Theme 2 - The UK Economy - Performance And Policies Flashcards
What is the breakdown of spending in the UK economy?
65% - consumer spending (C)
25% - government spending (G)
15% - investments (I)
What percentage is spending in the UK economy?
105%
What does X - M mean?
Exports - Imports
What value is X - M equal to?
-5%
What are the 2 names in ‘The Circular Flow of Income’ diagram?
Households
Firms
What are the 3 injections into the UK economy?
- government spending (G)
- investments (I)
- exports (X)
What are the 3 withdrawals out of the UK economy?
- savings
- taxes
- imports (M)
When injections > withdrawals… (2)
There is greater GDP and the economy grows
What are the 3 methods to calculate economic activity?
- expenditure method (sum of all spending)
- output method (sum of total output by firms)
- income method (sum of total value of income of firms)
The 3 methods to calculate economic activity should be…
… the same but might not be due to correction values
In terms of ‘The Circular Flow of Income’, what is transferred from Households to Firms?
Capital, land, labour, enterprise (CELL)
Expenditure on goods and services (GDP)
In terms of ‘The Circular Flow of Income’, what is transferred from Firms to Households?
Goods + services
Interest, profit, rent, wages (in order of CELL)
What is GDP?
The total amount of all spending within an economy
What are the 4 ways of measuring Economic Output?
- GDP (output of goods and services)
- nominal GDP (doesn’t include inflation)
- GDP per capita
- GNP (Gross National Product) (also includes earnings from overseas)
What are the government’s 7 economic objectives? (I busied)
- inflation (2%)
- balance of payments (exports/imports)
- unemployment rate
- sustainability
- inequality
- economic growth
- debts
What is Aggregate Demand?
The total amount of demand in the economy
What makes up Aggregate Demand?
C - consumption - 65%
I - investments - 15%
G - government spending - 25%
X - exports
M - imports
Equation for Aggregate Demand
C + I + G + (X - M) = -5%
What is consumption?
The expenditure on goods and services by consumers
What are the main factors that influence the levels of consumer spending? (6)
- income (disposable)
- inflation rate
- taxation
- confidence
- interest rate
- trends/fashion
What is trend growth?
The estimated rate of growth of a nation’s productive potential
Name all the parts of a trend growth graph (7)
- trend growth line (straight, tilted gradient)
- boom
- peak
- recession
- depression
- trough
- recovery
What are the x and y axis labelled in an economic growth graph?
X-axis - time
Y-axis - GDP
Describe where each term is located on a trend growth diagram (6)
- boom - increase above trend growth line
- peak - high point after boom but before recession
- recession - decrease above trend growth line
- depression - decrease below trend growth line
- trough - low point after depression but before recovery
- recovery - increase below trend growth line
What are the 3 main types of government spending?
- current expenditure
- capital expenditure
- transfer payments (benefits)
Key factors influencing consumer spending (11)
- amount and changes to real disposable income (Yd)
- employment and job security
- availability and cost of consumer credit
- rate of interest
- cost of servicing a mortgage
- the wealth effect (changes in asset price) (physical or monetary)
- future price changes (inflation, disinflation, deinflation)
- consumer confidence/pessimism
- expectations
- composition of households (% of total disposable income)
- level of savings
What is marginal propensity to consume? (Include equation)
The proportion of a raise in income that is spent on the consumption of goods and services
MPC = change in consumption / change in income
What is marginal propensity to save? (Include equation)
Proportion of an increase in income that’s saved
MPS = change in saving / change in income
Equation including MPC and MPS
MPC + MPS = 1 = increase in income
0.6 + 0.4 = 1
Types of investment (3)
- capital
- gross
- net
What is capital investment?
Spending on machinery, equipment, factories, technology and infrastructure to create new capital goods
What is gross investment?
The total amount that the economy spends on new capital (includes capital depreciation)
What is net investment?
Gross investment - cost of depreciation of those assets
Factors influencing investment (7)
- interest rates + availability of business finance/credit
- expected profits + retained profits + business taxes
- actual + expected demand for goods + services (accelerator effect)
- business confidence (ie animal spirits)
- rate of technological change
- price of product + risk related to it
- government policy
What are the main areas of government spending? (7)
- health and social care
- education
- debt interest
- defence
- transport
- home office
- justice
What 2 things should be balanced to meet the government’s budget?
Expenditure and Income
How long is a deficit for?
1 year
How long is a debt for?
The accumulative deficits
A budget (fiscal) deficit is when… is greater than…
Spending > Income
Debt is…
The % of GDP
What is a bond?
When the government borrows money and then pays it back with interest
The interest on bonds is called…
Yield
What are the 4 types of unemployment?
- frictional
- structural
- cyclical
- seasonal
What is frictional unemployment?
When someone is out of work due to personal short term unemployment
What is structural unemployment?
When someone’s skills are no longer relevant
What is cyclical unemployment?
When someone’s unemployed due to economic reasons
What is seasonal unemployment?
When someone has no work during parts of the year
Consequences of unemployment (6)
- reduced consumption
- cost to the government (opportunity cost and reduced tax)
- cost to taxpayers (increased tax)
- businesses may have to close
- the unemployed person’s skills become more irrelevant as time passes
- lower GDP
Causes of unemployment (9)
- high interest rates
- global recession
- negative multiplier effect
- financial crisis
- technological change
- real wage unemployment
- geographical immobility
- structural-mismatch of skills
- frictional
Someone is classed as unemployed if they are (4):
- out of work
- available for work
- actively seeking employment
- aged 18-66
Measures the government are taking to get more economically inactive people to work (4)
- back to work schemes
- work experience
- cutting their benefits
- training programmes
What does economically inactive mean?
Someone of working age (18-66) who isn’t employed or been looking for work in the past 4 weeks
What does LFS stand for?
Labour force survey
What is another name for the LFS?
The ILO
What is the LFS?
A survey of 80,000 people across society that counts those without a job in the last 4 weeks and who can start a job within the next 2 weeks
What are the criteria for the LFS? (3)
- those without a job in the past 4 weeks and who can start a job in the next 2 weeks
- aged 16-70
What are the advantages to LFS (over C.C)? (4)
- used in Europe (comparable)
- wider criteria
- measures ‘students’ and ‘retirees’
- measures underemployment
What are the problems with LFS (compared to C.C)? (3)
- can be out of date
- people may lie
- more expensive to create
Fisical policy effects…
Demand
What is the fisical policy/how does it work?
It uses taxation and government spending to impact demand
- increase tax to reduce demand
- reduce tax to increase demand
What is fisical drag/how does it work?
The government keeps income brackets the same but increases wages which means they collect more taxes but people are happy to recieve increased wages
Increasing government spending… aggregate demand
Increases
Government spending is around …% of GDP
45%
What are the impacts of government spending? (4)
- increase in AD
- multiplier effect
- offsetting economic declines
- infrastructure (increases business investment,productivity + demand)
Inflation is…
The general increase of prices
Deflation is…
The general decrease of prices
Consumer price index … mortgage interest payments
…excludes…
Retail price index … mortgage interest payments
…includes…
Inflation leads to…
A fall in the real value of money
What is demand pull?
When consumers have too much money they spend too much then prices start to rise as they outbid each other
What is cost push?
When suppliers see an increase in their own costs so they push them onto the consumer
What is the equation for working out the multipler for the multiplier effect? (3)
1 / marginal propensity to save (MPS)
or
1 / (1-MPC)
or
1 / (MPS + MPT + MPM)
What is the wealth effect?
When someone’s income increases, their consumption is expected to increase too
What are the factors that affect the multiplier value and how? (4)
- MPC - higher leads to a larger multiplier value
- Leakages - higher leads to a lower multiplier value
- Degree of spare capacity - little spare capacity limits the multiplier value
- Time frame - in the ST factors such as capacity constraints and rigidities in adjusting production limits the multiplier value
How do we measure inflation?
Base year index + price change (%) = price index
Price index x weighting = price-weighted index
Total price-weighted index / 100 = new index number
New index number - base year index = inflation (%)
What is the target for inflation?
1% either side of 2% (1%-3% range)
Net trade = … + …
Imports + exports
The balance of payments measures…
All international economic transactions between the UK and it’s trading partners
The 3 accounts in the balance of payments are…
- current account (-)
- capital account
- financial account (+)