Econowmics

Category: Economics

Michelle Cheng Cin Min, age 12 years old from China, IAEA Children's Paintings Competition 2007

Economics / Macroeconomics

Khazzoom-Brookes Postulate: the debate goes on

There is no consensus about the relationship between energy efficiency and energy use and the topic is still highly contested. Some argue that energy efficiency improvements might increase the consumption of energy. This effect is known as the Khazzoom-Brookes Postulate.   According to Euractiv, “This effect takes place when the energy savings produced by the measure are taken back by consumers in the form of higher consumption. An example: a household, which has made big energy savings over the year might, at the end of the year, decide to buy a new car with the money they saved. It is...

Photo: Three Lions / Getty Images

Economics / Macroeconomics

Inflation: when the money dies

  Consider country X as a fictional country. The economy of this country has all the characteristics of a normal economy: Markets trade goods, individuals take part in financial affairs and institutions regulate the process of business in different sectors. Two decades ago in this country people used to buy chocolate for 2$ apiece. These days, however, people pay $3.5 for a bar of chocolate. This increase in price makes people to either pay more for the same amount of quantity that they used to buy, or to buy fewer amounts with the same amount of money. To explain this,...

Economics / Economics and History / Finance / In Pictures

Black Monday

  On October 19, 1987 stock markets around the world crashed, a global financial crisis which started from Hong Kong and was spread to Europe and the United States as well. It came be to known as the Black Monday.     Wall Street went mad. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 508 points (22%) to 1738.74, a $500 billion decrease in value which is still the biggest one-day loss in the history of the index. S&P 500 also dropped 57.64 points (20.4%) to 225.06. There have been numerous reasons as to why this massive drop happened. Although many blame...

Economics / Economics and History / In Pictures

Wall Street Bombing 1920

  “[It was] an unexpected, death-dealing bolt, which in a twinkling turned into a shamble the busiest corner of America’s financial center. […] Almost in front of the steps leading up to the Morgan bank was the mutilated body of a man. Other bodies, most of them silent in death, lay nearby. As I gazed horrorstruck at the sight, one of these forms, half-naked and seared with burns, started to rise. It struggled, then toppled and fell lifeless to the gutter.” George Weston, an Associated Press reporter, described what he had witnessed from the protection of a doorway.    ...