Shock news - Jamaica tops Rio Olympics medal table with China and USA at the bottom.

Jamaica tops the gold medal table, Uzbekistan enters the top ten and China and USA fall to the bottom.

Analysis of the top 21 gold medal winning countries by www.EconomicsRevealed.co.uk reveals that once the gold medal places are re-adjusted in order to take into account the relative economic size of each country then Jamaica becomes the surprise winner and the USA and China falls to the bottom of the table.

It seems that money cannot buy you success at the Olympics.

Economist, Nick Langston-Able (Associate Lecturer at a leading UK university) analysed the gold medal results and compared them to the GDP of each country (GDP stands for Gross Domestic Product and is a standard measure of a country's economic size as it measures the output of all goods and services over a year).

The surprise result sees Jamaica as the most successful country in comparison to its economic size with Croatia in second place and Kenya coming in third.  Uzbekistan becomes a surprise entrant in at number eight in the table.

The large economies of USA and China find themselves at the bottom of the table with Team GB finishing in the number 12 spot.

Economist, Nick Langston-Able who carried out the research commented:

"Jamaica has a relatively small GDP and would not be regarded as a rich country but it has put in an excellent performance despite this.

"In terms of economic size, the UK is over 200 times bigger than Jamaica but only achieved three and a half times as many gold medals.

"The economy of the USA is over 1200 times bigger than Jamaica but the USA's medal haul does not reflect that.

"The relatively poorest country on the list is Jamaica and they have done brilliantly coming top of this revised medal table.

"Team GB have come a creditable tenth, just beneath Netherlands.

"It seems that perhaps money can't buy you success."

Countries with relatively large GDPs which did not even make it into the top 21 included India, Mexico, Indonesia and Turkey.



Here are the full results of the top 21 gold medal winning countries when adjusted for GDP:

Country	Gold Medals	GDP (billions of dollars)	GDP per medal (billions of dollars)
Jamaica	6	14	2
Croatia	5	49	10
Kenya	6	63	11
Hungary	8	121	15
Cuba	5	78	16
Uzbekistan	4	67	17
New Zealand	4	174	44
Russia	19	1326	70
Netherlands	8	753	94
GB	27	2849	106
South Korea	9	1378	153
Australia	8	1340	168
Spain	7	1199	171
Germany	17	3356	197
Italy	8	1815	227
France	10	2422	242
Brazil	7	1775	254
Japan	12	4123	344
Canada	4	1551	388
USA	46	17946	390
China	26	10866	418

Further analysis has also been done looking at gold medal performance in comparison to the size of each country's population.   See here.

Shock news - Jamaica tops gold medal table with USA and China at the bottom.

Jamaica tops the gold medal table, Uzbekistan enters the top ten and China and USA fall to the bottom.

Analysis of the top 21 gold medal winning countries by www.EconomicsRevealed.co.uk reveals that once the gold medal places are re-adjusted in order to take into account the relative economic size of each country then Jamaica becomes the surprise winner and the USA and China falls to the bottom of the table.

It seems that money cannot buy you success at the Olympics.

Economist, Nick Langston-Able (Associate Lecturer at a leading UK university) analysed the gold medal results and compared them to the GDP of each country (GDP stands for Gross Domestic Product and is a standard measure of a country's economic size as it measures the output of all goods and services over a year).

The surprise result sees Jamaica as the most successful country in comparison to its economic size with Croatia in second place and Kenya coming in third.  Uzbekistan becomes a surprise entrant in at number eight in the table.

The large economies of USA and China find themselves at the bottom of the table with Team GB finishing in the number 12 spot.

Economist, Nick Langston-Able who carried out the research commented:

"Jamaica has a relatively small GDP and would not be regarded as a rich country but it has put in an excellent performance despite this.

"In terms of economic size, the UK is over 200 times bigger than Jamaica but only achieved three and a half times as many gold medals.

"The economy of the USA is over 1200 times bigger than Jamaica but the USA's medal haul does not reflect that.

"The relatively poorest country on the list is Jamaica and they have done brilliantly coming top of this revised medal table.

"Team GB have come a creditable tenth, just beneath Netherlands.

"It seems that perhaps money can't buy you success."

Countries with relatively large GDPs which did not even make it into the top 21 included India, Mexico, Indonesia and Turkey.



Here are the full results of the top 21 gold medal winning countries when adjusted for GDP:

Country	Gold Medals	GDP (billions of dollars)	GDP per medal (billions of dollars)
Jamaica	6	14	2
Croatia	5	49	10
Kenya	6	63	11
Hungary	8	121	15
Cuba	5	78	16
Uzbekistan	4	67	17
New Zealand	4	174	44
Russia	19	1326	70
Netherlands	8	753	94
GB	27	2849	106
South Korea	9	1378	153
Australia	8	1340	168
Spain	7	1199	171
Germany	17	3356	197
Italy	8	1815	227
France	10	2422	242
Brazil	7	1775	254
Japan	12	4123	344
Canada	4	1551	388
USA	46	17946	390
China	26	10866	418

Further analysis has also been done looking at gold medal performance in comparison to the size of each country's population.   See here.

Shock news - Jamaica tops gold medal table for Rio Olympics with TeamGB finishing seventh.

Jamaica tops the table, Team GB finish seventh with China in last place.

Analysis of the top 21 gold medal winning countries by www.EconomicsRevealed.co.uk reveals that once the gold medal places are re-adjusted in order to take into account the relative size of each country then Jamaica becomes the clear winner with 1 gold medal per 500,000 citizens.

The surprise result sees Croatia finishing second in the table with 1 gold medal per 800,000 citizens and Hungary finishing third with 1 gold medal per 1.3 million citizens.

New Zealanders will be excited to find themselves in joint third place, also with 1 gold medal per 1.3 million citizens.

In a disappointing result, China find itself at number 21 in the top 21 countries with 1 medal per 53.8 million citizens.

Economist, Nick Langston-Able (Associate Lecturer at a leading UK university) who carried out the research commented:

"It is fascinating to look at how the gold medal performance of different countries changes once you take into account the relative populations of those countries.

"Jamaica has performed brilliantly- for every 500,000 people in Jamaica there is a gold medal winner.

"The performance of China, with its population of 1.4 billion looks less impressive with a gold medal winner for every 53.8 million people.

"If population and gold medals were directly linked then China should have one over 100 times more gold medals than Jamaica did and around 20 times more than Team GB did.

"So Team GB can still be very proud but I would imagine the Kiwis will take some satisfaction from this result!"

Countries with relatively large populations which did not feature in this table and so have very much under-performed include India, Mexico, Indonesia and Turkey.


Here are the full results of the top 21 gold medal winning countries when adjusted for population size:

Country	Gold Medals	Population (millions)	Population per medal (millions)
Jamaica	6	3	0.5
Croatia	5	4	0.8
New Zealand	4	5	1.3
Hungary	8	10	1.3
Netherlands	8	17	2.1
Cuba	5	11	2.2
GB	27	65	2.4
Australia	8	24	3.0
Germany	17	82	4.8
South Korea	9	51	5.7
France	10	65	6.5
Spain	7	46	6.6
USA	46	324	7.0
Kenya	6	44	7.3
Italy	8	61	7.6
Russia	19	147	7.7
Uzbekistan	4	32	8.0
Canada	4	37	9.3
Japan	12	127	10.6
Brazil	7	207	29.6
China	26	1,400	53.8

Further analysis has also been done looking at gold medal performance in comparison to the size of each country's GDP (Gross Domestic Product - the amount each country produces in a year and a common measurement of the economic size of a country).  See here.

Mobile Roaming Charges - Virgin Mobile under the spotlight

There has been a great deal of discussion about mobile phone operators and the extent to which they operate fairly and competitively.  Here is an interesting story:

N went to Dubai and Oman for 2 weeks.  He made and received no calls, the reason being that Virgin Mobile had a published tariff rate which stated here what all the rates were:  £1 to receive calls and £4 to make calls.  He decided not to access voicemail until he returned to the UK as he assumed that this would also incur a charge if he got through to it.

However, on returning to the UK he checked his account and his bill was way higher than usual and there were a collection of strange items on his bill for call received and made, even though he had not made nor received any calls and the phone log on this phone clearly showed this.

On contacting Virgin Mobile on 18th March, straight after he returned, he was told he would be called back within 3 days but this never happened.  On or around 30th March he spent 70 minutes on the phone to a call centre which left him on hold twice, the second time never coming back to him.  He tried phoning again and spoke to someone who said that they could not help because if the system said he made call then he made calls, even though his phone said otherwise.  On asking to make a complaint they seemed to have no clear system for dealing with this.


We will keep you updated on any progress on this but in the meanwhile be very wary of Virgin Mobile.  Once we hear of a response from them we will, of course, publish it.

Boosting the economy with Fiscal Policy. What is the Multiplier and how does it work?

Today at the University of the West of England in Bristol, undergraduate economists have been considering the ideas of John Maynard Keynes.  This is very relevant for countries such as Greece who are being told to increase taxes, cut government spending and balance their budget as this is not necessarily what Keynes would have recommended

John Maynard Keynes suggested that in an economic downturn you needed to inspire confidence in the economy - consumers tend to stop spending through a lack of income but also fear*, businesses do the same, so it takes the government to step in and start spending to get the whole thing moving again - perhaps through investment on infrastructure like roads and schools which gets people working and spending.

*(If you are really interested then further reading on 'the paradox of thrift' and 'the circular flow of income' would prove useful)

Keynes suggested that this government expenditure could be funded by borrowing.  This is fine if the government doesn't have too much debt but not so fine if you have the debt levels of Greece.  Interestingly, the USA, despite its debt levels, has tried this kind of 'fiscal stimulus' over the last few years and it has been relatively successful; in the UK, however, the government has been against this policy, has aimed to cut government spending and some have argued this has made the downturn in the UK worse.

How does 'the multiplier' fit into this?

The multiplier suggests that if an economy gets an injection of new money, this money gets spent a number of times and so multiplies in value.  Think about a new housing development - money gets paid to the developers, they pay suppliers and workers, those groups spend it in local shops or down the pub, etc, etc.  Bits of that initial pot of money will get spent thousands of times over the next few years which will boost the economy and increase Gross Domestic Product.

However, does all the money get spent?  No.  Some of it leaks out. 

Some it gets saved, some of it goes to the government in taxation, some of it gets spent on imports.  So we need to know how much leaks out and how much gets spent.

Let's assume the following:

There is an injection of new money into the economy - this could be £1000 of government spending on a new road, or £1000 investment in a new factory or an extra £1000 of exports we sell to a foreign country.

Of that £1000, assume that 40% goes in tax to the government, 10% gets spent on imports and 5% gets saved.  This means that 45% actually gets spent and 55% gets withdrawn.

In economic terms, the above information means that the marginal rate of taxation is 0.4 (40%), the marginal propensity to import is 0.1 (10%) and the marginal propensity to save is 0.05 (5%).  'Marginal' means what happens to each extra bit of money, i.e. the injection of £1000.

Therefore the marginal propensity to consume is 0.45 (45%) - this is the bit that gets spent each time.

So how do we calculate the multiplier?

Two ways but they are both the same. 

1 divided by 1 minus the marginal propensity to consume = 1/(1-0.45) = 1/0.55= 1.82

OR  1 divided by the marginal propensity to withdraw (or leak) = 1/0.55 = 1.82

What does the multiplier mean?

This figure of 1.82 is the multiplier.  It means that if there is an injection of new money into the economy of £1000, some if it will be spent (the marginal propensity to consume) and some of it will be withdrawn (the marginal propensity to withdraw or leak).  Taking all this into account, £1000 will be worth 1.82 times more because of this multiplier effect, therefore, £1820.

Why should we care?

If you're the government and you want to boost the economy by £18 Billion it means that you don't need £18 Billion to do it.  You need £10 Billion if the multiplier is 1.82.

This makes it very important to know what the multiplier is - and like many things in economics it can be difficult to measure and there are varying opinions.  However, after a little bit of research there seems that there is an average estimate for the UK of around 1.3.  There is debate about this and also a suggestion that it can vary with the state of the economy.

So was Keynes right about trying to boost the economy?

If you are a Keynesian then of course.  However, there are a group of economists who believe it is more important to get public spending under control, to balance the government budget and to reduce debt.  They believe that government gets in the way of individuals, crowds out the private sector and stifles enterprise.  This is the attitude taken by the republicans in USA and by the conservatives in the UK.

Those on the Keynesian side would suggest that if the economy is in a downturn and you have low consumer confidence, low business confidence and high unemployment, the worst thing you can do is exacerbate this through cutting government spending.

It's an interesting one.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The UK's Trade Deficit - big and getting bigger.

At the University of the West of England in February 2015 I had a chat with some undergraduate economists about the state of the UK's current account deficit.

The current account is the part of the balance of payments which deals with the money value of Imports and Exports of Goods & Services along with transfers of income (the other part is the Financial and Capital Account).

If you add up the money value of all Imports, Exports, transfers of income and a couple of other small things you have a situation where £25 to £30 Billion or around 5-6% of GDP is leaking out of the UK economy.  This is not great news.  The money may be coming back in terms of foreign companies investing in the UK or putting it in UK banks or buying government debt but over the long-term this can be unsustainable.

The question I asked the students was:

Should we look at ways of reducing our reliance on imports?

They considered:

• A 'Buy British' campaign.
• Leaving the EU.
• Increasing protectionism.
• Investing in UK productivity so the UK becomes more efficient.
• Spending more money on capital investment so the UK becomes more efficient.
• Developing more support for exporters.
• Concentrating on further developing exports of UK services.
• A devaluation of the pound.

None of these were straightforward.  They felt that the EU was a major trading partner so leaving the EU could harm the UK.  They were aware that it was difficult to impose tariffs on imports because of international trade rules.  Investment seemed like a good idea but would take time.  Supporting exports or developing the service sector were possibilities.  A devaluation of the pound could just mean that imports became more expensive but we could still be reliant on them - if you look at the value of food and oil we import you can see the problem.

There are no simple answers but the figures certainly show that the UK has a serious problem which those on power appear to be largely ignoring.


 

Economics - easy-reading books that make you think.

It's always good to find some easy-reading books which make you think about the world.

I would recommend all of these - you can pick them up, put them down, dip into a chapter and it doesn't matter if you are new to the idea of Economics as they are accessible, interesting and occasionally amusing.  After all Economics is an anagram of comic nose.


23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism Paperback – 1 Sep 2011
by Ha-Joon Chang  (Author)


The Undercover Economist Paperback – 3 May 2007
by Tim Harford  (Author)


Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything Paperback – 18 Jun 2007
by Stephen J. Dubner  (Author), Steven D. Levitt  (Author)


The Undercover Economist Strikes Back: How to Run or Ruin an Economy Paperback – 3 Jul 2014
by Tim Harford  (Author)


Superfreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance Paperback – 24 Jun 2010
by Steven D. Levitt  (Author), Stephen J. Dubner  (Author)


Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science Paperback – 7 May 2010
by Charles Wheelan (Author), Burton G. Malkiel (Author)


The Armchair Economist: Economics & Everyday Life Paperback – 10 May 2012
by Steven E. Landsburg  (Author)