Why study economics?
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This document provides an overview of various topics in economics that are studied at the A-Level, including: why economics studies human behavior and markets; what explains the divide between rich and poor; how businesses and consumers will be affected by Brexit; and other issues such as climate change, the future of work, housing affordability, and economic forecasts. For each topic, the document provides a brief description and prompts the reader to access more background information using a QR code or video link.
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Why study economics?
- 1. Why Study Economics? A selection of topical issues in A level economics
- 2. Economics as a social science • Economics studies human behaviour • We study how markets work and how they fail • We seek to understand the dynamics of change at a micro level (e.g. within an industry) and at a macro level (e.g. within and between countries) • For each issue on the slides that follow, point your smartphone on the QR code to access recommended background reading or click to a relevant You Tube video
- 3. What explains the stark and persistent divide between rich and poor? The global top 1 percent earned twice as much as the bottom 50 percent in recent years.
- 4. How will businesses and consumers be affected by Brexit?
- 5. Should the UK rail industry be nationalised?
- 6. What future for cinemas in a world dominated by Netflix and Amazon?
- 7. Are giant digital companies abusing their monopoly power?
- 8. How can we nudge social behaviours to tackle climate change? The Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change warned in 2018 that the world must accomplish “rapid and far- reaching” low-carbon transitions in land, energy, industry, buildings, transport, and cities to keep global warming to 1.5°C.
- 9. Which policies are effective in curbing the plastic pollution crisis?
- 10. The sugar tax – is it an effective way to tackle the social costs of obesity?
- 11. Is labour migration good for an economy in the long run?
- 12. Who are the winners and losers from trade wars?
- 13. What is the future of work in a world of artificial intelligence?
- 14. Should we tax robots? The pace of industrial automation is accelerating across much of the developed and emerging market world
- 15. How soon will electric vehicles become the norm? Will they stimulate faster economic growth?
- 16. Is there a strong case for the government to provide a basic income for all?
- 17. What can and what should be done about the gender pay gap?
- 18. How can we make housing more affordable?
- 19. Does globalisation create more winners than losers? Is the age of globalisation coming to an end?
- 20. Is there a future for cash? In Sweden, 19 per cent of payments are made using cash, compared with a European average of nearly 80 per cent In the UK, there were 13.2billion debit card payments in 2017, eclipsing the 13.1billion payments in cash. 3.4million people said they almost never used notes and coins.
- 21. Should the government introduce tougher rules on gambling? A Gambling Commission report in 2017 found more than 2 million people were addicted to gambling or at risk of developing a problem.
- 22. What is the value of a university degree? How should we fund further & higher education?
- 23. Does the Gig Economy improve our well-being? How should the rights of workers be protected?
- 24. Does sub Saharan Africa benefit in the long run from foreign direct investment from countries such as China? In 2018, Sub-Saharan Africa was home to 27 of the world’s 28 poorest countries and had more extremely poor people than in the rest of the world combined
- 25. Will China experience an economic crisis?
- 26. Why is it so hard to make accurate economic forecasts?
- 27. Want to find out more?
Editor's Notes
- In 2016, the world generated 242 million metric tons of plastic waste—12 percent of all municipal solid waste, according to the What a Waste report. Some 90 percent of floating marine debris is plastic, of which nearly 62 percent is food and beverage packaging
- For the UK, In the year ending June 2018: 625,000 people migrated into the UK and 351,000 people emigrated from it, leaving a net migration figure of +273,000. This represents the balance of long-term migrants moving in and out of the country. 6.2 million people were living in the UK who had the nationality of a different country (9% of the total population). 3.7 million EU nationals (excluding UK) were living in the UK. 785,000 UK nationals were living in other EU countries excluding Ireland. The number of people migrating to the UK has been greater than the number emigrating since 1994
- A basic income guarantee (known also as basic income, unconditional basic income, universal basic income etc.) is a new kind of welfare programme in which all citizens / permanent residents of a country receive from the government a regular, liveable and unconditional amount of money.
- The gender pay gap measures the difference between average hourly earnings of men and women. Among full-time employees, women tend to be paid less per hour than men, while the opposite is true for part-time employees. Median hourly pay for full-time employees was 8.6% less for women than for men at April 2018, while median hourly pay for part-time employees was 4.4% higher for women than for men (figures exclude overtime pay). The median is the point at which half of people earn more and half earn less.
- Commentators are increasingly making the point that, in addition to a crisis in housing supply, England is in the grip of a crisis of affordability.
- The OECD defines globalisation as “the economic integration of different countries through growing freedom of movement across national boundaries of goods, services, capital and people”. Globalisation has coincided with a decrease in extreme global poverty and a decrease in inequality between countries. However, globalisation has also coincided with an increase in inequality within countries according to some measures, and can have both positive and negative effects on the labour market in developed economies.
- Higher education tuition fees of £1,000 per year were first introduced by the Labour Government in 1998. These fees were paid upfront by students at the start of the academic year. In 2006 fees were raised to £3,000 and a new system of variable deferred fees and tuition fees loans was introduced. From 2006 fees rose gradually by inflation until 2012 when, under the Coalition Government, tuition fees were raised to £9,000 per year The student finance reforms at this time also included raising the repayment threshold to £21,000 and introducing a variable tiered rate of interest on student loans.