Evidence of Price War

Following 16th October's post giving you an oligopoly case study, forecasters have predicted that over the Christmas period Tesco lost market share while Asda, Sainsbury's and Morrisons grew market share. This just shows how price wars can adversely affect companies within a market. The 'Big Price Drop' campaign was matched by Asda's '10% cheaper' and others from the competitors. However a counter-argument is that the price led to increased market share for all the major firms regardless that Tesco has lost.

Latest figures

A good website to use to find out the latest growth, inflation, interest, exchange and unemployment rates is http://tradingeconomics.com/. You can spend a while looking at the most recent data and pick out patterns and make comparisons.

Interesting facts to note and use:

Japan's interest rate is 0%

The Euro area has the highest unemployment rate

China's inflation rate is 4.2% while India's is over 9%!

Ireland has the highest budget deficit, 31.30% of GDP. Greece, the USA, UK, Portugal and Spain follow soon after.

India's GDP was 6.9% in the third quarter of 2011, compare that to China's 2.3%

Channel 4: Unemployment Video

This video, http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=dWn6rjEXpSk, provides a good case study about unemployment in the UK and highlights the inequality between the North and South. Sorry if it is slightly outdated, but there are still some very useful points you can pick out.