how their input has had a direct affect on inflation and interest rates, which are two measurable indicators used in business and economics.
In terms of measuring success it was also necessary to compare and contrast other European countries economic
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A Bank of England report (www.bankofengland.co.uk ) into the effect of its first round of QE (that is, the £200bn worth of purchases made between March and November 2009) suggested that the measure had helped to increase the UK 's annual economic output by between 1.5% and 2%, indicating that the effects of the programme had been "economically significant".
At the same time interest rates in the UK rose from 1.8% to 3% over the 2 years of 2010 and 2011. In contrast to their European neighbours, the UK saw higher interest rates with the average across Europe across the 24months of 2010 and 2011 at approximately 1.2%. (trading economics 2013).
Conclusion
The conclusion drawn from the information obtained is that the Bank of England and the UK have been relatively successful if measured against other similar sized nations across Europe. True measurement though is done by looking at unemployment, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth, Bank of England interest rate, inflation rate, 3 month Treasury rate, public debt, and imports and exports, (economics watch 2013). In this case the UK has not done so well with higher inflation, freezes on public services, increased national debt and increased unemployment (economics watch 2013) – this therefore is more of the effects on the people of the UK as a result of
The performance of the UK economy depends very much on the level of Aggregate demand within the economy. AD=C+I+G+(X-M). The UK economy can be judged by a number of key indicators mainly sustainable economic growth, low inflation (target 2%), a surplus on the
this essay I will be explaining why the Bank of England introduced a quantitative easing programme and how it operates as well as explaining the effect this programme has had by evaluating if it has been successful. My essay is in five sections: what is quantitative easing, when was it used and why, how does it work, impacts of the programme and finally has it been successful.
UK government was very swift in its response the financial crisis. Various measures were taken to address the economic anomaly that came with the crisis. These range from various monetary policies to fiscal policies. Some of these policies are discussed below:
“Since 2007 to mid 2009, global financial markets and systems have been in the grip of the worst financial crisis since the depression era of the late 1920s. Major Banks in the U.S., the U.K. and Europe have collapsed and been bailed out by state aid”. (Valdez and Molyneux, 2010) Identify the main macroeconomic and microeconomic causes that resulted in the above-mentioned crisis and make an assessment of the success or otherwise of the actions taken by the U.K government to resolve the problem.
UK government has spent 94.4% of the GDP to bail out the banking system as follows:
The government has been implementing policies in the improvement of the growth in the UK. Such as improving economic growth during the Great Depression and the recent financial crisis. A brief history by (Pettinger, 2016) on the use of fiscal policy, Keynes promoted the use of fiscal policy as a way of boosting growth. Moreover, during 1970-1980s the government switched to using monetary policy in influencing the economy. However, the government later reverted to using the fiscal policy in the recession of 2008-2013. Whether or not fiscal policy is the key policy in the process of improving economic growth is the issue.
Inflation; ‘a situation in which prices rise in order to keep up with increased production costs… result[ing] [in] the purchasing power of money fall[ing]’ (Collin:101) is quickly becoming a problem for the government of the United Kingdom in these post-recession years. The economic recovery, essential to the wellbeing of the British economy, may be in jeopardy as inflation continues to rise, reducing the purchasing power of the public. This, in turn, reduces demand for goods and services, and could potentially plummet the UK back into recession. This essay discusses the causes of inflation, policy options available to the UK government and the Bank of England (the central bank of the UK responsible for monetary policy), and the effects
One major event that took place in the latter part of 2014 was the vote on whether Scotland was to continue being a part of the UK – the Scottish Referendum. The vote took place on the 18th September 2014, with 84.6% of the Scottish population voting. The question that was asked to voters was ‘Should Scotland be an independent country?’ The result of the vote was 55.5% voting ‘No’ and 44.5% voting ‘Yes’ (The Scottish Government, 2014). The result of this vote had potentially harmful repercussions for many country’s monetary and financial systems, including the UK. This report will critically evaluate the impact that the Scottish Referendum has and may have for the UK.
The economic reforms initiated by Prime Minister Margret Thatcher since 1980’s has made the United Kingdom record steady economic growth in the 1990s. However, successive Labour governments increased government spending significantly. Since 2010, the government upheld austerity as the principal of its economic policy. In 2014, the country recorded its strongest economic growth since 2007 of 2.387 trillion dollars with GDP per capita at 39,350.64 dollars. The GDP increased significantly because of the enhanced performance of the construction, manufacturing, and services sectors. Retail sales also increased with unemployment relatively at lowest
Inflation is a possible cause of higher unemployment in the medium term if one country experiences a much higher rate of inflation than another, leading to a loss of international competitiveness and a subsequent worsening of their trade performance. If inflation in the UK is persistently above our major trading partners, British exporters may struggle to maintain their share in overseas markets and import penetration into the UK domestic market will grow. Both trends could lead to a worsening balance of payments. The UK government believes that monetary stability (i.e. low inflation) is a precondition for sustained economic expansion. As the chart below demonstrates, the UK has made progress in reducing the volatility of its inflation rate in the last decade. The era of high and volatile inflation may have come to an end.
George Bernard Shaw, a nobel Prize for Literature in 1925 once said, “If all the economists were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion” (Mankiw, 1998: 34). Yet, an economic comparison between the United Kingdom and the United States could still be made to distinguish the country with the better economic growth performance. Important indicators when comparing economies is economic growth rate, which is a measure of the yearly rate of development rate of GDP using the market prices (Ros, 2013: 26). Another indicator is the GDP, which is defined as the total amount of goods and services produced in a country per year (Mankiw, 2009: 521). Also, the inflation rate is used, which is a continuos increase in the prices for goods and services in the consumer price index and it is measured yearly (Herr & Kazandziska, 2011: 74). Lastly, the unemployment rate shows the percentage of people whiling and could work but do not have a job (Macdonald, 1999: 238). This report will compare the economic growth performance of the United States and the United Kingdom since 1990 using four indicators: economic growth rate, GDP, inflation, and unemployment rate.
Since the global financial crisis of 2008, the UK government has been implementing various policies to combat the recession and stimulate economic growth. This essay will look at how effective the fiscal and monetary policies used since the crisis are in achieving the four-macro economic objectives. In addition, I will provide my input on the best way the UK government can carry out these policies.
After the Global Financial crises of 2008, UK economy was severely affected and had dipped into recession. Thus, this led to a fall in market confidence, lower GDP growth and higher levels of unemployment. In order to boost the economy, expansionary monetary policies were adopted by the Bank of England. Interest Rates were cut to historic low of 0.5%. However, the economy was still not out of recession and conventional monetary policies failed to work even when interest rates were near zero bound. So, the central bank used unconventional monetary tools such as Quantitative Easing i.e. buying government bonds and injecting money into the economy. This policy was accompanied by a rather new policy known as the Forward Guidance in August,
This report will explain the meaning of Brexit and introduce the influence of Brexit on macroeconomic in Britain. The definition of Brexit is that the Unite Kingdom (UK) will exit from European Union (EU), which raising concern around the world. Brexit has drawn greater worldwide attention, then the increasing number of questions which about the damaging of British macroeconomic has been referred. According to “Brexit means Brexit”, which said by the prime minister of UK. The government of Britain is determined to deliver an exit from the EU. Moreover we can not ignore that the UK has already been a semi-detached
This one is for all you Englishmen (and women) out there. Don't worry, we didn't forget about you. As you already know, England has a complex financial ecosystem and no one covers it better than the Economist. Unlike Bloomberg and Forbes, the Economist delivers the most in-depth news on the U.K. around. It even does global issues as well but the specialty of this organization revolves around England. Keep in mind, this is no place for fun. Sure, finance can be fun at times but as its name suggests, the Economist is all about the economy. And that's it.