Economics Essay Examples

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Ace Your Essay With Our Economics Essay Examples

Published on: Jun 6, 2023

Last updated on: Jan 31, 2024

economics essay examples

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Are you struggling to understand economics essays and how to write your own?

It can be challenging to grasp the complexities of economic concepts without practical examples.

But don’t worry! 

We’ve got the solution you've been looking for. Explore quality examples that bridge the gap between theory and real-world applications. In addition, get insightful tips for writing economics essays.

So, if you're a student aiming for academic success, this blog is your go-to resource for mastering economics essays.

Let’s dive in and get started!

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What is an Economics Essay?

An economics essay is a written piece that explores economic theories, concepts, and their real-world applications. It involves analyzing economic issues, presenting arguments, and providing evidence to support ideas. 

The goal of an economics essay is to demonstrate an understanding of economic principles and the ability to critically evaluate economic topics.

Why Write an Economics Essay?

Writing an economics essay serves multiple purposes:

  • Demonstrate Understanding: Showcasing your comprehension of economic concepts and their practical applications.
  • Develop Critical Thinking: Cultivating analytical skills to evaluate economic issues from different perspectives.
  • Apply Theory to Real-World Contexts: Bridging the gap between economic theory and real-life scenarios.
  • Enhance Research and Analysis Skills: Improving abilities to gather and interpret economic data.
  • Prepare for Academic and Professional Pursuits: Building a foundation for success in future economics-related endeavors.

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If you’re wondering, ‘how do I write an economics essay?’, consulting an example essay might be a good option for you. Here are some economics essay examples:

Short Essay About Economics

A Level Economics Essay Examples

Here is an essay on economics a level structure:

Band 6 Economics Essay Examples

Here are some downloadable economics essays:

Economics essay pdf

Economics essay introduction

Economics Extended Essay Examples

In an economics extended essay, students have the opportunity to delve into a specific economic topic of interest. They are required to conduct an in-depth analysis of this topic and compile a lengthy essay. 

Here are some potential economics extended essay question examples:

  • How does foreign direct investment impact economic growth in developing countries?
  • What are the factors influencing consumer behavior and their effects on market demand for sustainable products?
  • To what extent does government intervention in the form of minimum wage policies affect employment levels and income inequality?
  • What are the economic consequences of implementing a carbon tax to combat climate change?
  • How does globalization influence income distribution and the wage gap in developed economies?

IB Economics Extended Essay Examples 

IB Economics Extended Essay Examples

Economics Extended Essay Topic Examples

Extended Essay Research Question Examples Economics

Tips for Writing an Economics Essay

Writing an economics essay requires specific expertise and skills. So, it's important to have some tips up your sleeve to make sure your essay is of high quality:

  • Start with a Clear Thesis Statement: It defines your essay's focus and argument. This statement should be concise, to the point, and present the crux of your essay.
  • Conduct Research and Gather Data: Collect facts and figures from reliable sources such as academic journals, government reports, and reputable news outlets. Use this data to support your arguments and analysis and compile a literature review.
  • Use Economic Theories and Models: These help you to support your arguments and provide a framework for your analysis. Make sure to clearly explain these theories and models so that the reader can follow your reasoning.
  • Analyze the Micro and Macro Aspects: Consider all angles of the topic. This means examining how the issue affects individuals, businesses, and the economy as a whole.
  • Use Real-World Examples: Practical examples and case studies help to illustrate your points. This can make your arguments more relatable and understandable.
  • Consider the Policy Implications: Take into account the impacts of your analysis. What are the potential solutions to the problem you're examining? How might different policies affect the outcomes you're discussing?
  • Use Graphs and Charts: These help to illustrate your data and analysis. These visual aids can help make your arguments more compelling and easier to understand.
  • Proofread and Edit: Make sure to proofread your essay carefully for grammar and spelling errors. In economics, precision and accuracy are essential, so errors can undermine the credibility of your analysis.

These tips can help make your essay writing journey a breeze. Tailor them to your topic to make sure you end with a well-researched and accurate economics essay.

To wrap it up , writing an economics essay requires a combination of solid research, analytical thinking, and effective communication. 

You can craft a compelling piece of work by taking our examples as a guide and following the tips.

However, if you are still questioning "how do I write an economics essay?", it's time to get professional help from the best essay writing service -  CollegeEssay.org.

Our economics essay writing service is always ready to help students like you. Our experienced economics essay writers are dedicated to delivering high-quality, custom-written essays that are 100% plagiarism free.

Also try out our AI essay writer and get your quality economics essay now!

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Barbara is a highly educated and qualified author with a Ph.D. in public health from an Ivy League university. She has spent a significant amount of time working in the medical field, conducting a thorough study on a variety of health issues. Her work has been published in several major publications.

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How to Write a Good Economics Essay

Last Updated: March 7, 2023 References

This article was co-authored by Emily Listmann, MA . Emily Listmann is a private tutor in San Carlos, California. She has worked as a Social Studies Teacher, Curriculum Coordinator, and an SAT Prep Teacher. She received her MA in Education from the Stanford Graduate School of Education in 2014. This article has been viewed 127,577 times.

A good economics essay requires a clear argument that is well-supported by appropriately referenced evidence. Research your topic thoroughly and then carefully plan out your essay. A good structure is essential, as is sticking closely to the main essay question. Be sure to proofread your essay and try to write in formal and precise prose.

Preparing to Write Your Essay

Step 1 Read the question carefully.

  • For example a question such as “Discuss the macroeconomic consequences of rising house prices, alongside falling interest rates” could be divided into 2 parts: 1 part could be on the effects of rising prices, and 1 on the effects of falling interest rates.
  • In this example you could begin by discussing each separately and then bringing the 2 together and analysing how they influence each other.
  • Be sure to keep the question at the forefront of your mind and don’t veer off topic. [1] X Research source

Step 2 Research the topic thoroughly

  • Be sure that you understand all the key terms that you are being asked about.
  • Try to keep your reading focussed closely to the essay question.
  • Don’t forget to look at any lecture or class notes you have made.
  • 3 Come up with a thesis statement . A thesis statement is the main argument you will make in your essay. It should be 1-2 sentences long and respond to the essential question that’s being asked. The thesis will help you structure the body of your essay, and each point you make should relate back to the thesis.

Step 4 Plan out your content.

  • Once you have put together a list of key points, then try to add in some more detail that brings in elements from your research.
  • When you come to write out your essay, you can develop a paragraph based on each point.

Step 5 Think about your...

  • All of the evidence and explanation will be in the main body of the essay.
  • Order the key points in the body of your essay in such a way that they flow logically.
  • If you are writing a longer essay, you can break the main body into different sections. [2] X Research source
  • If you have a word limit, be sure to take this into account when you are planning.
  • Allocate yourself a rough number of words per section.
  • The introduction and conclusion can be just a paragraph each.

Writing the Essay

Step 1 Write the introduction...

  • What your essay is about.
  • What material you will cover in the essay.
  • What your argument is. [3] X Research source

Step 2 Outline your argument.

  • Having this stated clearly at the start can help you to stay focussed on the question as you work your way through the essay.
  • Try writing out this one or two sentence statement and sticking it up in front of you as you write, so it’s stays at the forefront of your mind.

Step 3 Write the body of the essay.

  • Try to begin each paragraph with a sentence that outlines what the paragraph will cover.
  • Look at the opening sentence of each paragraph and ask yourself if it is addressing the essay question. [5] X Research source

Step 4 Provide evidence for your argument.

  • Try to engage with arguments that run counter to yours, and use the evidence you have found to show the flaws.
  • It might help to imagine someone reading the essay, and anticipating the objections that he might raise.
  • Showing that you have thought about potential problems, and you can make an argument that overcomes them, is a hallmark of an excellent essay. [6] X Research source
  • If there is conflicting evidence, discuss it openly and try to show where the weight of the evidence lies. [7] X Research source
  • Don’t just ignore the evidence that runs counter to your argument.

Step 5 Write the conclusion...

  • In the conclusion you can add a few sentences that show how your essay could be developed and taken further.
  • Here you can assert why the question is important and make some tentative suggestions for further analysis.

Proofreading and Making Revisions

Step 1 Check for divergences away from the question.

  • As you read through it, think about how closely you stick to main overarching question.
  • If you notice paragraphs that drift off into other areas, you need to be tough and cut them out.
  • You have a limited number of words so it’s essential to make every one count by keeping tightly focussed on the main question.

Step 2 Assess the quality and depth of your argument.

  • Think about how you use the evidence too. Do you critically engage with it, or do you merely quote it to support your point?
  • A good analytical essay such discuss evidence critically at all times.
  • Even if the evidence supports your argument, you need to show that you have thought about the value of this particular piece of data.
  • Try to avoid making any assumptions, or writing as if something were beyond dispute. [10] X Research source

Step 3 Check spelling, grammar and style.

  • Remember an academic essay should be written in a formal style, so avoid colloquialisms.
  • Avoid contractions, such as “don’t”, or “won’t”.
  • Try to avoid paragraphs that are more than ten or fifteen lines long.
  • Think about how it looks on the page. [12] X Research source

Step 4 Check your referencing and bibliography.

  • Always include a bibliography, but don’t include references to things you haven’t read or didn’t inform your argument. [13] X Research source
  • Your teacher will know if you just add a load of titles into your bibliography that are not evidenced in the body of your essay.
  • Always follow the bibliography format used by your department or class.

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  • ↑ http://www.economicshelp.org/help/tips-economic-essays/
  • ↑ http://www.writing.utoronto.ca/advice/planning-and-organizing/organizing
  • ↑ http://carleton.ca/economics/courses/writing-preliminaries/academic-essay-writing/
  • ↑ https://www.economicsnetwork.ac.uk/archive/lse_writing/page_11.htm
  • ↑ http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~mcmillan/writing.pdf
  • ↑ https://www.royalholloway.ac.uk/economics/documents/pdf/essaywriting-departmentofeconomics.pdf

About This Article

Emily Listmann, MA

Before you begin writing your economics essay, make sure to carefully read the prompt so that you have a clear sense of the paper's purpose and scope. Once you have read the prompt, conduct research using your textbook and relevant articles. If you cannot find research materials, ask your instructor for recommendations. After your research is done, construct a 1-2 sentence thesis statement and begin outlining your main ideas so that your essay will have a clear structure. Make sure to leave time to write a draft and revise your work before it is due. If you want to learn more, like how to cite the sources you used for your essay, keep reading the article! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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How to Write a Good Economics Essay

Governor November 28, 2019 Real World Applications 3 Comments

Many students ask “How to write an economics essay?” This Guide to Writing a Good Economics Essay is applicable to both IB economics as well as the Singapore JC A-Level H2 economics examinations. Many of the pointers here are also applicable to large-mark case study questions.

6 Steps to Writing a Good Economics Essay

Step 1: dissect the question.

Make sure you analyse and fully understand the KEYWORDS and REQUIREMENTS of the question. This is a very important skill that is taught in our economics tuition classes .

For example, “Best”, “Most Effective” are closely related but mean different things.

Paraphrase the question to make it simpler if necessary.

Take note of the command word (eg: Explain, Discuss) as it determines the approach needed for the essay, for example, whether two sides are needed or one side is sufficient. Below are some common examples found in economics essay questions:

Command Words                                      Action Required

Account for                                                 Explain why

Analyse                                                        Break it down into step-by-step explanations

Assess                                                          For & Against. Consider other factors.

Compare                                                      Identify Similarities & Differences

Distinguish                                                   Point out differences

Discuss                                                        Explore both sides

Evaluate                                                       The Good and The Bad.

Explain                                                          Show why and how

Explain whether                                            Cover both possibilities

Examine                                                        Look closely. How so and how not so?

To What Extent                                              Yes…..But….Judgment

Remember to look out for the context in the question. This is usually given in the form of a country (eg: Singapore). The examples in your essay must be tailored to this particular context (for example, do not suggest interest rate policy for Singapore as that is considered infeasible in the Singapore context). If no context is given, any real-world example can be used.

Keep in mind the question throughout the essay and remember to always answer the question. Don’t go off-point!

Common Examiner’s Comment :  Not Answering Question (NAQ))

Step 2: Plan Your Answer

Take some time to consider what economic framework you will use to approach the question. Scribble down your main thesis and anti-thesis points. Ensure they ANSWER THE QUESTION.

Step 3: Essay Introduction

In the introduction, include definitions of keywords in the question and spell out the economic framework you will employ for your answer as well as key definitions.

Step 4: Body of Essay

In the body , there will be several paragraphs. 

The number of points/paragraphs depends on the question. It is common to require 2 main points for each 10 mark essay and similarly for 15 mark essay questions. Under each main point, there may be 1-2 sub-points.

Use one paragraph for each sub-point you are making.

However, do not be too focussed on the number of points or paragraphs. The key is to answer the question.

For each body paragraph , use TET’s PEEL(ED) structure. Include only one main idea per paragraph.

  • Point – Write your point in the first sentence so that markers will know what the paragraph will be about. The topic sentence must directly answer the question!
  • Explanation – Explain what you mean
  • Elaboration – Provide further analysis with clear step-by-step economic reasoning. This part may be done with examples as well as diagrams.
  • Link – Link your explanations back to the Point and to answer the question.
  • Exemplification – Give an example to support your reasoning. It can be statistics or real-world examples (for Case Studies, evidences from the Case must be uncovered!)
  • Diagram – Where possible, araw an appropriate diagram with correct labelling and refer to it in your answer. This is crucial to show economic reasoning. Diagrams are very important for economics essays!

These are of course much easier said than done! Thus, students in our economics tuition classes are regularly honed to achieve such output including with tips and tricks to spark off the correct thinking process.

Our resources including the Study Guides for A Level and IB economics also provide a very powerful and handy reference on the depth of analysis required to score the highest marks.

Common Examiner’s Comment :  Mere statements and claims. No economic rigour.

Step 5: In-Body Evaluation

This applies especially to the 15 mark essays for A-Level Economics. A total of 5 marks is catered for Evaluation. Students should attempt to achieve about 2-3 in-body evaluation marks by pointing out how the thesis and anti-thesis points may not be true due to certain assumptions made that may not hold. Students may write “However,….may not necessarily happen……It would depend on whether….”. This statement can be written after the associated sub-point has been made.

Step 6: CONCLUDING SECTION

This only applies to the 15 mark essay questions.

Earn more evaluation marks by making a reasoned judgement. Deliver your verdict like a Judge! 

Check back on the question before you embark on this. Ensure your judgement answers the question.

So the question now is, how does a judge arrive at and deliver a verdict? Certainly, you should not be summarising or merely paraphrasing your main points in the conclusion. Obviously, you cannot expect more marks by saying the same thing over and over again!

After a verdict and reasons have been provided, consider providing further relevant insights and/or recommendations.

Common Examiner’s Comment :  Repetitive. Mere Summary.

Here are some quite common types of Concluding Sections 

  • Consider the relative importance of thesis and anti-thesis factors. Which factors are most important or pertinent in the given context? For example, certain policies better fit specifc types of economies.
  • Consider short-term vs long-term pros and cons. Do the short-term benefits outweigh the long-term costs? Is the policy more effective in the long-term, and if so, how pressing is the problem that needs to be addressed?
  • Suggest a multi-policy approach, in which each policy has strengths and weaknesses that allow them to complement each other.

There is no way to really memorise evaluation points as every question and context is different. After all, you are being tested on higher-order thinking!

There are other evaluation tips that our students will receive but the key point here is that the training of the mind to think and apply economics is essential. That is where our weekly economics lessons come into play and that is why our students are often asked questions in class and trained to think on their feet. As ex-student Xue Min from YIJC testified, Chief Tutor Mr. Kelvin Hong does not just spoon-feeds our students but mentors them in their thinking to arrive at the answers. This was different from other tutors that her classmates experienced and eventually this was the key to Xue Min’s A grade.

In your essay, write in simple and clear sentences. Everything you write should be value-adding. You do not have to spend time showing off vocabulary as no extra points are awarded for language. Focus on economic reasoning. Use succinct and effective examples which support the point you are trying to make as well as accurate diagrammatic analyses.

For samples of great economics essays, please check out our free Economics Model Essays and sample Past JC A-Level Economics Questions and Answers .

For our econs publications that are sold worldwide, please check out our A Level & IB Economics Study Guides and Model Essays Publications

About The Economics Tutor

Founded by Kelvin Hong in 1998, The Economics Tutor is one of the leading economics tuition in Singapore. We provide a comprehensive program to guide students in understanding complex economic concepts and applying them through case study analyses, essay writing and discussion of real world events.

For 24 years, the way we teach JC Economics Tuition (A Level Economics Tuition) and IB Economics Tuition classes helped learners appreciate economics and everything it entails on a much larger scale. We take things step-by-step, implement effective techniques in memorising frameworks and give every student the chance to nurture their ideas. 

We don’t just solely focus on helping you get stellar grades and perfect scores. We make sure that we also hone the critical thinking skills and investment / business decisions you can use outside the four walls of your classroom.

Looking for a fun, engaging and probably the best economics tutor in Singapore? Look no further—check out our extensive and high quality economics resources on the website such as our IB and A Level Economics Publication. Click here to order .

Book your lesson today and master the nuances of economics in our next class!

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Up: Home : Study Guidance > Effective Writing and Referencing > Writing the Economics Essay

  • Writing the Economics Essay

An academic rhetoric (or organisation) is important to convince a reader that you understand the topic well – poor organisation can signal muddled thinking.

Thesis – Justification – Support

This is the rhetoric used by Bray et al.

Thesis – the main concept or idea that you are proposing

Justification – the reasons why your thesis is valid

Support – evidence that backs up your justification

Essay structure – your introduction, main body, and conclusion

Box: An example

The Thesis – Justification – Support rhetoric can be applied to an individual paragraph of an essay, or on an entire essay. For example, take the essay question:

‘The accumulation of capital is sufficient for ensuring sustainable growth in per capita living standards’. Discuss.

One possible answer would be:

Thesis: if we define capital as physical capital, the accumulation of capital will lead to diminishing returns

Justification: Demonstration of the Solow model : capital accumulation can result in higher levels of income but after a certain level not higher levels of consumption per capita (due to diminishing marginal returns).

Support: examples, such as India’s heavy investment drive in the 1950s, 1960s which was associated with low levels of ‘Hindu growth’; or econometric evidence, such as that from Mankiw, Romer and Weil (1992), which supports some of the conclusions of the Solow model (but also suggests improvements, see below).

The next section of the essay would play with the assumptions of the Solow model – for example by expanding our definition of capital to include human capital (and, if you’re really trying to impress, social capital and ‘natural’ capital as well).

You might also want to discuss if technological progress (the source of per capita income growth in the Solow model) is related to capital accumulation, for example through ‘ learning by doing ‘ (Arrow, 1962)

Previous: Effective Writing and Referencing

Next: What makes good justification?

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Great Economics Essay Topics for Deeper Insight and Understanding

image

Table of contents

  • 1 Economic History Topics
  • 2 Macro and Microeconomics Essay Topics
  • 3 Healthcare Economics Essay Topics
  • 4 Socio-Economic Analysis Essay Topics
  • 5 Consumerism-Related Topics for Research Papers
  • 6 Public Economic Development Essay Topics
  • 7 Topics for Finance Economic Paper
  • 8 Essay Topics about Taxes
  • 9 Economic Analysis on Human Development Paper Topic Ideas
  • 10 Labor and Economic Growth Essay Topics
  • 11 Essay Topics on the Economic Theory of Employment
  • 12 Conclusion

If you have difficulties coming up with a topic for your writing – paper writing service is here for you. In the process of studying, you will often encounter the need to write an economics essay in various fields. Among the variety of economics research directions and a wide range of problems to study, it is sometimes difficult to formulate the research topic when writing essays. In this article, we will consider the most relevant and interesting essay topics for study.

pic

Economic History Topics

The study of economic history implies a detailed consideration of the very phenomenon of science. With the help of historical and statistical methods, you have to study the links between modern economies and historical events, the economic marvel that affected the course of global economic development.

  • The Industrial Revolution: Analyzing the Economic and Social Transformations of the 19th Century.
  • The Great Depression: Understanding the Causes and Consequences of the Economic Crisis of the 1930s.
  • Examining the Costs and Benefits of Military Conflict on National Economies.
  • The Rise and Fall of Communism: Analyzing the Economic and Political Implications of Socialist Systems.
  • Understanding the Economic Impacts of Increasing International Trade and Investment.
  • Examining the Impacts of Imperialism on Economic Development.
  • Evolution of Currency and Monetary Systems.
  • The Origins of Capitalism: Understanding the Economic and Social Forces that Shaped Modern Markets.
  • Economic and Agricultural Impacts of Technological Innovations in Farming.

Macro and Microeconomics Essay Topics

Let’s look at the broadest scientific field for economics research. The subject of studies of Macroeconomics is the global economy. It examines the economic data of entire countries and unions, studying international economics. While Microeconomics explores the individual level in the context of an enterprise, small and medium businesses. It also discovers such components of the market as international trade, stock market, microeconomics of migration industrial organization microeconomics.

  • Fiscal and Monetary Policy: The Role of Government in Influencing the Economy through Tax Policies and Monetary Policy.
  • International Trade: The Impact of Globalization on the Economy, Including the Effects of Tariffs, Trade Agreements, and Currency Exchange Rates.
  • Business Cycles: The Natural Fluctuations of the Economy and the Causes and Consequences of Booms and Busts.
  • Inflation and Deflation: The Impact of Changes in the Price Level of Goods and Services on the Economy and Its Consumers.
  • The Factors That Contribute to the Long-Term Growth of an Economy and the Importance of Investment, Innovation, and Productivity.
  • The Distribution of Wealth and Income in an Economy and the Impact of Policies Aimed At Reducing Income Inequality.
  • The Role of Banks, Stock Markets, and Other Financial Institutions in the Economy and the Impact of Financial Crises.
  • The Impact of Government Debt on Economic Growth.
  • Exploring the Functions and Policies of Central Banks and Their Impact on the Economy.
  • Primary Economic Endeavors of the Geographic Area Colonies Lumber
  • Macroeconomic Effects of International Capital Flows.
  • Theories of Economic Growth: Analyzing Different Theories of Economic Growth, Including Endogenous Growth Theory and Neoclassical Growth Theory.
  • Exploring Methods and Techniques for Forecasting Key Economic Variables Such as GDP, Inflation, and Employment.
  • Examining the Different Types of Market Failures, Including Externalities, Public Goods, and Monopolies, and Exploring Different Policy Approaches for Addressing Market Failures.
  • Investigating How Firms Produce Goods and Services and Exploring How Production Costs Impact Market Outcomes.
  • Analyzing the Conditions Necessary for Perfect Competition and Exploring the Implications for Market Outcomes.
  • The Economics of Oligopoly: Examining the Behavior of Firms in Oligopoly Markets and Exploring the Impact on Market Outcomes.
  • The Future of Work: Microeconomic Impacts of Automation and Artificial Intelligence.
  • The Economics of Education: Analyzing the Costs and Benefits of Higher Learning.
  • The Effects of Macroeconomics on the Housing Market.

Healthcare Economics Essay Topics

Healthcare economics is based on the study of factors affecting the cost of the industry as well as pricing policy depending on the current spending. This implies the economic research of complicated healthcare systems with the aim of financial analysis. You can choose to analyze patient satisfaction economics, international criminal justice, sports economics, and talent economics as important healthcare issues.

  • The Rising Cost of Healthcare: Analyzing the Impact of Inflation and Technology.
  • Examining the Economic Benefits and Challenges of Single-Payer Systems.
  • Understanding the Economics Behind the Cost of Prescription Drugs.
  • Health Insurance Markets: Analyzing the Role of Competition and Regulation.
  • Healthcare Workforce: Examining the Economics of Physician Shortages and Nurse Staffing.
  • The Economics of Medical Innovation: Balancing Costs and Benefits.
  • The Role of Prevention in Healthcare Economics: Cost Savings and Quality of Life.
  • Examining the Costs and Benefits of Investing in Behavioral Health Services.
  • The Economics of Happiness: Measuring the Relationship Between Income and Well-Being.

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Socio-Economic Analysis Essay Topics

Socio economic essay topics revolve around the analysis of key economic features, the causes and consequences of financial decisions, and their significance for society. The ultimate goal of economics research is to evaluate the social and economic impact and to detect malicious features that can undermine a nation’s economic stability.

  • Social and Economic Impacts of Unequal Distribution of Wealth.
  • Socio-Economic Implications of Independent Work and Flexible Labor Arrangements.
  • Analyzing the Impacts of Migration on Social and Economic Outcomes.
  • The Sociology of Poverty: Understanding the Causes and Consequences of Economic Deprivation.
  • Social Entrepreneurship: Examining the Role of Business in Addressing Societal Challenges and Inequalities.
  • Understanding the Social and Economic Implications of an Aging Population.
  • Examining the Socio-Economic Differences Between Rural and Urban Areas.
  • The Impact of Migrant Remittance on Economic Development .

Consumerism-Related Topics for Research Papers

This branch of economics research studies consumer behavior trends, namely the impact of personal economics on the common good. For example, some scientists believe that increased consumption has a positive effect on production trends. While other experts believe that such inequalities are unacceptable and adhere to the economic policy of sustainable development. A sustainable economy has recently become the center of scientific concern and a vast amount of economic essay topics.

  • The Psychology of Consumerism: Understanding the Emotional Drivers Behind Shopping Habits.
  • Sustainable Consumerism: Examining the Economic and Environmental Impacts of Ethical Consumption.
  • Analyzing the Influence of Marketing on Purchasing Decisions.
  • Examining the Economic Costs and Social Consequences of Overconsumption.
  • The Economics of Branding: Understanding the Value of Brand Names and Logos.
  • The Sharing Economy: Analyzing the Economic Impacts of Collaborative Consumption.
  • The Rise of E-commerce: Examining the Advantages and Disadvantages of Online Shopping.
  • The Consumer Society: Analyzing the Role of Materialism in Modern Culture.
  • The Future of Consumerism: Exploring Emerging Trends and Their Economic Implications.

Public Economic Development Essay Topics

If you’re choosing public development as your economics essay subject, you should include an economic evaluation of basic concepts that are related to social welfare. This area may include the city’s economy comparative analysis as a part of urban economics, law enforcement studies, and many other social domains.

  • Fiscal Policy and Economic Growth: Analyzing the Role of Government Spending and Taxation.
  • Public Debt and Deficits: Examining the Economic Impacts of Government Borrowing.
  • Taxation and Social Welfare: Balancing Economic Efficiency and Equity.
  • The Economics of Government Procurement: Analyzing the Costs and Benefits of Public Contracting.
  • The Economics of Healthcare Financing: Understanding the Costs and Benefits of Different Payment Systems.
  • Municipal Finance: Analyzing the Economics of Local Government Budgeting and Expenditure.
  • Sovereign Debt Crises: Analyzing the Economic Implications of Debt Defaults and Restructurings.

Topics for Finance Economic Paper

Your economics essay in financial management is going to revolve around the system of planning and apportionment of funds in markets. You can choose anything from urban finance and aggregate economics to critical analysis of foreign direct investment in inter international economy.

  • The Future of Fintech: Exploring Emerging Trends and their Financial Implications.
  • Examining the Economic Impacts of Government Oversight and Policy.
  • Investment Banking: Analyzing the Economics of Securities Underwriting and Capital Raising.
  • The Economics of Real Estate Investment: Understanding Property Markets and Valuations.
  • Risk Management: Examining the Economics of Hedging Strategies and Portfolio Diversification.
  • Financial Markets and Globalization: Analyzing the Economic Implications of International Capital Flows.
  • The Economics of Venture Capital: Understanding the Role of Risk Capital in Entrepreneurship and Innovation.

Essay Topics about Taxes

Economic essay topics about taxes imply a comparative analysis of different taxation systems. Research on this topic will concern not only the tax system itself but also the study of bypass schemes, offshore zones, and other tricks. One example of intriguing economics topics is the study of the detrimental effects of taxes on ecology, as the problems of environmental protection remain unresolved.

  • Examining the Relationship between Government Revenue and Entrepreneurship.
  • The Costs and Benefits of Different Tax Systems.
  • The Ethics of Taxation: Analyzing the Social and Economic Implications of Taxation on Income Distribution.
  • Understanding the Economics of Offshore Tax Evasion and Avoidance.
  • The History of Taxation: Examining the Evolution of Taxation Systems from Ancient Times to the Present.
  • The Economic Impacts of Taxes on Carbon Emissions and Pollution.
  • Impacts of Sales Tax and Value-Added Tax on Consumer Behavior.

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Economic Analysis on Human Development Paper Topic Ideas

Human development centers on the role of the public in economic convergence. You are supposed to concentrate on critical analysis of the progress of humanity, the level of life in developed and developing countries, track of economic behavior that leads to rapid economic growth, as well as the correct usage of scarce resources for general well-being.

  • The Role of Gender Equality in Economic and Social Progress.
  • Analyzing the Measurement and Evolution of Global Human Development.
  • Understanding the Cognitive and Emotional Factors that Shape Human Growth.
  • Analyzing the Role of Government Policies in Promoting Human Well-being.
  • Supporting Women’s Economic Empowerment in Fragile States .
  • The Relationship between Health Outcomes and Economic and Social Progress.
  • Positive and Negative Impacts of Technological Advances on Human Progress.
  • Exploring Emerging Trends and Challenges in Promoting Sustainable Human Development.

Labor and Economic Growth Essay Topics

Labor economics essay topics involve analysis of the labor force as an integral part of production. Among the topic ideas, you can study such economic problems as the correlation between population growth and surplus labor force in developing nations.

  • Economic Impacts of Freelance Work and Contingent Labor.
  • Impacts of Immigration on Labor Markets and Economic Growth.
  • Understanding the Factors that Contribute to Pay Disparities between Men and Women.
  • The Role of Unions in the Labor Market.
  • Examining the Economic Impacts of Minimum Wage Laws on Employment and Wages.
  • Labor Mobility: Understanding the Impacts of Labor Migration on Regional and National Labor Markets.
  • The Economics of Discrimination: Impacts of Race, Ethnicity, and Gender on Labor Market Outcomes.
  • Technological and Demographic Change on the Labor Market.

Essay Topics on the Economic Theory of Employment

Economics topics that consider the theory of employment study the decisions in the field of the labor force. In the coursework of research, you may study the services that individuals provide, the benefits of a cashless economy and its payment methods, and which role statistical data play in fulfilling the labor market needs.

  • Analyzing the Impacts of Technological and Demographic Changes on Employment.
  • Factors that Contribute to Employment Growth.
  • Economic Benefits in Attracting and Retaining Employees.
  • Examining the Economic Impacts of Employment Policies and Programs.
  • Understanding the Impacts of Workplace Environment and Culture on Employee Performance.
  • Impacts of Aging Populations and Retirement Trends on the Labor Market.
  • Capitalism and the Use of Disaster to Increase Economic Power .

Whatever topic you choose for your economics research, make sure it is within your field of interest. Scientific work always goes smoothly when you are motivated to bring newness to the underlying concepts. We wish you good luck with this difficult choice, as all economics essay topics are fascinating, and your task as a research paper writer is to bring your individual perspective to science.

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write an essay on economic problems

How to write economics essays

All Economics exam papers at A-Level will have a 25-mark essay-style question, which requires evaluation .

There are different approaches that can be taken in dealing with essay questions, and there is not one essay writing 'template' or 'wizard' that can deal will all questions. However, a commonly used method is to use the first half of your essay to complete the analysis and the second half to evaluate - this is an easy approach to master, and can be used to answer most microeconomic and macroeconomic essays. More on this later.

What the mark scheme tells us

The mark-scheme for a 25-mark question is typically based on the ' levels ' method, with marks allocated in the following way:

4 marks for correctly demonstrating knowledge and understanding of economic concepts and models

4 marks for applying your knowledge and understanding to the 'context' put before you - this case a chocolate manufacturer

8 marks for providing an analysis of the decision (in this case, to raise price) - i.e. what are the expected effects, consequences and results

9 marks for evaluating a decision (question, issue, policy, or problem) based on your judgment , with reference to the problems or risks associated with the decision (policy, problem etc.)

Points to note

  • Exam boards often state that, in a 25-mark question, definitions are not specifically required , but it is good practice to define key economic terms that are specific to economics, and to the question.
  • Application does not happen in one section of your answer, but should run throughout your answer . In other words, answers that are purely theoretical and detached from the context will not earn high marks.
  • For analysis and evaluation, developing a chain of reasoning is essential - ( read more on chains of reasoning ) you have to show exactly how you arrived at a point, judgment or conclusion. A carefully chosen, well draw, accurately explained and fully integrated diagram is essential for effective analysis. This is only possible if you start out by making your assumptions clear.
  • For evaluation, it is essential that you provide an alternative approach , (alternative decision, policy etc.) and that your conclusion is not just a summary but a 'weighted' judgment .
  • While you only have 30 minutes to write, it is essential you plan your route through your answer - 4-5 minutes planning is worth its weight in gold!

So, lets have a look at a couple of ways to deal with a 25-mark question. Both have similar openings and conclusions, but start out with different assumptions.

' Evaluate the decision by a chocolate manufacturer to raise the price of its 'luxury' box of chocolates .'

There are several factors a chocolate manufacturer will take into account when making a decision about its price. Factors affecting this decision depend on the market structure it operates in, the level of competition it faces, its size and ownership structure. These will affect its main business objective, which in turn will affect its decision regarding price and non-price factors.

We will assume that the chocolate manufacturer's objective is to maximise profits and that it is a price maker and facing a downward sloping demand curve. This means that it is not operating in a highly competitive market, and can raise price without suffering a complete collapse in sales. Profit maximisation arises at the output where MC=MR, which in the diagram is quantity Q. At profit maximisation, the area of supernormal profits (SNP) is area p a b c.

At this quantity, marginal revenue equals marginal cost, which means that any change in price or quantity produced will move it away from profit maximisation. For example, if the chocolate manufacturer increases price to P1, demand will contract along the demand (AR) curve, from 'a' to 'v', resulting in equilibrium quantity falling to Q1. At Q1, MR is greater than MC, which means there is an opportunity cost because the firm could reduce price and produce more, which would lead to an increase its supernormal profits.  So, reducung price and producing extra marginal units of output will add to SNP until MC=MR is reached. Hence, in terms of achieving its profit maximising objective, an increase in price above 'P' is clearly counter-productive. This is supported by the probability that demand for 'luxury' chocolates is price elastic, and the producer is operating in the elastic range of the AR curve. As a result, any increase in price will reduce total revenue, and also reduce SNP, which falls to area P1 v w x.

However, there are issues with this analysis. Are the assumptions about the chocolate producer and its market valid? Is the chocolate producer targeting profits, or attempting to achieve a different objective? Will  there be negative, and even unexpected consequences of the price rise?

The assumptions regarding the market structure certainly might not hold - in a less competitive market, with fewer firms, the price rise may have a much smaller effect because consumers have less choice. Demand may be more inelastic than predicted, especially if there is loyalty to the brand of chocolate - even though it is a luxury product.

Also, the chocolate producer may have previously been a revenue or sales maximiser and may have decided to change its strategy from revenue or sales maximising to profit maximising. As a revenue or sales maximiser price will be set at a lower level, to stimulate sales or gain more revenue. Management salaries or bonuses may be connected with sales, hence a low price will help the firm achieve this objective. The price increase will move it towards profit maximisation rather than away from it, and help it achieve its new objective. Alternatively, the producer may be a 'profit satisficer' looking to increase its profits but not maximising them. In any of these cases, the price rise might be a rational decision.

It is not known whether rivals will keep their prices on hold, reduce them or raise them to match the firm's price increase. If the firm has a few close competitors, then these firms may be interdependent, meaning it may be more beneficial to keep prices on hold to reduce uncertainty.

Furthermore, the price rise could encourage unwanted new entrants, attracted by the opportunity presented. Raising price could also send a signal to existing producers to launch their own 'luxury' version of the product.

Of course, there may be alternative decisions to consider to help it achieve its objectives, such as changing its non-price activities. So, the price rise could be justified if an effective marketing campaign could help increase demand (AR) and, diagrammatically, shift the AR (and MR) curve to the right, as shown.

In this case, profits are maintained, or even increased, as shown, with lower supernormal profits at area P1 k r m.

Taking a wider view, price rises reduce consumer surplus, and if personal incomes remain constant, consumer will have less income to spend on other goods and services, and the price rise will cause a negative income effect. Of course, a rise in the price of chocolate would not have the same effect as a rise in interest rates or house prices, so the income effect is very small.

In conclusion, the decision to raise prices cannot be judged without understanding the nature of the market, the level of competition and the firm's current objectives, and compared with alternatives. There is also the wider economic context to consider, such as whether the economy is in a recession, with pressure on disposable income, or whether the economy is growing, with consumers feeling confident. There are clearly risks associated with an increase in price, and it might be less risky not to raise price, and put more effort into non-price strategies. However, if the assumptions that the firm is already a profit maximiser, that there are no other changes to its non-price activity, and that the behaviour of other chocolate producers does not change, then a price rise seems unjustifiable as it would fail to achieve its dominant objective - to maximise profits - and raising price would, in this case, be an irrational decision.

Answer two - the alternative answer

We will assume that the chocolate manufacturer's objective is to maximise profits and that it is a price maker and facing a downward sloping demand curve.  We will also assume that it currently is not profit maximising, but producing at an output greater than profit maximisation, at output Q, and a lower price, at P in the following diagram. Profit maximisation arises at the output where MC=MR, which in the diagram is quantity Q1, and price P1.

At the quantity Q, while marginal revenue is negative at 'f' and below marginal cost at 's',  the chocolate manufacturer still makes a supernormal profit, shown as the area SNP (area Pvwx). Also, at the current price of P, price elasticity of demand is inelastic because, in the diagram quantity demanded, Q at price P is to the right of the mid-point of the demand (AR) curve. Given that, at the mid-point, PED equals (-) 1.0, which is where MR=0, at its current output, PED must be inelastic.

Given these assumptions, a decision to increase price above P will help the manufacturer achieve profit maximisation. Because the firm operates in the inelastic portion of its demand (AR) curve, the planned price rise reduces the quantity demanded, to Q1, but increases total revenue - at least up to the output where MR=0. The reduction in output that follows means that the variable costs of production fall, which means that marginal costs fall (from 's' to 't'), while at the same time marginal revenue increases from 'f' to 't'. Assuming profit maximisation is still the dominant objective, the price rise is clearly beneficial, as it leads to increased profits (area P1a b c) resulting from the lower marginal cost and the higher marginal revenue.

However, there issues with this analysis. Firstly, are the assumptions about the chocolate producer valid, secondly, is the chocolate producer wishing to increase profits, and thirdly, will there be any negative, and even unexpected consequences of the price rise?

The assumptions regarding the market structure certainly might not hold - the market could be much more competitive, and approach perfect competition. This would result in a very different outcome for the producer, especially in terms of a price elasticity of demand, which rises with increased competition. In a more competitive market, there are more choices for the consumer, and any price rise by one firm may result in falling revenue. Demand may be more elastic than predicted, especially because the price rise is for the 'luxury' version of the box of chocolates, where demand is likely to be more elastic.

Also, the chocolate producer may not be a profit maximiser, but may instead be a revenue or sales maximiser, in which case the price rise could move it away from maximising sales or revenue points. If the firm is a large producer where there is a separation of ownership and control, it is more likely that other 'managerial' objectives dominate decision making. If, for example, the firm is looking to maximise sales volume, perhaps because management salaries or bonuses are connected with sales, then a price rise would not be beneficial.

It is not known whether rivals will keep their prices on hold, reduce them or raise them to match the firm's price increase. If the firm has a few close competitors, then the fact that these firms may be interdependent means that it may be more beneficial to keep prices on hold and reduce uncertainty.

Of course, there may be alternative decisions to consider to help it achieve its objectives, such as changing its non-price policy. So, if there is also a successful marketing campaign designed to increase sales, or build a brand, price increases could be postponed until the brand is well established.

In conclusion, the decision to raise prices cannot be judged without understanding the nature of the market and competition and the firm's current objectives, and compared with alternatives. There is also the wider economic context to consider, such as whether the economy is in a recession, with pressure on disposable income, or whether the economy is growing, with consumers feeling confident. There are clearly risks associated with an increase in price, and it might be less risky not to raise price, and put more effort into non-price strategies. However, if all the assumptions listed above are fully met, then a price rise seems justifiable in that the firm can achieve its dominant objective - to maximise profits.

These are two answers which use a similar structure, and common introduction and conclusion - but start with different assumptions, and therefore have a different analysis, and evaluation.

There are other several possible approaches to this question, and other evaluative points that could have been included. For example, there could have been more emphasis on what rivals might do, and there could be more robust questioning about exactly how much the price is being increased by, and whether this is just a temporary strategy. The essay could also have raised the question of the possible external effects arising from less output and consumption (namely fewer negative consumption and production externalities). However, with the time constraint in the examination room, it is not possible to cover every 'blade of grass' and some good points may have to be sacrificed.

Finally, the 'starting point' and assumptions could have been different, which would have led to a different analysis.

Conclusion and key takeaways

Having a structure to help you tackle an essay-style question is very important.

Both essays use the same four-part structure :

  • Part 1, the analysis - making assumptions, and using the correct diagram to show how a decision or policy will work to achieve an objective.
  • Part 2, the evaluation begins with ' the bridge ' of the essay - assumptions are questioned and probably changed.
  • Part 3 the full evaluation , where an alternative or alternatives are explained based on the change of assumptions.
  • Part 4, the conclusion , where the evidence or strength of argument is assessed, and the decision, policy or assertion is 'accepted in full', 'accepted in part' or 'rejected' in favour of the alternative(s).

Finally, it is clear how important diagrams are in analysis and evaluation, and helping develop a logical chain of reasoning - so ensure that you have undertaken enough practice in constructing, applying and integrating diagrams to a wide range of past questions.

Economics Help

Examples of economic problems

The fundamental economic problem is the issue of scarcity but unlimited wants. Scarcity implies there is only a limited quantity of resources, e.g. finite fossil fuels. Because of scarcity, there is a constant opportunity cost – if you use resources to consume one good, you cannot consume another. Therefore, an underlying feature of economics is concerned with dealing how to allocate resources in society to make the most efficient and fair use of resources. The main issues are:

  • What to produce?
  • How to produce?
  • For whom to produce?

Examples of economic problems include

  • How to deal with external costs/pollution , e.g. pollution from production.
  • How to redistribute income to reduce poverty , without causing loss of economic incentives.
  • How to provide public goods (e.g. street-lighting) which are usually not provided in a free market.
  • How should we measure economic welfare? Is it wrong to focus on ouptut and income? (as economics has in the past) – New measures of economic welfare try to include broader range of factors, such as environment, education, health care.

examples-of-economic-problems

Video summary

Examples of Economic problems

Micro economic problems

1. The problem of externalities

pollution-smog

The economic problem of pollution

One of the most frequent problems is that economic decisions can have external effects on other people not involved in the transaction. For example, if you produce power from coal, the pollution affects people all over the world (acid rain, global warming). This is a particular problem because we cannot rely on the free market to provide the most efficient outcome. If we create negative externalities , we don’t take them into account when deciding how much to consume. This is why we can get overconsumption of driving a car into a city centre at peak hour. If everyone maximises their utility, it doesn’t lead to the most efficient outcome – but gridlock and wasted resources.

Externalities, usually need some kind of government intervention. For example, taxes on negative externalities (e.g. sugar tax) or subsidies on positive externalities (e.g. free public education) even banning cars in city centres.

But, even the solution to market failure (e.g. taxes), creates its own potential problems, such as how much to tax? will there be tax evasion? The administration costs of collecting tax.

Environmental issues

Economics is traditionally concerned with utility maximisation – allowing individuals to aim at increasing their economic welfare. However, this can ignore long-term considerations of environmental sustainability. If we have over-consumption in this century, it could cause serious problems for future generations – e.g. global warming, loss of non-renewable resources. The difficulty is that the price mechanism doesn’t take into account these future costs, and policies to reduce consumption may prove politically unpopular.

– How to deal with potential future environmental costs?

Monopoly was an economic problem that Adam Smith was concerned about in his influential book of economics “A Wealth of Nations.” For various reasons firms can gain monopoly power – and therefore the ability to set high prices to consumers. Given a lack of alternatives, monopolies can make high profits at the expense of consumers, causing inequality within society. Monopoly power can also be seen through monopsony employers who pay lower wages to their workers.

How to deal with the problem of monopoly? – A government may seek to encourage competition, e.g. rail franchising, or price regulation to prevent excessive prices.

Inequality/poverty

global-poverty-less-than-1.90

This shows that 10% of the world population still live on below $1.90 a day – though the figure has reduced in past three decades.

Inequality is considered a problem because of normative opinions such as – it is an unfair distribution of resources. Also, you could argue there is a diminishing marginal utility of wealth . If all wealth is owned by a small percentage of the population, this reduces net welfare. Redistributing the money to the very poor would enable a greater net utility to society.

Five of the world’s largest companies  Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Cisco and Oracle, have a total of $504bn cash savings (2015) This is money unused, whilst people around the world have insufficient food.

Inequality is a problem. However, it is also a problem to know how much we should seek to reduce poverty. Many will agree on the necessity of reducing absolute poverty – but how far should we take it? Should we aim for perfect equality (Communism) or should we aim for equality of opportunity?

Another issue with reducing poverty is that measures to reduce poverty may cause unintended consequences – e.g. higher income tax on high earners may create disincentives to work. Giving benefits to the low paid may reduce incentives to work.

Volatile prices

Some agricultural markets can have volatile prices. A glut in supply can be bad news because the fall in price can lead to lower revenue for farmers. It could even cause some to go out of business because of a bad year. These volatile markets can cause swings in economic fortunes.

Irrational behaviour

delinquencies-on-loans

In some asset markets, we have seen volatile prices exacerbated by irrational exuberance . Consumers have often been caught up in a market frenzy – hoping that rising prices will make them richer – and expecting prices to keep rising. We can see this in issues such as tulip mania , the South Sea Bubble, railway mania, and the recent property bubbles.

Macroeconomic problems

unemployed-1933-national-archive

Mass unemployment 1933

Unemployment has been a major economic problem in advanced economies. One of the principal causes of unemployment is swings in the business cycle. A fall in demand for goods during a recession, causes people to be laid off. Because of the depressed state of the economy, there is an imbalance between demand and supply of workers.

Unemployment can also be caused by rapid changes in labour markets, for examples, unskilled workers unable to gain employment in a high tech economy. Unemployment is a problem because it is a waste of resources, but more importantly, it leads to very high personal costs, such as stress, alienation, low income and feelings of failure.

A recession is a period of negative economic growth – a decline in the size of the economy. It exacerbates problems of inequality and unemployment. A problem of recession is that it can create a negative spiral. When demand falls, firms lay off workers. The unemployed have less money to spend causing further falls in demand.

us-unemployment-1930s-great-depression

In the great depression, unemployment rose to over 20% – the unemployed also had little support and relied on soup kitchens.

High inflation can be a serious problem if prices rise faster than wages and nominal interest rates. In periods of rapidly rising prices, people with savings will see a decline in their real wealth. If prices rise faster than wages, then people’s spending power will decline. Also, rapidly rising prices creates confusion and uncertainty and can cause firms to cut back on investment and spending.

zimbabwe-hyper-inflation

Countries which have experienced hyperinflation , have seen it as a very traumatic period because all the economic certainty is washed away, leaving people without any certainty. Hyper inflation can cause not just economic turmoil but political turmoil as people lose confidence in the economic situation of the economy.

Balance of payments/current account deficit

A current account deficit on the balance of payments means an economy is importing more goods and services than it is exporting. To finance this current account deficit, they need a surplus on the financial/capital account. For many modern economies, a small current account deficit is not a problem. However, some developing economies have experienced a balance of payments crisis – where the large deficit has to be financed by borrowing, and this situation usually leads to a rapid devaluation of the currency. But, this devaluation increases the price of imports, reduces living standards and causes inflation.

Exchange rate volatility

In some cases, the exchange rate can cause economic problems. For example, countries in the Euro were not able to change the value of their currency against other Eurozone members. Because countries like Greece and Portugal had higher inflation rates, they became uncompetitive. Exports fell, and they developed a large current account deficit. The overvalued exchange rate caused a fall in economic growth.

On the other hand, a rapid devaluation can cause different problems. For example, when the price of oil fell, oil exporting countries saw a decline in export revenues, leading to a fall in the value of the currency. A rapid devaluation causes the price of imports to rise and causes both higher inflation and lower growth. A difficult problem for policymakers to deal with.

Development economics

Developing economies face similar economic problems, but any issue is magnified by low GDP and high levels of poverty. For example, unemployment in a developing economy is more serious because there is unlikely to be any government insurance to give a minimum standard of living.

write an essay on economic problems

Poverty cycle . Some developing economies may be stuck in a poverty trap. Low growth and low saving ratios lead to low levels of investment and therefore low economic growth. This low growth and poverty cause the low savings and investment to be continued.

More examples

  • Problems facing UK economy in 2015
  • Economic problems of EU

Last updated: 17th November 2019, Tejvan Pettinger , www.economicshelp.org, Oxford, UK

28 thoughts on “Examples of economic problems”

Scarcity in resource is all over. It could be jobs, skills, capital, land, medicines, equipment, hospitals, universities, schools, houses, food, water etc

Sorry…it is not yet….

Enjoyed the lesson

what does economic mean

That is economic factors are addressed

Can I buy printed materials of this article Economic problems

Hi, Pettinger!

Really nice article, thank you. However, I am not sure I’ve got something you stated: isn’t inequality a macroeconomics issue? Because, you see, the scope of microeconomics is restricted to the individual actions of the economic agents (i.e., the “invisible hand science”) and inequality can only be properly handled by a macroeconomics perspective – or, at least, that’s the way I see it. Can you clarify that, please?

P.S.: if you are interested, I’ve answered this same question at stackexchange ( https://economics.stackexchange.com/questions/41448/is-inequality-a-micro-or-macro-economics-issue )

Govt.is also responsible for inequality , unemployment and low GDP growth by not taking efficient decisions in order to boost the economy.

Comments are closed.

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The Young Economist’s Short Guide to Writing Economic Research

Attributes of writing economics.

  • The discourse is often mathematical, with lots of formulas, lemmas, and proofs.
  • Writing styles vary widely. Some authors are very dry and technical while a few are quite eloquent.

Economics writing is different from many other types of writing. It is essentially technical, and the primary goal is to achieve clarity. A clear presentation will allow the strength of your underlying analysis and the quality of your research to shine through.

Unlike prose writing in other disciplines, economics research takes time. Successful papers are not cranked out the night before a due date.

General Guidelines for Quality Research

Getting started.

The hardest part of any writing assignment is starting. Economics research usually begins with a strong understanding of literature, and papers require a section that summarizes and applies previous literature to what the paper at hand. This is the best way to start.

Your writing will demonstrate that you understand the findings that relate to the topic.

Economists use the first few paragraphs to set up research questions and the model and data they use to think about it. Sure, it can be dry, but this format ensures the write and reader have strong grasp on the subject and structure of the work that follows.

Clear and Concise Work

Clarity is hard to achieve, but revising and reworking a paper ensures it is easy to read

  • Organize your ideas into an argument with the help of an outline.
  • Define the important terms you will use
  • State your hypothesis and proceed deductively to reach your conclusions
  • Avoid excess verbiage
  • Edit yourself, remove what is not needed, and keep revising until you get down to a simple, efficient way of communicating
  • Use the active voice
  • Put statements in positive form
  • Omit needless words (concise writing is clear writing)
  • In summaries, generally stick to one tense

Time Management

Poor time management can wreck the best-planned papers. Deadlines are key to successful research papers.

  • Start the project by finding your topic
  • Begin your research
  • Start and outline
  • Write a draft
  • Revise and polish

The Language of Economic Analysis

Economic theory has become very mathematical. Most PhD students are mathematicians, not simply economics majors. This means most quality economic research requires a strong use of mathematical language. Economic analysis is characterized by the use of models, simplified representations of how economic phenomena work. A model’s predictions about the future or the past are essentially empirical hypotheses. Since economics is not easily tested in controlled experiments, research requires data from the real world (census reports, balance sheets), and statistical methods (regressions and econometrics) to test the predictive power of models and hypotheses based on those models.

The Writing Process

Finding a topic.

There are a million ways to find a topic. It may be that you are writing for a specific subfield of economics, so topics are limited and thus easier to pick. However, must research starts organically, from passive reading or striking news articles. Make sure to find something that interests you. Be sure to find a niche and make a contribution to the subfield.

You will also need a project that can be done within the parameters of the assignment (length, due date, access to research materials). A profoundly interesting topic may not be manageable given the time and other constraints you face. The key is to just be practical.

Be sure to start your research as soon as possible. Your topic will evolve along the way, and the question you begin with may become less interesting as new information draws you in other directions. It is perfectly fine to shape your topic based on available data, but don’t get caught up in endlessly revising topics.

Finding and Using Sources

There are two types of economic sources: empirical data (information that is or can be easily translated into numerical form), and academic literature (books and articles that help you organize your ideas).

Economic data is compiled into a number of useful secondary sources:

  • Economic Report of the President
  • Statistical Abstract of the United States
  • National Longitudinal Survey
  • Census data
  • Academic journals

The Outline

A good outline acts as an agenda for the things you want to accomplish:

  • Introduction: Pose an interesting question or problem
  • Literature Review: Survey the literature on your topic
  • Methods/Data: Formulate your hypothesis and describe your data
  • Results: Present your results with the help of graphs and charts
  • Discussion: Critique your method and/or discuss any policy implications
  • Conclusions: Summarize what you have done; pose questions for further research

Writing a Literature Review

The literature review demonstrates your familiarity with scholarly work on your topic and lays the foundations for your paper. The particular issues you intent to raise, the terms you will employ, and the approach you will take should be defined with reference to previous scholarly works.

Presenting a Hypothesis

Formulate a question, problem or conjecture, and describe the approach you will take to answer, solve, or test it. In presenting your hypothesis, you need to discuss the data set you are using and the type of regression you will run. You should say where you found the data, and use a table, graph, or simple statistics to summarize them. In term papers, it may not be possible to reach conclusive results. Don’t be afraid to state this clearly and accurately. It is okay to have an inconclusive paper, but it is not okay to make overly broad and unsupported statements.

Presenting Results

There are essentially two decisions to make: (1) How many empirical results should be presented, and (2) How should these results be described in the text?

  • Focus only on what is important and be as clear as possible. Both smart and dumb readers will appreciate you pointing things out directly and clearly.
  • Less is usually more: Reporting a small group of relevant results is better than covering every possible statistical analysis that could be made on the data.
  • Clearly and precisely describe your tables, graphs, and figures in the text of your results section. The first and last sentence in a paragraph describing a result should be “big picture” statements, describing how the results in the table, graph or figure fit into the overall theme of the paper.

Discussing Results

The key to discussing results is to stay clear of making value judgments, and rely instead on economic facts and analyses. It is not the job of an economist to draw policy conclusions, even if the research supports strong evidence in a particular direction.

Referencing Sources

As with any research paper, source referencing depends on the will of a professor a discourse community. However, economists generally use soft references in the literature review section and then cite sources in conventional formats at the end of papers.

This guide was made possible by the excellent work of Robert Neugeboren and Mireille Jacobson of Harvard University and Paul Dudenhefer of Duke University.

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Essay on Inflation: Types, Causes and Effects

write an essay on economic problems

Essay on Inflation!

Essay on the Meaning of Inflation:

Inflation and unemployment are the two most talked-about words in the contemporary society. These two are the big problems that plague all the economies. Almost everyone is sure that he knows what inflation exactly is, but it remains a source of great deal of confusion because it is difficult to define it unambiguously.

Inflation is often defined in terms of its supposed causes. Inflation exists when money supply exceeds available goods and services. Or inflation is attributed to budget deficit financing. A deficit budget may be financed by additional money creation. But the situation of monetary expansion or budget deficit may not cause price level to rise. Hence the difficulty of defining ‘inflation’ .

Inflation may be defined as ‘a sustained upward trend in the general level of prices’ and not the price of only one or two goods. G. Ackley defined inflation as ‘a persistent and appreciable rise in the general level or average of prices’ . In other words, inflation is a state of rising price level, but not rise in the price level. It is not high prices but rising prices that constitute inflation.

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It is an increase in the overall price level. A small rise in prices or a sudden rise in prices is not inflation since these may reflect the short term workings of the market. It is to be pointed out here that inflation is a state of disequilibrium when there occurs a sustained rise in price level.

It is inflation if the prices of most goods go up. However, it is difficult to detect whether there is an upward trend in prices and whether this trend is sustained. That is why inflation is difficult to define in an unambiguous sense.

Let’s measure inflation rate. Suppose, in December 2007, the consumer price index was 193.6 and, in December 2008 it was 223.8. Thus the inflation rate during the last one year was 223.8 – 193.6/193.6 × 100 = 15.6%.

As inflation is a state of rising prices, deflation may be defined as a state of falling prices but not fall in prices. Deflation is, thus, the opposite of inflation, i.e., rise in the value or purchasing power of money. Disinflation is a slowing down of the rate of inflation.

Essay on the Types of Inflation :

As the nature of inflation is not uniform in an economy for all the time, it is wise to distinguish between different types of inflation. Such analysis is useful to study the distributional and other effects of inflation as well as to recommend anti-inflationary policies.

Inflation may be caused by a variety of factors. Its intensity or pace may be different at different times. It may also be classified in accordance with the reactions of the government toward inflation.

Thus, one may observe different types of inflation in the contemporary society:

(a) According to Causes:

i. Currency Inflation:

This type of inflation is caused by the printing of currency notes.

ii. Credit Inflation:

Being profit-making institutions, commercial banks sanction more loans and advances to the public than what the economy needs. Such credit expansion leads to a rise in price level.

iii. Deficit-Induced Inflation:

The budget of the government reflects a deficit when expenditure exceeds revenue. To meet this gap, the government may ask the central bank to print additional money. Since pumping of additional money is required to meet the budget deficit, any price rise may be called deficit-induced inflation.

iv. Demand-Pull Inflation:

An increase in aggregate demand over the available output leads to a rise in the price level. Such inflation is called demand-pull inflation (henceforth DPI). But why does aggregate demand rise? Classical economists attribute this rise in aggregate demand to money supply.

If the supply of money in an economy exceeds the available goods and services, DPI appears. It has been described by Coulborn as a situation of “too much money chasing too few goods” .

write an essay on economic problems

Note that, in this region, price level begins to rise. Ultimately, the economy reaches full employment situation, i.e., Range 3, where output does not rise but price level is pulled upward. This is demand-pull inflation. The essence of this type of inflation is “too much spending chasing too few goods.”

v. Cost-Push Inflation:

Inflation in an economy may arise from the overall increase in the cost of production. This type of inflation is known as cost-push inflation (henceforth CPI). Cost of production may rise due to increase in the price of raw materials, wages, etc. Often trade unions are blamed for wage rise since wage rate is not market-determined. Higher wage means higher cost of production.

Prices of commodities are thereby increased. A wage-price spiral comes into operation. But, at the same time, firms are to be blamed also for the price rise since they simply raise prices to expand their profit margins. Thus we have two important variants of CPI: wage-push inflation and profit-push inflation. Anyway, CPI stems from the leftward shift of the aggregate supply curve.

write an essay on economic problems

The price level thus determined is OP 1 . As aggregate demand curve shifts to AD 2 , price level rises to OP 2 . Thus, an increase in aggregate demand at the full employment stage leads to an increase in price level only, rather than the level of output. However, how much price level will rise following an increase in aggregate demand depends on the slope of the AS curve.

Causes of Demand-Pull Inflation :

DPI originates in the monetary sector. Monetarists’ argument that “only money matters” is based on the assumption that at or near full employment, excessive money supply will increase aggregate demand and will thus cause inflation.

An increase in nominal money supply shifts aggregate demand curve rightward. This enables people to hold excess cash balances. Spending of excess cash balances by them causes price level to rise. Price level will continue to rise until aggregate demand equals aggregate supply.

Keynesians argue that inflation originates in the non-monetary sector or the real sector. Aggregate demand may rise if there is an increase in consumption expenditure following a tax cut. There may be an autonomous increase in business investment or government expenditure. Governmental expenditure is inflationary if the needed money is procured by the government by printing additional money.

In brief, an increase in aggregate demand i.e., increase in (C + I + G + X – M) causes price level to rise. However, aggregate demand may rise following an increase in money supply generated by the printing of additional money (classical argument) which drives prices upward. Thus, money plays a vital role. That is why Milton Friedman believes that inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon.

There are other reasons that may push aggregate demand and, hence, price level upwards. For instance, growth of population stimulates aggregate demand. Higher export earnings increase the purchasing power of the exporting countries.

Additional purchasing power means additional aggregate demand. Purchasing power and, hence, aggregate demand, may also go up if government repays public debt. Again, there is a tendency on the part of the holders of black money to spend on conspicuous consumption goods. Such tendency fuels inflationary fire. Thus, DPI is caused by a variety of factors.

Cost-Push Inflation Theory :

In addition to aggregate demand, aggregate supply also generates inflationary process. As inflation is caused by a leftward shift of the aggregate supply, we call it CPI. CPI is usually associated with the non-monetary factors. CPI arises due to the increase in cost of production. Cost of production may rise due to a rise in the cost of raw materials or increase in wages.

Such increases in costs are passed on to consumers by firms by raising the prices of the products. Rising wages lead to rising costs. Rising costs lead to rising prices. And rising prices, again, prompt trade unions to demand higher wages. Thus, an inflationary wage-price spiral starts.

This causes aggregate supply curve to shift leftward. This can be demonstrated graphically (Fig. 11.4) where AS 1 is the initial aggregate supply curve. Below the full employment stage this AS curve is positive sloping and at full employment stage it becomes perfectly inelastic. Intersection point (E 1 ) of AD 1 and AS 1 curves determines the price level.

CPI: Shifts in AS Curve

Now, there is a leftward shift of aggregate supply curve to AS 2 . With no change in aggregate demand, this causes price level to rise to OP 2 and output to fall to OY 2 .

With the reduction in output, employment in the economy declines or unemployment rises. Further shift in the AS curve to AS 2 results in higher price level (OP 3 ) and a lower volume of aggregate output (OY 3 ). Thus, CPI may arise even below the full employment (Y f ) stage.

Causes of CPI :

It is the cost factors that pull the prices upward. One of the important causes of price rise is the rise in price of raw materials. For instance, by an administrative order the government may hike the price of petrol or diesel or freight rate. Firms buy these inputs now at a higher price. This leads to an upward pressure on cost of production.

Not only this, CPI is often imported from outside the economy. Increase in the price of petrol by OPEC compels the government to increase the price of petrol and diesel. These two important raw materials are needed by every sector, especially the transport sector. As a result, transport costs go up resulting in higher general price level.

Again, CPI may be induced by wage-push inflation or profit-push inflation. Trade unions demand higher money wages as a compensation against inflationary price rise. If increase in money wages exceeds labour productivity, aggregate supply will shift upward and leftward. Firms often exercise power by pushing up prices independently of consumer demand to expand their profit margins.

Fiscal policy changes, such as an increase in tax rates leads to an upward pressure in cost of production. For instance, an overall increase in excise tax of mass consumption goods is definitely inflationary. That is why government is then accused of causing inflation.

Finally, production setbacks may result in decreases in output. Natural disaster, exhaustion of natural resources, work stoppages, electric power cuts, etc., may cause aggregate output to decline.

In the midst of this output reduction, artificial scarcity of any goods by traders and hoarders just simply ignite the situation.

Inefficiency, corruption, mismanagement of the economy may also be the other reasons. Thus, inflation is caused by the interplay of various factors. A particular factor cannot be held responsible for inflationary price rise.

Essay on the Effects of Inflation :

People’s desires are inconsistent. When they act as buyers they want prices of goods and services to remain stable but as sellers they expect the prices of goods and services should go up. Such a happy outcome may arise for some individuals; “but, when this happens, others will be getting the worst of both worlds.” Since inflation reduces purchasing power it is bad.

The old people are in the habit of recalling the days when the price of say, meat per kilogram cost just 10 rupees. Today it is Rs. 250 per kilogram. This is true for all other commodities. When they enjoyed a better living standard. Imagine today, how worse we are! But meanwhile, wages and salaries of people have risen to a great height, compared to the ‘good old days’. This goes unusually untold.

When price level goes up, there is both a gainer and a loser. To evaluate the consequence of inflation, one must identify the nature of inflation which may be anticipated and unanticipated. If inflation is anticipated, people can adjust with the new situation and costs of inflation to the society will be smaller.

In reality, people cannot predict accurately future events or people often make mistakes in predicting the course of inflation. In other words, inflation may be unanticipated when people fail to adjust completely. This creates various problems.

One can study the effects of unanticipated inflation under two broad headings:

(i) Effect on distribution of income and wealth

(ii) Effect on economic growth.

(a) Effects of Inflation on Income and Wealth Distribution :

During inflation, usually people experience rise in incomes. But some people gain during inflation at the expense of others. Some individuals gain because their money incomes rise more rapidly than the prices and some lose because prices rise more rapidly than their incomes during inflation. Thus, it redistributes income and wealth.

Though no conclusive evidence can be cited, it can be asserted that following categories of people are affected by inflation differently:

i. Creditors and Debtors:

Borrowers gain and lenders lose during inflation because debts are fixed in rupee terms. When debts are repaid their real value declines by the price level increase and, hence, creditors lose. An individual may be interested in buying a house by taking a loan of Rs. 7 lakh from an institution for 7 years.

The borrower now welcomes inflation since he will have to pay less in real terms than when it was borrowed. Lender, in the process, loses since the rate of interest payable remains unaltered as per agreement. Because of inflation, the borrower is given ‘dear’ rupees, but pays back ‘cheap’ rupees.

However, if in an inflation-ridden economy creditors chronically loose, it is wise not to advance loans or to shut down business. Never does it happen. Rather, the loan- giving institution makes adequate safeguard against the erosion of real value.

ii. Bond and Debenture-Holders:

In an economy, there are some people who live on interest income—they suffer most.

Bondholders earn fixed interest income:

These people suffer a reduction in real income when prices rise. In other words, the value of one’s savings decline if the interest rate falls short of inflation rate. Similarly, beneficiaries from life insurance programmes are also hit badly by inflation since real value of savings deteriorate.

iii. Investors:

People who put their money in shares during inflation are expected to gain since the possibility of earning business profit brightens. Higher profit induces owners of firms to distribute profit among investors or shareholders.

iv. Salaried People and Wage-Earners:

Anyone earning a fixed income is damaged by inflation. Sometimes, unionized worker succeeds in raising wage rates of white-collar workers as a compensation against price rise. But wage rate changes with a long time lag. In other words, wage rate increases always lag behind price increases.

Naturally, inflation results in a reduction in real purchasing power of fixed income earners. On the other hand, people earning flexible incomes may gain during inflation. The nominal incomes of such people outstrip the general price rise. As a result, real incomes of this income group increase.

v. Profit-Earners, Speculators and Black Marketeers:

It is argued that profit-earners gain from inflation. Profit tends to rise during inflation. Seeing inflation, businessmen raise the prices of their products. This results in a bigger profit. Profit margin, however, may not be high when the rate of inflation climbs to a high level.

However, speculators dealing in business in essential commodities usually stand to gain by inflation. Black marketeers are also benefited by inflation.

Thus, there occurs a redistribution of income and wealth. It is said that rich becomes richer and poor becomes poorer during inflation. However, no such hard and fast generalizations can be made. It is clear that someone wins and someone loses from inflation.

These effects of inflation may persist if inflation is unanticipated. However, the redistributive burdens of inflation on income and wealth are most likely to be minimal if inflation is anticipated by the people.

With anticipated inflation, people can build up their strategies to cope with inflation. If the annual rate of inflation in an economy is anticipated correctly people will try to protect them against losses resulting from inflation.

Workers will demand 10 p.c. wage increase if inflation is expected to rise by 10 p.c. Similarly, a percentage of inflation premium will be demanded by creditors from debtors. Business firms will also fix prices of their products in accordance with the anticipated price rise. Now if the entire society “learns to live with inflation” , the redistributive effect of inflation will be minimal.

However, it is difficult to anticipate properly every episode of inflation. Further, even if it is anticipated it cannot be perfect. In addition, adjustment with the new expected inflationary conditions may not be possible for all categories of people. Thus, adverse redistributive effects are likely to occur.

Finally, anticipated inflation may also be costly to the society. If people’s expectation regarding future price rise become stronger they will hold less liquid money. Mere holding of cash balances during inflation is unwise since its real value declines. That is why people use their money balances in buying real estate, gold, jewellery, etc.

Such investment is referred to as unproductive investment. Thus, during inflation of anticipated variety, there occurs a diversion of resources from priority to non-priority or unproductive sectors.

b. Effect on Production and Economic Growth :

Inflation may or may not result in higher output. Below the full employment stage, inflation has a favourable effect on production. In general, profit is a rising function of the price level. An inflationary situation gives an incentive to businessmen to raise prices of their products so as to earn higher doses of profit.

Rising price and rising profit encourage firms to make larger investments. As a result, the multiplier effect of investment will come into operation resulting in higher national output. However, such a favourable effect of inflation will be temporary if wages and production costs rise very rapidly.

Further, inflationary situation may be associated with the fall in output, particularly if inflation is of the cost-push variety. Thus, there is no strict relationship between prices and output. An increase in aggregate demand will increase both prices and output, but a supply shock will raise prices and lower output.

Inflation may also lower down further production levels. It is commonly assumed that if inflationary tendencies nurtured by experienced inflation persist in future, people will now save less and consume more. Rising saving propensities will result in lower further outputs.

One may also argue that inflation creates an air of uncertainty in the minds of business community, particularly when the rate of inflation fluctuates. In the midst of rising inflationary trend, firms cannot accurately estimate their costs and revenues. Under the circumstance, business firms may be deterred in investing. This will adversely affect the growth performance of the economy.

However, slight dose of inflation is necessary for economic growth. Mild inflation has an encouraging effect on national output. But it is difficult to make the price rise of a creeping variety. High rate of inflation acts as a disincentive to long run economic growth. The way the hyperinflation affects economic growth is summed up here.

We know that hyperinflation discourages savings. A fall in savings means a lower rate of capital formation. A low rate of capital formation hinders economic growth. Further, during excessive price rise, there occurs an increase in unproductive investment in real estate, gold, jewellery, etc.

Above all, speculative businesses flourish during inflation resulting in artificial scarcities and, hence, further rise in prices. Again, following hyperinflation, export earnings decline resulting in a wide imbalance in the balance of payments account.

Often, galloping inflation results in a ‘flight’ of capital to foreign countries since people lose confidence and faith over the monetary arrangements of the country, thereby resulting in a scarcity of resources. Finally, real value of tax revenue also declines under the impact of hyperinflation. Government then experiences a shortfall in investible resources.

Thus, economists and policy makers are unanimous regarding the dangers of high price rise. But the consequence of hyperinflation is disastrous. In the past, some of the world economies (e.g., Germany after the First World War (1914-1918), Latin American countries in the 1980s) had been greatly ravaged by hyperinflation.

The German Inflation of 1920s was also Catastrophic:

During 1922, the German price level went up 5,470 per cent, in 1923, the situation worsened; the German price level rose 1,300,000,000 times. By October of 1923, the postage of the lightest letter sent from Germany to the United States was 200,000 marks.

Butter cost 1.5 million marks per pound, meat 2 million marks, a loaf of bread 200,000 marks, and an egg 60,000 marks Prices increased so rapidly that waiters changed the prices on the menu several times during the course of a lunch!! Sometimes, customers had to pay double the price listed on the menu when they observed it first!!!

During October 2008, Zimbabwe, under the President-ship of Robert G. Mugabe, experienced 231,000,000 p.c. (2.31 million p.c.) as against 1.2 million p.c. price rise in September 2008—a record after 1923. It is an unbelievable rate. In May 2008, the cost of price of a toilet paper itself and not the costs of the roll of the toilet paper came to 417 Zimbabwean dollars.

Anyway, people are harassed ultimately by the high rate of inflation. That is why it is said that ‘inflation is our public enemy number one’. Rising inflation rate is a sign of failure on the part of the government.

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  • Cost-Push Inflation and Demand-Pull or Mixed Inflation
  • Demand Pull Inflation and Cost Push Inflation | Money
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Essay on Economic Issues In The Philippines

Students are often asked to write an essay on Economic Issues In The Philippines in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Economic Issues In The Philippines

The Philippines suffers from high poverty rates. Many people lack basic needs like food, shelter, and clothing. This is because jobs are scarce and many are low paying. The government is trying to create more jobs and improve living conditions, but progress is slow.

Unemployment

Unemployment is another big issue. There aren’t enough jobs for everyone. This leads to people not having money to buy things they need. The government is working on this problem by trying to attract more businesses to the Philippines.

Education in the Philippines is not always good quality. Many schools lack resources like books and computers. This makes it hard for students to learn and succeed. The government knows this is a problem and is working to improve schools.

Infrastructure

The Philippines needs better infrastructure, like roads and buildings. Poor infrastructure can make it hard for businesses to operate and for people to get to work. The government is investing in infrastructure to try to fix this problem.

Corruption is a big problem in the Philippines. It makes it hard for the government to improve the economy because money is not always used correctly. The government is trying to stop corruption, but it is a difficult problem to solve.

250 Words Essay on Economic Issues In The Philippines

Introduction.

The Philippines, a Southeast Asian country, faces numerous economic problems. These issues include poverty, unemployment, and corruption. Let’s explore these issues in detail.

Poverty is a significant problem in the Philippines. Despite the country’s economic growth, many people still live in harsh conditions. They struggle to afford basic needs like food, shelter, and education. The government is trying to reduce poverty, but progress is slow.

Another big issue is unemployment. Many Filipinos do not have jobs, especially young people. This problem is due to a lack of job opportunities and skills mismatch. A lot of people have skills that do not match the jobs available.

Corruption is also a major issue in the Philippines. It affects the economy because money that should be used for public services ends up in the wrong hands. This problem hinders economic development and increases poverty.

To sum up, the Philippines faces several economic issues. These problems include poverty, unemployment, and corruption. Solving these issues is not easy, but with the right policies and actions, the country can improve its economy.

500 Words Essay on Economic Issues In The Philippines

The economy of the philippines.

The Philippines is a country in Southeast Asia made up of over 7,000 islands. Its economy is mixed, meaning it has both private businesses and government involvement. The country’s economy has seen growth in recent years, but it still faces many challenges.

Issue 1: Poverty

One of the main economic problems in the Philippines is poverty. Despite economic growth, a big part of the population still lives in poverty. This means many people don’t have enough money for basic needs like food, shelter, and education. Poverty is more common in rural areas where farming is the main source of income.

Issue 2: Unemployment

Unemployment is another big problem. This means there are people who want to work but can’t find jobs. The COVID-19 pandemic made this worse, as many businesses had to close. The government is trying to create more jobs, but it’s a slow process.

Issue 3: Inequality

Inequality is another issue. This means that the wealth in the country is not shared equally. A small group of people own a big part of the country’s wealth, while many others have very little. This makes it hard for people to improve their lives.

Issue 4: Natural Disasters

The Philippines is often hit by natural disasters like typhoons, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions. These disasters damage homes, roads, and businesses, which hurts the economy. The government has to spend a lot of money to repair the damage and help people recover.

Issue 5: Dependence on Overseas Workers

A lot of Filipinos work in other countries and send money back home. This money is a big part of the country’s income. But it also means the country depends a lot on other countries’ economies. If these countries face economic problems, it can hurt the Philippines too.

Ways to Improve

To solve these problems, the government is working on several things. They are trying to help farmers by providing better tools and training. They are also trying to create more jobs, especially in manufacturing and services. They are investing in education to give people better skills for these jobs. And they are working on improving the country’s infrastructure to make it more resilient to natural disasters.

In conclusion, while the Philippines has made progress, it still faces many economic challenges. By focusing on reducing poverty, creating jobs, reducing inequality, and improving resilience to natural disasters, the country can continue to grow and improve the lives of its people.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

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write an essay on economic problems

Economic Problems in the US Expository Essay

Introduction.

The United States of America is currently facing domestic problems ranging from social, economic to health care issues. Some of these problems can be related to the formulation of bad policies of governance by the federal government and the ignorance of the people of the United States of America and the overwhelming global recession and economic depression. The United States economic problems are our major issue of concern.

Over the recent years, United States economy has indicated a gradual decline resulting to cases of job cuts; which is presently one of the major economic issues in the United States. Increased job cuts by corporations poses a major challenge of increased unemployment rates in the United States.

The United States seems to be facing a major economic disaster from all major sectors that contribute to its economic development. There is no sustainable economic improvement in major sectors like housing, health services and small scale businesses. Major businesses and financial corporations are evaluating strategies to cut down operational and overhead costs in order to remain in business.

The result of these is employee underpayment, stringent working conditions and increased job cuts. This results in increased cases of unemployment which amounts to increased crime rates. Many people can’t afford to sustain their lifestyles and thus they resort to unethical means of trying to make ends meet.

The United States in the verge of being bankrupt. Some of the problems that driving the nation into bankruptcy include: a deteriorating education system, crime, drugs, declining productivity, declining economic growth, huge national debt, large trade deficit and many others.

The economic structure of the United States can be viewed as comprising the a smaller number of rich and extremely rich at the top, a large number of poor people at the bottom and a powerless middle class in between. If immediate attention and preventive measures are not put in place, the United States will find itself in the trappings of the third world countries; characterized by an increased number of homeless people and beggars on the streets, increased crime rates and the drug epidemics are becoming extreme.

Economic problems facing the United States are due to their spending habits, as a nation, the unites states tend to spend more than they earn, their levels of consumption is more than their levels of production and this results to an increase in the national debt as days go by. It is projected that the United States will in the near future be consulting counties like Japan, china and European countries to oversee all Americans economic decisions due to the need for more cash from abroad.

The economic problems facing the United States are mainly due to ignorance and lack of proper formulation and implementation of good financial policies to help the country’s spending and increase its productivity. Solutions to these kinds of problems can be arrived by sensitization of the public in order to create awareness of the global recession so that they can embark on combative measures.

Formulation of policies that steer industrial production is also required so as to increase productivity. The business enterprises must establish preventive measures and strategies to help them check their business operations in times of economic depression and recession. The nation as a whole should also regulate its spending habits so as ensure there is no huge national debt.

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For New Research Economist, It’s About Asking the Right Questions

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Sarah Dickerson joined the Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise in January as an assistant research professor and research economist, bringing expertise forged through many years of research on housing, migration and economic well-being.

Sarah has already become an integral contributor to the institute’s American Growth Project, applying her knowledge of housing economics and policy as well as her data science skills to develop measures of economic health that are meaningful to individuals and local communities. She recently wrote an essay on housing affordability – and the lack thereof – in the U.S. that features detailed policy prescriptions.

A social scientist interested in the practical applications of data-driven research, Sarah has published scholarly work on important issues affecting broad swaths of the world’s people, including studies that evaluate global migration models; assess factors that mitigate financial risk in impoverished settings; analyze short-term rental and global housing market trends; and uncover structural factors that led to racial disparities in COVID-19 case positivity rates.

Before joining the Kenan Institute, Sarah was a postdoctoral associate and lecturing fellow at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy, where she taught graduate-level courses in statistics and social policy while performing research focused on housing insecurity and migration. Sarah holds a master’s from the London School of Economics and a Ph.D. in public policy from the University of Maryland.

Today, we sit down with Sarah to ask a few questions about her experience and interests, as well as her vision for how she will contribute to the Kenan Institute’s solutions-oriented mission.

From your experiences as a researcher, what are data’s revealing powers and what are its limitations?

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Sarah Dickerson: Data allows us to authoritatively answer questions. Too often assumptions are based on incomplete information, yet with access to reliable data we can generate knowledge that is based on evidence and make better-informed choices. One of data’s chief limitations is that it can’t always tell us which questions need to be asked and why. To come up with the right questions, researchers need to engage with practitioners, policymakers and those who provide insight on what’s happening on the ground.

In my research, I collaborate with academics, policy experts and scientists to fine-tune the questions I aim to investigate. When, for instance, my colleagues at Duke University and I examined the state of climate migration forecasting models, we held multiple interviews and panel workshops with experts working in this space. Through these discussions we learned the strengths and weaknesses of current forecasting approaches, helping us to refine our research questions. Conversations with experts also reveal opportunities for future research.

You generally employ a human lens in your research and produce results with real-world applications. What questions do you aim to answer and which practical problems do you hope to address in your work?

Sarah Dickerson: In collaboration with Fifth Third Bank, our research team recently launched Empowering American Cities, which leverages economic data to inform local decisions in pursuit of financial performance and sustainable growth in America’s microeconomies, and this year we are launching concurrent projects that complement this exciting work. For one such project, we’re developing economic health indicators for the country’s extended metropolitan areas (EMAs). This initiative will provide holistic measures of economic well-being for American cities, indicating the extent to which local economies enhance the lives of their inhabitants. As part of this endeavor, we will develop EMA-level indictors that measure talent, household economic security (e.g., debt and savings), and business growth and formation, forming a comprehensive picture of economic health. While we will evaluate common metrics such as GDP and skills measures, we will also measure other factors, including housing instability – a driver of education outcomes, health and economic growth. Drawing from my earlier research, I will map the share of households in each of our 150 EMAs that spend 30, 40 or 50% of their income on housing. 

The Kenan Institute’s stated mission is to “develop and promote innovative, market-based solutions to vital economic issues.” How will your work advance this mission?

Sarah Dickerson: Attracting, developing and retaining talent is essential to promoting local economic growth and driving innovation, so metropolitan areas across the U.S. want to know how to secure the best and the brightest. My colleagues and I are developing models that shed light on this vital economic issue. We’re investigating the importance of housing affordability, transportation, the number of parks and green spaces, and other factors that influence a city’s desirability among highly skilled workers. Our models will differ across various categories of talent, such as recent college graduates and middle career talent. For example, the rent-to-income ratio may matter more for recent college graduates, while the median sales price of homes may carry more weight for middle career talent.

While my research and writing will help further the institute’s mission, I also aim to expand the mission’s scope by reframing some of the fundamental questions being asked. Questions like, What economic issues are most salient to middle- and low-income people? And which of these issues are chronically overlooked and undiscussed? By shedding light on these often ignored areas, I hope to promote solutions for economic growth and health with outcomes that are lasting and equitable.

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Sarah Dickerson

Assistant Research Professor and Research Economist

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The state of underrepresented entrepreneurs in dei clawbacks.

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Latino and Black entrepreneurs are generating new businesses at significant rates. But in the ... [+] broader ecosystem of unfulfilled promises made in the name of DEI, paired with economic risks in 2024, underrepresented founders face a non-negligible level of uncertainty moving into the rest of the year.

Serial entrepreneur turned investor Felecia Hatcher is no stranger to building in the midst of uncertainty. She recalls the time she and her husband started a gourmet popsicle and ice cream catering company in 2008, in the midst of an economic downturn.

“If I would have known that we were in the middle of an economic downturn in probably one of the worst times to start a business, I probably would have never started,” she says. “But it also created a lot of unique opportunities. Silver lining exists only during economic uncertainty.”

Today, Hatcher is CEO of Pharrell Williams’ organization Black Ambition , which invests in high-growth startups founded by Black and Hispanic entrepreneurs. All the while, it’s underrepresented entrepreneurs that continue to grow. Black-owned businesses have experienced a 14% bump in new creation since 2020. Latino-owned businesses made for 36% of debuts in 2023, according to the Census Bureau.

“We are almost 20 percent of the population, with a $3.2 trillion dollar purchasing power,” says Rocio van Nierop, co-founder and CEO of Latinas in Tech about the Latino population. “It is time to flip the script and own our power.”

However, in the broader ecosystem of unfulfilled promises made in the name of DEI, paired with economic risks in 2024, underrepresented founders face a non-negligible level of uncertainty moving into the rest of the year.

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Following George Floyd’s murder and pressure on Wall Street in 2020, 50 of the largest U.S. public companies committed almost $50 billion to address racial inequality, according to The Washington Post. A McKinsey report cited that racial equity commitments had reached $340 billion by fall of 2022. But an analysis published 14 months after George Floyd’s murder reported that 37 of the 50 largest companies had deployed only $1.7 billion.

Felecia is the CEO of Pharrell William’s Black Ambition Opportunity Fund.

“A lot of entrepreneurs were put on this really high cliff [in 2020]. There was a huge injection of cash and opportunities, and now in a lot of ways, those things have quietly gone away,” says Hatcher.

A rejection of affirmative action opened the door for initiatives serving underrepresented communities to be questioned at large across funds, programs and businesses.

Among the challengers of DEI have been conservative organizations like the American Alliance for Equal Rights which sued the Fearless Fund over $20,000 small business grants for Black women.

“We have missed out on upwards of eight figures in potential investments that were coming through prior to the litigation,” said Fearless Fund CEO Arian Simone in a CBS News interview in February. “Right now, we are looking for anybody that does believe in DEI and believes in funding programs like this. We’re looking for corporations to step up.”

Another group, America First Legal, filed a lawsuit against Hello Alice, a platform for business owners, calling its grant program for Black-owned small companies discriminatory.

“We are not changing anything. If we change preemptively, they will also win,” Hatcher says of her work with Black Ambition. “We are very specific and intentional about who we serve and we're not changing anything right now. I implore all my peers to hold the line and to not change.”

Despite the new generation in business, it is underrepresented founders who continue to experience challenges in accessing capital to grow. When it comes to loans, White business owners are more likely to be fully approved for loans compared to Hispanic individuals, who do so at a 38% rate, or Black business owners, who do so at a 20% rate, according to Bankrate . Access to investment looks similarly bleak. Black founders in 2023 nly got only 0.48% of all venture dollars . Latinos get less than two percent of this pie.

“The numbers are showing that entrepreneurship in diverse communities is significantly growing,” Hatcher said. “The problem is no longer that we aren’t starting businesses - the problem is that there are all these interruptions that are happening in us growing the businesses.”

What founders need? Hatcher contributes real mentorship, representation within corporations and healthy relationships with money, in addition to the big unlock: access to capital.

In the last three years, Black Ambition has invested in more than 100 Black and Hispanic-led companies that have gone on to raise more than $95 million.

“These are the companies that have been overlooked, and look at what $10 million in investment has done – almost a 10X return on that,” Hatcher says. “Wouldn’t you want to be a part of the upswing and share in that success?”

Lyanne Alfaro

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A beige armchair sits next to a floor lamp on a light gray background. Sitting in the armchair is a large flat-screen TV with static on the display. Sitting in front of the TV is a checked beige blanket with fringe.

Critic’s Notebook

The Comfortable Problem of Mid TV

It’s got a great cast. It looks cinematic. It’s, um … fine. And it’s everywhere.

Credit... Alex Merto

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James Poniewozik

By James Poniewozik

  • April 27, 2024

A few years ago, “Atlanta” and “PEN15” were teaching TV new tricks.

In “Atlanta,” Donald Glover sketched a funhouse-mirror image of Black experience in America (and outside it), telling stories set in and around the hip-hop business with an unsettling, comic-surreal language. In “PEN15,” Maya Erskine and Anna Konkle created a minutely observed, universal-yet-specific picture of adolescent awkwardness.

In February, Glover and Erskine returned in the action thriller “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” on Amazon Prime Video. It’s … fine? A takeoff on the 2005 film , it updates the story of a married duo of spies by imagining the espionage business as gig work. The stars have chemistry and charisma; the series avails itself of an impressive cast of guest stars and delectable Italian shooting locations. It’s breezy and goes down easy. I watched several episodes on a recent long-haul flight and they helped the hours pass.

But I would never have wasted an episode of “Atlanta” or “PEN15” on in-flight entertainment. The work was too good, the nuances too fine, to lose a line of dialogue to engine noise.

I do not mean to single out Glover and Erskine here. They are not alone — far from it. Keri Russell, a ruthless and complicated Russian spy in “The Americans,” is now in “The Diplomat,” a forgettably fun dramedy. Natasha Lyonne, of the provocative “Orange Is the New Black” and the psychotropic “Russian Doll,” now plays a retro-revamped Columbo figure in “Poker Face.” Idris Elba, once the macroeconomics-student gangster Stringer Bell in “The Wire,” more recently starred in “Hijack,” a by-the-numbers airplane thriller.

I’ve watched all of these shows. They’re not bad. They’re simply … mid. Which is what makes them, frustratingly, as emblematic of the current moment in TV as their stars’ previous shows were of the ambitions of the past.

What we have now is a profusion of well-cast, sleekly produced competence. We have tasteful remakes of familiar titles. We have the evidence of healthy budgets spent on impressive locations. We have good-enough new shows that resemble great old ones.

We have entered the golden age of Mid TV.

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LET ME SAY UP FRONT: This is not an essay about how bad TV is today. Just the opposite. There is little truly bad high-profile television made anymore. As I wrote last year , these days it takes a special confluence of celebrity pull and network resources to make a dud like HBO’s “The Idol.” When we encounter a majestic prize turkey like this in the wild, we almost don’t know what to think. Who did this? How did this get past quality control?

What we have today instead is something less awful but in a way more sad: The willingness to retreat, to settle, to trade the ambitious for the dependable.

People who grew up in the three-broadcast-network era — we knew from bad TV. We watched it and sometimes even loved it. (ABC’s 1977 comedy “The San Pedro Beach Bums” was one of TV’s biggest punchlines, and its cancellation was one of the first heartbreaks of my young life.) But the rise of cable transformed both the business and the art of television, as the likes of HBO, FX and AMC took risks and offered creators freedom in order to stand out.

It worked — so well, in fact, that eventually the truism that TV was garbage was replaced by the truism that TV was the new literature, or cinema, or maybe even religion. A New York Times critic heralded “The Sopranos” as possibly the greatest work of pop culture in a quarter century. “Deadwood” was likened to Shakespeare, “The Wire” to Dickens, “Mad Men” to Cheever. People deconstructed “Lost” and argued over “Girls.” TV’s auteurs bestrode the cultural conversation like the easy riders and raging bulls of film in the 1970s.

For a good two decades now, it’s been bien-pensant wisdom that TV could be good — no, not just good. Original. Provocative. Important.

TV was so highly acclaimed for so long that we were like the frog in boiling water, but in reverse. The medium became lukewarm so gradually that you might not even have noticed.

The streaming era at first promised more innovation, supercharged and superfunded, and for a while that’s what we got. Eager to establish a catalog of original programming, Netflix underwrote experiments like “Orange Is the New Black,” “BoJack Horseman” and “Sense8.” Not everything worked, and what did work could be inconsistent, but there was a sense of opportunity and possibility.

But another thing happened as well. The conferral of status (and money) on TV meant that there was a lot more talent available. Doing TV was no longer a demotion, and you could buy an instant sense of importance by hiring stars. Netflix’s early hit “House of Cards” was a harbinger, a pot of boiling ham given the aura of prestige with the casting of a pre-scandal Kevin Spacey.

Also, more streamers — Netflix was joined by Amazon, Hulu and sundry Maxes and Pluses — simply meant more TV. More TV was better in some ways: It meant room for new voices and untold stories, more dice to roll. But it also created a sense of overload. In a seemingly infinite sea of story, how would viewers find shows, and shows get found?

More and more often, they’d get found through the algorithm, whose purpose is to serve up new versions of the last thing you watched. Increasingly, the best way to get noticed was with something people already recognized: A familiar title, formula or franchise.

Disney+’s Marvel Cinematic Universe series are too polished to be awful or tacky — just compare them to the threadbare comic-book dramas of the ’70s and ’80s — but they are too bound by the rules and needs of the larger megaproperty to take creative leaps. (It’s noteworthy that the first of these series, “WandaVision,” remains the one significant exception.) Meanwhile, Netflix’s “Ozark” showed that you could ask, “What if ChatGPT rewrote ‘Breaking Bad’?” and enough people would embrace the result as if it were “Breaking Bad.”

Put these two forces together — a rising level of talent and production competence on the one hand, the pressure to deliver versions of something viewers already like on the other hand — and what do you get? You get a whole lot of Mid.

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MID IS NOT the mediocre TV of the past. It’s more upscale. It is the aesthetic equivalent of an Airbnb “modern farmhouse” renovation, or the identical hipster cafe found in medium-sized cities all over the planet. It’s nice! The furniture is tasteful, they’re playing Khruangbin on the speakers, the shade-grown coffee is an improvement on the steaming mug of motor oil you’d have settled for a few decades ago.

If comparing TV to fast-casual dining is an insulting analogy, in my defense I only borrowed it. A New Yorker profile last year quoted a Netflix executive describing the platform’s ideal show as a “gourmet cheeseburger.”

I’m not going to lie, I enjoy a gourmet cheeseburger. Caramelize some onions, lay on a slice of artisanal American cheese and I’m happy. But at heart, the sales pitch for that cheeseburger is no different from that for a Big Mac: You know what you’re going to get.

And it’s not only Netflix plating this up. Look at the star-packed algorithm bait we’ve seen over the past year or so. There’s “Masters of the Air,” a well-credentialed, superfluous expansion to the World War II-verse of “Band of Brothers” and “The Pacific.” (Liked those? Watch this next!) “Apples Never Fall,” a room-temperature adaptation of another Liane Moriarty novel. (Liked “Big Little Lies”? Watch this next!) “Feud: Capote vs. the Swans,” a fall-from-grace biopic cast to the hilt and padded to the limit. (Liked “Fosse/Verdon”? Watch this next!).

These shows don’t have what it takes to be truly bad. Making honestly bad TV requires a mercenary, Barnumesque disregard for taste, or a hellbent willingness to take the kind of gamble that can turn into disaster.

Mid TV, on the other hand, almost can’t be bad for some of the same reasons that keep it from being great. It’s often an echo of the last generation of breakthrough TV (so the highs and lows of “Game of Thrones” are succeeded by the faithful adequacy of “House of the Dragon” ). Or it’s made by professionals who know how to make TV too well, and therefore miss a prerequisite of making great art, which is training yourself to forget how the thing was ever done and thus coming up with your own way of doing it.

Mid is not a strict genre with a universal definition. But it’s what you get when you raise TV’s production values and lower its ambitions. It reminds you a little of something you once liked a lot. It substitutes great casting for great ideas. (You really liked the star in that other thing! You can’t believe they got Meryl Streep !)

Mid is based on a well-known book or movie or murder. Mid looks great on a big screen. (Though for some reason everything looks blue .) Mid was shot on location in multiple countries. Mid probably could have been a couple episodes shorter. Mid is fine, though. It’s good enough.

Above all, Mid is easy. It’s not dumb easy — it shows evidence that its writers have read books. But the story beats are familiar. Plot points and themes are repeated. You don’t have to immerse yourself single-mindedly the way you might have with, say, “The Wire.” It is prestige TV that you can fold laundry to.

And let’s be fair, it makes plenty of people happy. Any honest critic has to recognize that people for whom TV-watching is not work do not always want to work at watching TV. (See, for instance, the unlikely resurgence on Netflix of “Suits,” that watchable avatar of 2010s basic-cable Mid.) I get it. TV critics have laundry to fold, too.

There may also be economic reasons to prefer good-enough TV. As more people drop cable TV for streaming, their incentives change. With cable you bought a package of channels, many of which you would never watch, but any of which you might .

Each streaming platform, on the other hand, requires a separate purchase decision , and they add up. You might well choose a service that has plenty of shows you’d be willing to watch rather than one with a single show that you must watch.

So where HBO used to boast that it was “not TV,” modern streamers send the message, “We’ll give you a whole lot of TV.” It can seem like their chief goal is less to produce standout shows than to produce a lot of good-looking thumbnails.

There even is a growing idea that a new Golden Age is emerging, with a new Midas. Apple TV+, the home of “Ted Lasso” and “The Morning Show,” has been deemed, by more than one commentator, “the new HBO.”

Apple TV+ is not HBO. At least not in the sense of what made HBO HBO in the 2000s, when it was revolutionizing TV and challenging viewers. (And HBO wasn’t alone in being “HBO” in this sense: It had company in FX, AMC, Showtime and occasionally Syfy and others.)

But Apple TV+ just might be the HBO of Mid.

Broadly generalizing, Apple’s strategy has been to open its checkbook and sign up A-list names — Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks, Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon, M. Night Shyamalan — to make broadly palatable, uncontroversial shows. (This did not work out too well with Jon Stewart .) According to reports around its founding, the Apple chief Tim Cook was concerned that the service not go overboard with violence, profanity and nudity — not exactly the mission statement of somebody looking to reopen the Bada Bing.

Apple’s investment bought something. Its shows feel professional. They look like premium products that no one skimped on. “Palm Royale” has a loaded cast (Kristen Wiig, Laura Dern, Carol Burnett[!]) and an attention to period detail that recalls “Mad Men.” But its class farce is toothless, its atmosphere of ’60s cultural ferment warmed over. Comedies like “Shrinking” and “Platonic” and “Loot” are more nice than funny, dramas like “Constellation,” “The New Look” and “Manhunt” classy but inert.

These are shows built like iPhones — sleek, rounded, with no edges you can cut yourself on.

write an essay on economic problems

THERE IS, OF COURSE, great and innovative TV on Apple as well. I’m dying to see another season of the brain-bending sci-fi thriller “Severance,” and its first crop of shows included the alternative space-race history “For All Mankind” and the screwball literary history “Dickinson.”

It is exceptions like these series that make me an optimist about TV long-term. Even in the face of pressures and incentives to aim for the middle, creativity wants to find a way. Just a year ago, I was writing about wild, adventurous series like “Beef,” “Reservation Dogs,” “Mrs. Davis” and “I’m a Virgo.” (This year, two of the best new dramas so far are a remake of “Shogun” and a re-adaptation of “The Talented Mr. Ripley.”)

But the bulk of TV right now — the packing peanuts that fill up the space between “The Bear” and “FBoy Island” — feels flattened out in the broad middle. No, not flattened: Smoothed. That may be the biggest but most intangible defining feature of Mid. It’s friction-free. It has an A.I.-like, uncanny luster, like the too-sharp motion-smoothing effect that you have to turn off when you buy a new flat-screen.

TV is far from broken, but it does feel like someone needs to go in and tweak the settings. The price of reliability, competence and algorithm-friendliness is losing the sense of surprise — the unmoored feeling you get, from innovations like “Fleabag” and “Watchmen” and “I May Destroy You,” of being thrown into an unpredictable alien universe.

I don’t think it’s only critics and TV snobs who want this, either. “The Sopranos” and “Twin Peaks” were revolutionary and rewarded close viewing, but they were also popular. Even if you watch TV as escapism, how much of an escape is a show that you can, and probably will, half-watch while also doomscrolling on your phone?

We lose something when we become willing to settle. Reliability is a fine quality in a hybrid sedan. But in art, it has a cost. A show that can’t disappoint you can’t surprise you. A show that can’t enrage you can’t engage you.

The good news is, there is still TV willing to take chances, if you look for it. You may have loved or hated “The Curse,” but I would be surprised if anyone who watched an hour of it ended up indifferent to it. This month, HBO premiered “The Sympathizer,” Park Chan-wook’s frenetic adaptation of Viet Thanh Nguyen’s satire of the Vietnam War and its aftermath, a raucous, disorienting rush down the back alleys of memory.

With risk, of course, comes the possibility of disappointment — you might get another “The Idol.” I’m willing to accept the trade-off. The price of making TV that’s failure-proof, after all, is getting TV that can never really succeed. Come back, bad TV: All is forgiven.

James Poniewozik is the chief TV critic for The Times. He writes reviews and essays with an emphasis on television as it reflects a changing culture and politics. More about James Poniewozik

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    Attributes of Writing Economics The discourse is often mathematical, with lots of formulas, lemmas, and proofs. Writing styles vary widely. Some authors are very dry and technical while a few are quite eloquent. Economics writing is different from many other types of writing. It is essentially technical, and the primary goal is to achieve clarity. A clear presentation will allow the strength ...

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    Among the main topics you can discuss in economics research are: Fundamental economics, cost to benefit analysis, and importance of decision-making; Macroeconomics, supply, and demand; Microeconomics, market structure, and strategies, competition; International economics, trade, market, and more; Personal economics, spending habits, personal ...

  18. Essay on Economic Problems

    Students are often asked to write an essay on Economic Problems in their schools and colleges. And if you're also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic. Let's take a look… 100 Words Essay on Economic Problems The Nature of Economic Problems

  19. Essay on Economic Issues

    Economic issues are problems that affect how money is made, spent, and managed in a country. Imagine your family's money matters, but on a much bigger scale. Countries face challenges like not having enough jobs for people, prices going up, or not selling enough goods to other countries. These problems can make life harder for everyone living ...

  20. Essay on Inflation: Types, Causes and Effects

    Essay on Inflation! Essay on the Meaning of Inflation: Inflation and unemployment are the two most talked-about words in the contemporary society. These two are the big problems that plague all the economies. Almost everyone is sure that he knows what inflation exactly is, but it remains a source of great deal of confusion because it is difficult to define it unambiguously. Inflation is often ...

  21. How to Write a Problem Solution Essay: Tips & Hacks

    This essay type is commonly employed in academic settings, particularly in disciplines like Social Sciences, Economics, Public Policy, and Environmental Studies. It is often assigned as homework in high school and college courses. ... Understanding how to write a problem and solution essay gives learners the power to analyze complex issues and ...

  22. Essay on Economic Issues In The Philippines for Students

    Issue 1: Poverty. One of the main economic problems in the Philippines is poverty. Despite economic growth, a big part of the population still lives in poverty. This means many people don't have enough money for basic needs like food, shelter, and education. Poverty is more common in rural areas where farming is the main source of income.

  23. Economic Problems in the US

    The United States in the verge of being bankrupt. Some of the problems that driving the nation into bankruptcy include: a deteriorating education system, crime, drugs, declining productivity, declining economic growth, huge national debt, large trade deficit and many others. The economic structure of the United States can be viewed as ...

  24. For New Research Economist, It's About Asking the Right Questions

    Sarah Dickerson: Attracting, developing and retaining talent is essential to promoting local economic growth and driving innovation, so metropolitan areas across the U.S. want to know how to secure the best and the brightest.My colleagues and I are developing models that shed light on this vital economic issue. We're investigating the importance of housing affordability, transportation, the ...

  25. Answered: What are some of the current economic…

    Solution for What are some of the current economic issues youth are dealing with and how do these impact their health ... Essays; Topics; Writing Tool; plus. study resources. Subjects Literature guides Concept explainers Writing guides Popular textbooks Popular high school textbooks ... Please help me write these sentences using the verbs in ...

  26. The State Of Underrepresented Entrepreneurs In DEI Clawbacks

    I write about Latino entrepreneurship in the U.S. economy. ... "If I would have known that we were in the middle of an economic downturn in probably one of the worst times to start a business, I ...

  27. The Comfortable Problem of Mid TV

    Just a year ago, I was writing about wild, adventurous series like "Beef," "Reservation Dogs," "Mrs. Davis" and "I'm a Virgo." (This year, two of the best new dramas so far are a ...

  28. CNN Poll: Trump maintains lead over Biden in 2024 matchup as views on

    A broad majority of all Americans, 70%, say economic conditions in the US are poor, with many, particularly Republicans, who feel that way saying their views would be more affected by a political ...