Peternomics 2022

Page Title Author

IS SWITZERLAND

A BUSINESS

A RICH NATION?

MARKET

IMPORTANCE

THREAT AND COST

CASE AGAINST

WHAT IS TO BLAME

OVERTURNING

ORIENTED?

UREN

HAZELL

TODD

ON

UK INFLATION RATE/OIL CRISIS?

ROE VS WADE

HOW DOES A DECREASE IN PREMIERSHIP SALARY CAPs AFFECT TEAM

VINCENT

CHU

THOMPSON

ROUND

TOBY BAKER

CRYPTO AFFECTS THE NBA WILL BRUNTON

HAS THE WAR IN UKRAINE AFFECTED GLOBAL ACTIVITY AND INFLATION?

ALMOST-PRENEURS

ARE BROADCASTING COMPANIES CHARGING TOO MUCH TO WATCH SPORT?

IZZY DERI CLARK

WOOD

JOSH ELLIS

EFFECTS OF INTERNATIONAL SANCTIONS ON RUSSIAN TRADE EMMA FRANEY

HEIGHT PLAY A ROLE IN A RUGBY SALARY?

ART A POINTLESS TRADE?

IN GREECE

BENEFITS

HAVING GREATER FEMALE

GAPS

IMPACT OF

MEDIA

COVID-19 PANDEMIC

RISE AND

GLOBALISATION

CURTIS CORNWELL

MARTHA RYCROFT

ANTHONY

GOODWIN

RYCROFT

NIMMAGADDA

FIELD

LAWRANCE

JONES

JOHAR

FUEL PRICE

THE MOST

UNEMPLOYMENT

COVID 19 CHANGED

ECONOMIC IMPACT

INFLATION

IMPACT

OLLIE GODDARD

YATES

TRADITIONAL OFFICE MARKET

COVID-19 ON THE MUSIC INDUSTRY.

PHOEBE MCKELVIE

RUDGE

DEWHURST

PRICES AND TRENDS

’S IMPACT ON MARKETING

HAS THE RISE IN LIVING COSTS AFFECTED BUY NOW PAY LATER

SHOULD CORPORATE STRATEGIES BE FOCUSED ON

ROYALTIES

ECONOMIC IMPACT

THE WORLD OF MOTORSPORT

CAR MARKET

THE RICH GET RICHER: ART EDITION

AND MONEY LAUNDERING

PESTLE ANALYSIS OF SPAIN’S

FRANKIE PADGETT

ALLISON

JOSH DAGWELL

ASTRID SMITH

LUKE GILMOUR

TOMLINSON

FREDDIE WOODCOCK

HOLLY PEARS

CHARLIE HUGHES

AKE

HARPIN

REDMAN

PAPADOPOULOS

ENGLAND

ILES

MANNION

GREVSTAD

HARRISON

RECCHIA

LINDLEY

WHY IS SWITZERLAND SUCH A RICH NATION?

To understand the economic success of Switzerland, first we must see where it all started which was through Industrialisation and Innovation. Switzerland led the market in areas such as chocolates and clocks (to name the popular exports) and there are many more!

Switzerland is long renowned for its powerful and varied exports market, whilst maintaining its focus on its own industries and not importing cheaper alternative products, this setup a strong start for the Swiss economy to thrive.

The Swiss economy also has benefited largely from the political stability of Switzerland as a country, remaining neutral in every major war avoiding economic devastation whilst also maintaining political stability which is important because wealthy foreigners and investors see it as a safe space to spend their money.

In recent years the epicentre of the Swiss economy has been its favourable tax system and banking industry. The lower income and corporation taxes have attracted a lot of high net worth individuals as well as some high profile companies as well, these companies and individuals stay for a long period of time making Switzerland one of the main financial centres of the world. To add to the idealistic income/corporation tax system, they also boast a great system for Inheritance tax meaning that families who want to pass down their wealth through the generations should really consider the move, which leads to their economy receiving even more of a boost from wealthy internationals.

SHOULD A BUSINESS BE MARKET OR PRODUCT ORIENTED?

The question which any business should crucially ask themselves: should their products or services be market or product oriented. The simple answer is that it is highly dependent on the type of business and its specific goals.

When a business takes a product orientation approach, it focuses on its product or service’s quality and performance. In other words, this solely means that their goals are product innovation and improvements in order to focus on customer satisfaction and customer feedback. Generally, product oriented companies tend to be technology focused and create new products which will generate a new market demand. For a business which is looking to delight customers with a new product which does not currently exist in the market, product orientation would be the most strategic approach.

However, when deciding to take this approach, market research must be carried out at a high level to ensure there is a clear gap in the market which is yet to be fulfilled and the product is unique enough to innovate.

A great example of a product oriented business would be apple. Apple focuses on its quality and relies on innovation to enter new markets and create demand. This approach allows them to address the unarticulated customer wants and needs with attractive and innovative electronics that offer a competitive advantage over similar products from rivals.

On the other hand, market orientation prioritizes identifying consumers’ needs and delivering products and services to satisfy them. There is a clear focus on pleasing existing customers and promoting products to attract new customers. A dynamic business which is able to recognise that customer demands are constantly changing would be well suited for this approach as they are able to refine existing products in order to satisfy customers.

In this case, businesses which carry out secondary research would benefit from this approach as they are able to study market trends over the years and plan on how to adapt products or services to match the constant changes and demands in a market.

A good example of a company that uses this approach is Coca Cola. Coca Cola has produced numerous distinctive marketing campaigns that link the soft drink to experience. Customers no longer drink Coca Cola simply for the taste, but because of what it means to drink it. We can also consider the brand’s response to shifts in consumer health concerns and the development of sugar free products like Coke Zero that catered to this market.

Overall, a business must take into account whether they are looking to release a new product or service into the market, or innovate and improve an existing product or service.

THE IMPORTANCE OF CRYPTOCURRENCY

With cryptocurrencies becoming more popular, understandable and available, the amount of users and consumers increase massively every year. If businesses want to carry on growing they must adapt to changes in the market and with this Crypto. With interest rates at a 13 year high the cost of borrowing money is very costly, using crypto currencies enables businesses to gain new capital from liquidity pools and using crypto to invest and hold capital. On the other hand Crypto is very liable to external shocks as it is a fairly new and unstable asset, but if businesses wish to gain capital fast and in new ways with less costs it will allow them to gain a competitive advantage over other new businesses.

Using Crypto Currencies may also attract new demographics to buy products allowing the business to have more options for payment making it likely to buy from the company, it may attract younger consumers who know more about tech so some companies may feel more inclined to use Crypto currencies in order to appeal to their target markets or to open up into newer markets. Studies also show that customers that pay with Crypto are likely to spend twice as much as consumers that pay with credit cards so if businesses allow for payments in Crypto then they may be able to sell more products and make more profit in the long run.

Taking into account the cost of transaction for credit cards vs Bitcoin is also a very important factor in whether businesses should use card or crypto payments. The average credit card transaction costs 2 3% of the total sale which businesses have to pay if they want to use card payments, on the other hand crypto currencies are far cheaper and faster depending on the amount of transactions taking place at one time. One downfall of Crypto transactions is that the price of a transaction scales with how many people are trying to complete a transaction at one time due to the nature of the blockchain, nonetheless these costs will almost always be lower than the 2 3% that businesses would have to pay if they took payments from credit cards.

Large companies such as Paypal and Microsoft are already accepting Crypto payments, this will increase consumers confidence in Crypto and make more people want to pay using Crypto Currencies. Paypal experienced a jump in revenue of $3.9 Billion between 2020 and 2021 from $21.4 Billion to $25.3 Billion. This large increase in revenue was slightly larger than predicted, this could be due to the fact that Paypal only started dealing with Crypto Currencies in 2021. This shows us that as more companies start to adopt crypto into their business and allow products to be sold in crypto it will help them to increase revenue and profit.

In conclusion, I believe that businesses should start to invest small amounts of capital into Crypto in order to gain new sources of capital and save money whilst costs are low.

THE THREAT AND COST OF CYBER ATTACKS ON ORGANIZATIONS

‘Cybersecurity is how individuals and organizations reduce the risk of cyber attack’ (National Cyber Security Centre) or ‘The ability to protect or defend the use of cyberspace from cyberattacks.’ (National Institute of Standards and Technology).

Threats to cybersecurity are ‘The probability of exposure or loss resulting from a cyber attack or data breach on your organization’ or ‘The potential loss or harm related to technical infrastructure, use of technology or reputation of an organization’.

Cyber Security threats and risks affect almost every organization around the world. These threats have been increasing for the last 50 years of technological change, but it wasn’t until 1970’s when ARPANET (the Advances Research Projects Agency Network) was created and Robert Thomas (an engineer at BBN Technologies) created the first computer virus called Creeper (which was deleted shortly after by the first anti virus called Reaper which was developed by Ray Tomlinson), that many discussions surrounding computer security began to emerge. The first computer worm, The Morris Worm, followed on in 1988, developed by Robert T. Morris, a graduate student from Cornwell University and this paved the way for newer types of malicious programs. Hacking, which historically was used more to initiate practical jokes than cause serious harm or fraud, also began to be used for more malicious purposes around this time. Kevin Mitnick describes his early introduction to hacking in 1979 as something known as ‘phone phreaking’ which is a type of hacking that allowed him to hack into public and private systems and make calls for free; it started him down a long path of IT associated crime that eventually resulted in imprisonment. The rise in popularity of the home computer in the 1980’s and the development of the internet in the 1990’s brought about a huge increase in ’computer security’ related threats.

The IBM 2021 Cost of Data Breach Report which studied 537 real breaches across 17 different countries and 17 different industries estimates that a typical data breach now costs a company an average of $4.24 million per incident, up by 10% on the previous year. Image below:

THE CASE AGAINST ‘COMMAND AND CONTROL’ ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATION

This type of 'command and control' environmental regulation has long been the default approach to environmental issues by governments, coercing polluters into installing pollution abatement technology, limiting the volume and concentration of firms' emissions, etc.

Although almost always well intentioned, there are many severe flaws in such an approach, with the first being the difficulty of enforcement pollution abatement technology. While it is easy for inspectors to check whether individual firms have the required equipment in place, confirming whether it is even switched on or working on par with regulations can be troublesome to verify cheaply and quickly. This leads to a drawn out whack a mole game, due to it being highly costly to run such mandated technology, it is temptingly profitable to simply switch it off, limiting its practicality. However, authorities are able to counter such actions with limited success through more frequent and unannounced inspections of polluting firms. Nonetheless, the capital and labour resources used for such activities, just like the resources used by the government in regulations, incur a significant opportunity cost, the cost and value of sacrificing the second best option, which could arguably be put into much more beneficial programs than engaging in this whack a mole game.

Secondly, such regulations solidifies the oligopoly status of the energy sector. One example of this is the EU acid rain legislation which mandated the installation of flue gas desulfurization (FGD) scrubbers in all power stations in the EU. While reasonable on the surface, the flaws reveal themselves once you skim past the surface. It cements the oligopoly of the energy sector, with itself already being a sector with huge barriers to entry, such as its massive set up cost and lack of access to the distribution channels. FGD scrubbers are already hugely expensive, with the FGD system at Longannet power station costing over £400 million, a sum many smaller firms are simply unable to afford. Furthermore, large corporations, with their massive capital reserves, are able to exploit their size and economies of scale through the purchase of larger FGD systems, in which the processing cost per ton is cut by half, while smaller firms with smaller FGD systems suffer much higher unit costs, dealing a massive hit towards their profitability and thus undermining their competitiveness. This squeezes smaller firms out of the market, cementing the oligopoly’s market position. Such a market environment does no good to society, it limits consumer choice, discourages further innovation thanks to the lack of competition, and can even lead to price setting/gouging by the dominant firms due to the lack of substitutes in the market.

The superior solution to solving environmental problems are subsidies for smaller firms when entering the market. Not only is this useful in lowering prices for consumers, from P to P1 by shifting the supply curve from S to S1, but it also ensures that market shares remain liquid, constantly applying pressure on firms to innovate and improve, resulting in lower prices for consumers as firms must compete.

WHAT IS TO BLAME FOR THE 2022 UK INFLATION RATE/OIL CRISIS?

Inflation in the UK has reached 9.1% in May, this is the highest it's been for 40 years. The COVID 19 pandemic has affected most major economies including the UK through the disruption of both supply and demand for goods. Lockdown measures implemented by the government changed consumer spending patterns around the world, the enforced shifts in demand caused demand pull inflation for many products eg; toilet roll, hand sanitiser, home clothes etc. This is because firms respond to an increase in demand by increasing prices to maximize profit of their limited resources. Other goods had a decrease in demand which therefore led to demand pull inflation eg; suits, footwear and petrol.

Lockdown measures have also caused a corresponding cut in production due to workers being unemployed or working from home, this resulted in a shortage in delivery and increase in production costs. This is a factor in the creation of the 2020 oil crisis. China has recently announced a new lockdown in 2022 due to spikes in COVID cases, this has had a knock on effect on production levels and costs, as China is a large supplier of many goods to the UK this has caused cost push inflation.

COVID 19 was not the only cause of the oil crisis. A soaring demand for natural gas in households paired with a diminished supply from the U.S, Norway, Russia and European countries to the UK market was a result of Brexit. This caused massive rates of inflation in oil and gas. There was also less power generation by renewable energy sources such as wind, water and solar energy, and cold winters that left European gas reservoirs depleted also causing increase in inflation.

Russia supplied over 3 billion meters cubed per week (almost half of the EU’s imports). In the first two months after Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb 24 2022, Russia earned $66.5 billion from fossil fuel exports. As a result of the invasion, Russia’s oil prices rose above $130 a barrel for the first time since 2008. In May 2022, the European Commission proposed a ban on oil imports from Russia, part of the economic response to the invasion. This took away a huge chunk of oil supply therefore further increasing cost push inflation on the UK economy. Unfortunately there is no sign of the oil crisis getting any better or the inflation rate getting any lower as the UK is forecasted to hit 11% by the end of the year.

THE OVERTURNING OF ROE VS WADE

The Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade puts a huge level of financial pressure on women who without this overturn would not be put under this level of pressures. The issues with state controlling the abortion laws have long term and short term impacts. The short term impacts have immediate costs such as travelling to a state that can provide an abortion safely and legally and obviously the cost of an abortion, which is medical treatment, where the average cost in America for a first trimester abortion $650 $750. Second trimester abortions run an average of $1,200. Late term abortions can be even more expensive, at $3,000 or more. Which is already a huge financial cost ignoring the cost of travel for a safe abortion where you are not under legal risk and the potential legal costs if women end up having to take the illegal abortion route in their own state which may also include any costs of medication needed due to them being forced into an unsafe medical procedure.

There are huge long term impacts of this overturning; the lack of funding for women and families throughout pregnancy and labour, the huge expenses are a major factor as to why keeping abortion legal is so critical in America. By forcing women to go through pregnancies they are not financially stable for you risk huge levels of women and families going through bankruptcy as the social structure is not there in many states to offer support.

There will be a decrease in the education of women as many will no longer be in school due having to work lower paid jobs in order to provide for a child and themselves putting pressures on childcare structures and increasing the gender pay gap. The gender pay gap will be increased as jobs with larger salaries need higher/further levels of education but with women needing to work to avoid becoming bankrupt or in poverty they cannot financially support their families or themselves through further education meaning many end up in a cycle that they cannot escape of being poorly paid.

Financial inequality will be increased as women who are living in the cycle of poverty are then giving birth to a child, they cannot support so then cannot escape the financial pressures which either pushes women who have escaped poverty back into poverty or keeps women in higher levels of poverty, and therefor increases the fact that the poorer will keep getting poorer. A lot of women will be forced into the route of adoption or fostering putting huge pressures on an already underfunded aspect in the US. Fostering and Adoptions could lead to potential mental health risks in young children being forced into fostering/adoption and decreasing the educational potential of a grouping of young children creating a larger grouping of disadvantaged people in the future. As well as this Women’s mental health could see an increase due to going through the trauma of giving up a child due to the costs of providing for them potentially causing them to leave various jobs and leaving gaps in certain areas and adding pressures on mental health care that with abortion would not be under such levels of demand.

HOW DOES A DECREASE IN PREMIERSHIP RUGBY TEAMS SALARY CAP AFFECT THEIR PERFORMANCE?

Salary caps are used worldwide in many different sports, most noticeably in the NFL. The Premiership led the way in English sports introducing the salary cap in 1999, 4 years after the game had turned professional. The aims of the salary cap in the rugby premiership are to:

• ensure the financial viability of all Clubs and of the Gallagher Premiership Rugby competition;

• controlling inflationary pressures on Clubs’ costs;

• providing a level playing field for Clubs;

• ensuring a competitive Gallagher Premiership competition;

• enabling Clubs to compete in European competitions.

The salary cap is reviewed every year, and due to COVID 19 having huge effects on clubs incomes, with losses in income due to the fact that games were played behind closed doors so the clubs got no income from ticket sales, and as a secondary result of no fans, no money was earned by the clubs through hospitality sales, such as food and drinks, and also no one visited club stores to buy their merchandise, therefore the salary cap was reduced from £6,400,000 to £5,000,000.

This reduction in the salary cap has meant clubs have £1,400,000 less to spend on their players. This could lead to clubs not being able to afford high value players, and losing them to other leagues such as the French league where their salary cap is much higher at £11.3 million This therefore could potentially lead to a huge loss in performance for teams, as their overseas stars are leaving them to earn more money in other leagues, meaning that the premiership teams won't fulfil their goals of being competitive in Europe. Moreover, club tensions may increase, as if players do start to look abroad, teammates may not take well to this, leading to a drop in team morale, which will affect the club's performance negatively. However, there is still an anchor keeping the top England players in the league, as if they are playing in a different nations league, they are unable to play for England, for example George Kruis, who went and played in the Japanese league on a lucrative deal, and never played for England again.

Nevertheless, clubs opportunity cost on other areas is less significant, as potentially if they are spending less money on players salaries, they have more money to spend on more staff, better health support, and better facilities, leading to greater performance on the pitch. Furthermore, clubs now get the first £50,000 of a player's salary for free if that player is homegrown. This will mean that clubs will put less of an emphasis on finding players from abroad, and will focus more on developing their English talent. This also, for the England team is a huge benefit, as the talent coming through will be much better equipped and there will be a bigger pool of players to choose from.

Therefore, in the short term, a reduction in the salary cap will cause a drop in team’s performance, due to an initial loss of high quality players, however in the long run, clubs will have had more time to develop their academy players, and increase their club facilities and support which will increase their performances on and off the pitch for the good.

HOW CRYPTO HAS AFFECTED THE NBA

To thoroughly understand where the NBA stands today, you need to know important context and history of the league. In 1976 the NBA merged with the rival ABA, with 4 teams from the ABA being admitted into the NBA. This gave the NBA a monopoly over the American Basketball market.

The 30 teams in the league mainly make money through 4 ways: Tickets, Concessions, Sponsorships and The Media Deal. Sponsorships and the media deal are by far the 2 biggest earners for the league and its teams. In terms of sponsorships, the NBA received $1.46 billion from sponsors in the 2021 22 season, which is a 6% rise from last year. This is in no small part to the rise of Crypto sponsorship. The LA Lakers signed a 20 year $700 million naming rights to change the iconic Staples center into the Crypto.com Arena. In general the NBA signed a $172 million with coinbase, which pushed Crypto to become the second biggest sponsor of the NBA, only behind tech companies. If you compare this to last year where crypto only made up $2 million of annual sponsorship, and now it’s at $130 million which is a 6,400% boom in sponsor money. This demonstrates how the growth of crypto in general, is multiplying into growth in the NBA.

However, crypto sponsorships can be shady and dangerous. As seen by the recent fluctuations in the worth of bitcoin, the question arises, are crypto sponsorships sustainable? As previously mentioned with the Lakers arena deal, these sponsorships are long term, and looking at current crypto market projections, it seems possible that Crypto.com may not be able to pay the full length of their contract. Furthermore, the NBA’s other main source of income is their media deal. From 2016 2025 the NBA’s media deal is $2.6 billion per year with ESPN and Turner Sports, experts also believe next deal could be worth around $72 billion over 9 years.

However, ESPN are known to be cautious with crypto sponsorships, as they currently advertise no crypto adverts. This could lead to a friction between the league and ESPN, and with the next deal coming into review in 2024, there could be less money in it for the NBA. Mostly these scams are to do with NFT’s. NBA stars such as John Wall and De’Aaron Fox have been involved in NFT scams, and the NBA itself having its own NFT market place, called TopShot, which has largely been a failure. This raises the question, how viable are these crypto sponsorships, both currency and NFT’s, in the long term? In my opinion, the crypto market is good for the NBA right now, but it is very possible that in 10 years we could look back on these massive crypto sponsorships as a huge mistake.

HOW HAS THE WAR IN UKRAINE AFFECTED GLOBAL ACTIVITY AND INFLATION?

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has caused damage to global trade, which is likely to impact low income countries the most. Sharply rising commodity prices have been the most immediate economic impact of the war in Ukraine. The supply of essential goods from Russia and Ukraine have also been threatened, such as food, energy and fertilisers.

Ukraine and Russia are key exporters of wheat, barley, corn and cooking oil, mainly for African and middle eastern countries. Disruptions to the flow and reduced supply of these goods have sharply increased food and gas prices forcing millions of people into hunger. In Europe the economy is slowing down quite quickly because of the high inflation that is impacting people’s income and consumption of goods. The large increase in prices has meant that a lot of people are struggling to afford basic goods, and this means the cost of living has become significantly higher in a short space of time. Russian oil normally accounts for 10% of global oil supply, and because the west has introduced financial sanctions that has made it difficult to clear Russian oil transactions through western banks, there is a gap in supply because it is not being traded to the same degree as it was before.

The IMF (International Monetary Fund) has cut its global growth projections for 2022 and 2023 saying the economic impact from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will “propagate far and wide, adding to price pressures and exacerbating significant policy challenges”. The World Bank has also lowered its global growth forecast for 2022 by almost 1%, from 4.1% to 3.2%, this shows the pressure that the invasion has put on the global economy.

The UK’s inflation has risen to 9.1% which is the highest level since 1982, this will add more pressure on household finances as consumers are coping with the worst cost of living crisis in years.

THE ALMOST-PRENEURS

Ronald Wayne (an engineer at the time) once stood shoulder to shoulder with Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs as the third co founder of Apple. The “fifth Beatle” of the tech industry. Wayne sold his 10 percent stake in the company back to the two Steves after just 12 days with the company in 1976 for a total of $800. In 2018 Apple became the first business to record a market cap of above $1trillion and 3 years later $2trillion. Wayne’s core reason for his departure was his age. Wayne was in his 40’s whereas the Steves were both in their 20’s; he even said, “If I had stayed with Apple, I would have wound up the richest man in the cemetery.”

The story of Roy Raymond, famously recited in The Social Network by Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake) is arguably the most famous of the lot. Raymond was inspired to start Victoria's Secret after feeling embarrassed purchasing lingerie for his wife in a department store. So, he created Victoria’s Secret: a place where men could go to buy lingerie without the fear of judgment. To open the store, he borrowed $40,000 from a bank and $40,000 from his family. Raymond worked to design and launch the first store with a Victorian inspired style which opened in San Francisco in 1977. After an expansion to 5 stores, Raymond sold the Victoria's Secret company for $1 million to Les Wexner, a tycoon. With its five stores and 42 page catalogue, the business reported to be grossing $6 million per year. Raymond sold it for just $1million. Victoria’s Secret is now valued at over $5billion.

At 19 with his digital marketplace Gumroad receiving funding which totalled to $8 million, Sahil Lavingia left his first start up, Pinterest. Lavingia left about a month before his one year anniversary at the company, which means that none of his stock in Pinterest had much value when he liquidated them, he made roughly $10,000. Fast forward nine years to 2021, where Gumroad is turning over $6million a year which sounds good but compared to Pinterest which racked up over $2.5billion in revenue, and is valued at $12billion, Lavingia as the sole trader would be worth a fortune. However, Lavingia was only 19 when he departed Pinterest, so his reasoning behind his departure could have been immaturity, but at 19 when facing a group of investors expecting returns over $8million on Gumroad its understandable that he made the decision to leave Pinterest.

The debate business owners commonly have over the choice to sell or keep producing is now commonly referred to as “The Founders Dilemma”.

ARE BROADCASTING COMPANIES CHARGING TOO MUCH TO WATCH SPORT?

Sport dominates TV viewership and has for many years, live sport is in 24 of the 25 top broadcasts throughout March 2022 and is in 41 of the top 50!. If a household was to spend £50, the average spent by a household in the UK, this would only get them access to 2 premium channels, theme being Sky Sports, who cover the majority of Premier League games, as well as cricket, golf and Formula 1. The other premium channel is BT Sport, who would give viewers access to The Champions League and Premiership rugby. With each household spending £50 at least a month, fans will be expecting to pay around £600 per year for sports viewership.However Fans are still missing key events, such as Boxing and UFC which will cost viewers around £20 per event. This would generate a company such as BT Sports £1,804 million operating profit (before taxation).

Since the 1960s 3pm games have not been televised, due to fears of a negative impact on fans at the game. This means that fans are getting value for their money as they pay for every game and then miss out on around 70 games a season. Many fans believe this law to be ‘archaic’ and should be removed as many foreign countries such as Dubai have access to these games

Many sports are still shown for free, including The world cup and euros, The Six Nations, Wimbledon and The Tour de France, but these sports are annually in the cases of Wimbledon, and every 4 years such as the world cup. There are also highlight programs most weekends for the football, but this removes the excitement of live Sports, with fans having to wait 5+ hours to see their teams performance

There is also the ongoing and increasing problem of illegal streaming, where fans have unlimited access to any live sport in the world. There is an increase in the amount of people looking for the illegal streams to the cost of living increasing, meaning consumers have less disposable income, leading to them cutting their spending on live sports.

THE EFFECTS OF INTERNATIONAL SANCTIONS ON RUSSIANS IMPORTS AND EXPORTS.

The international sanctions imposed by western governments on Russia due to their invasion of Ukraine in an effort to ‘strangle the Bear’ and defend against threats to international peace, had vast effects on their economy, including effects on their imports and exports. As the sanctions imposed came from a cumulation of countries, including the us, Canada, the European union and Japan. These sanctions consisted of the banning of secondary trade in Russian government bonds, the banning of interactions with key Russian banks, the banning of exports of critical technology to Russia, and the freezing of assets. This effected Russia’s imports and exports as the ruble fell by more than 40% against the dollar after the invasion, resulting in the need for the central bank of Russia to prioritize stabilizing the exchange rate through imposing capital controls and raising interest rates, Russia’s official consumer price index jumped nearly 11 percent from mid February to early May rates. However, since then it has nearly been flat.

The economic sanctions imposed also reduced access to imported technologies and the departure of foreign firms due to the sanctions, both will create long term drags on the Russian economy, especially as 38 countries are imposing export controls and many foreign firms are self sanctioning operations or leaving Russia, even if not legally required too, by mid June there are estimations that 12% of 1350 foreign companies are scaling back operations, 35% were suspending and 24% had announced withdrawal, resulting in the global chip exports to Russia decreasing by 90%. Additionally sanctions also affected Russia’s imports in terms of industrial production, due to the increase in value of commodity exports combined with the decreased imports, as Russia’s imports sharply declined between march and April, therefore disrupting industrial production in areas such as military equipment. Despite there being no direct restrictions on trade in oil from Russian refineries, banks and shipping companies are shunning the Russian oil market due to the risk of associating with the country and the increase in shipping costs resulting in many companies halting shipments to and from Russia therefore affecting imports and exports drastically. Furthermore, if many more global companies avert Russian trade through exports and imports, as a ramification of the sanctions, shortages of consumer goods and key materials could occur therefore having huge effects on the Russian economy and trade.

Overall, the depreciation of the ruble and the shortage of imported goods will likely affect Russia by causing a substantial acceleration in Russian inflation. While a weaker currency as a result of raising prices of imported goods will lessen the purchasing power of Russian consumers resulting in a likely sharp decline of their GDP.

IS HEIGHT PLAYING A ROLE IN PREMIERSHIP RUGBY SALARIES?

The salaries of rugby players is extremely varied, pay by position in Union rugby is hardly surprising. Whereas others were more puzzled at first glance.

Traditionally, the position of flyhalf topped the average earnings by position. With a yearly wage of £175,679. In comparison, scrum halves and hookers earn around £113,000 to £117,000 at a push. Could it be that in rugby, shorter people get paid less across the population.

Previous research shows that the taller the player is, regardless of gender, the more they are likely to be paid in comparison to others. This is emphasised in a 2009 paper titled ‘stature and status: height, ability and labor market outcomes’. An early American study in 2004 found that each inch above average height may be worth £789 more per year for a rugby player.

Hookers and scrum halves are arguably two of the sport's most specialist positions. This is why the majority of national teams such as England and New Zealand will take at least three or four hookers as well as scrum halves to a world cup tour or other important games.

Rugby clubs are in business to produce revenue and capital. In the 2021/22 season, Leicester Tigers won the Premiership and took a total winnings of over £500,000. A way for clubs to win the Premiership is to scout taller players. This would increase chances of winning. To accomplish this, clubs could offer a higher salary to those taller players. This would give those players an incentive to play better and for the club who pays the highest, this would also increase the chances of the player receiving sponsorship deals.

A winning team will receive more sponsorships, for example; Chris Ashton, the tigers fullback received new sponsorships from Topps Tiles and Breedon. These companies also sponsor the Tigers as a whole club.

IS ART A POINTLESS TRADE?

With plenty of demand for artwork, it is the supply side of the equation that often leads to outrageously expensive prices for art. Scarcity plays a huge role. Many of the most famous artists in history are no longer alive. Picasso and Monet aren't painting any more pictures.

However, what happens when the painting is not authentic, how do people tell and is it an issue if the painting looks the same, same size and same materials. This shows it is down to the reputation of the artist and the individuality of the piece. Art is unique, non reproducible unlike many other products in trade. This is down to job production, which is when items are made individually, and each item is finished before the next one is started. This allows products to be personal and specific to the customers allowing this type of trade to charge more. However, job production is labour intense and takes a lot of time. From this many could except the extortionate prices of art as it’s the producers main and only focus for a set period, not allowing them to have a large product portfolio. Having a small portfolio can be a disadvantage for viewing customers as its difficult to convince consumers to buy if there are little reviews or examples of other work artist can produce. This explains how hard it is to become a successful artist and achieve brand loyalty.

Artists usually become popular in older life as it takes a long time to produce a large portfolio to gain customer satisfaction. Showing that an artist can produce a large variety or multiple impressive pieces allows customer to trust can be amazed every time by their talent. Strengthening an artist's influence. Additionally, artists also become popular after they die as a large influx of listeners grieving the loss of an artist can inflate the number of streams or plays, he or she gets, making them even more popular than when they were alive. This causes them to lose on the profit of their trade making its pointless trade and discouraging for new artist to enter the business.

Art has become a collector's item as owning a work of art often means owning a piece of history. Many collectors draw on their heritage to collect art from artists with similar backgrounds or life stories. Some collectors seek limited editions from high profile artists to claim their stake on art history. Some could say collecting art or trading art is a niche meaning as people have different tastes and preferences on the style and where they are going to place it. It may fit alongside other products like houses and galleries to decorate or to place like an emblem of wealth. However, the most valued art, the older the art the more valued, is put into museum not allowing any trade to occur again making it a pointless trade.

HOW DID AUSTERITY CAUSE A HUMANITARIAN CRISIS IN THE GREEK ECONOMIC DOWNFALL?

In Greece, previous years before the crisis was distinguished by a lack of structural refinement in factors such as public debt, taxation, and public sector pay. Greece, unfortunately, had a poorly organized fiscal system, faulty social services, and political parties that disagreed on how these should be reformed. A potential reason that impacted austerity to cause a humanitarian crisis is the lack of any increase in tax revenues set against the increasing rise of government benefits and consumption. This has resulted in severe shortcomings in the Greek tax system.

One of the leading deficiencies was the tax authority’s failure to collect taxes: eg tax evasion in Greece had the potential to reach as high as 27.5% of GDP in the period 1999 to 2007 resulting in the largest informal economy of any EU country. Not only that, but fraud control was also evidently lacking. The Greek Deputy PM, Evangelos Venizelos stated that changing the situation was both an economic priority and a moral duty.

Self employed workers represented 37% of the Greek workforce, compared to an average of 15% in the EU overall. Being self employed was highly popular, as the taxes paid by this group in Greece were about 15% (the EU average rate was nearer 25%) and, with so few taxes being collected, the freelance worker had greater opportunities for fraud leading to another reason austerity caused a humanitarian crisis.

Tourism represented a large sector of Greece's economy as it has indirect and direct activities that affected the entire economy. In 2012, the total contribution of tourism to GDP amounted to € 30.3 billion or 16.4%. The total contribution of tourism to employment in 2015 represented 689,000 jobs or 18.3% of total employment, the share of the revenue from international tourist arrivals in total exports was 26.4%, equivalent to 11.4 billion €. This means the share of tourism to 13.7% of the economy, proving that tourism represents a big impact on the Greek economy. Since 2008, there has been a decline in revenue from international tourism. Tourism generally counts as an elastic income service, meaning that even a small change in disposable income which would immediately affect the choice of destination, services, and the demand for tourism. Tourism undoubtedly has a significant impact on the GDP and employment of the workers, with high rates, especially in countries with high tourist activity. In addition, the unemployment rate rose from 7.6% in 2008 to 29.9% in 2015. This has caused a global impact ie less trading and movement of goods and services, whilst impacting humanitarian within the nation. In conclusion, the situation in Greece today is very tense and strained. Austerity measures have left a large part of the population in a very complex and difficult state. Eg cuts in public expenditure, coupled with constantly rising unemployment, have left many people either penniless or very close to it. A third of the population is on the threshold of poverty and 17.5% live in households with no income, family networks can no longer be relied on to support the needy. Therefore, If institutions, in particular the government and the parliament, do not succeed in regaining public trust it will be even harder to emerge from the financial crisis. For that to happen, economic policy must put people’s needs first.

MARKET MANIPULATION BY INSTITUTIONAL INVESTORS – AN UNFAIR ADVANTAGE?

Large institutions (banks, hedge funds) have the ability to move markets through trading methodologies that reflect the current and predicted movements in the wider economy and longer term economic cycles. They fundamentally trade two types of asset risk on and risk off where investors will either have a high risk ‘appetite’ and aim to ride up the prices of assets in the market, or become more risk averse and either sell their assets or short derivatives as the market falls either as a swing or day trades.

In times when the economy outlook looks positive and market sentiment is high, they look to trade more risk on assets (i.e. more risky) such as stocks and shares, crypto etc. In uncertain times, where the economy is unstable, they make moves to reduce their concentration in risk on assets and move a large proportion of their assets to the ‘safe haven’ of risk off such as government bonds and commodities (oil, wheat etc.), precious metals and the US dollar.

Whilst these firms tend to rebalance their portfolios to off risk in economic downturns, they still play risk on assets when day and inter day trading using technology such as High Frequency Trading (HFT). HFT benefits companies which invest in this technology as they are able to trade larger numbers of orders at extremely high speeds. Whilst shrouded in a degree of controversy, High Frequency Trading is very much the at the fore of short term trading for these firms. A complaint often levied against these firms is that the liquidity produced can disappear within seconds; making it impossible for smaller traders to try and take advantage of it. Algorithms are regularly updated due to the change of competitiveness in the market and constant changes in technology.

High Frequency Trading uses algorithms to analyse market trades in fractions of seconds. The algorithms detect buying or selling opportunities with something called ‘flow analysis’ which is a technique used to process and detect liquid assets (e.g. Bonds, Stocks, etc.) in flowing media. In addition to utilisation of technology summarised in this article, these institutions are experts in behavioural analysis – understanding the psychology of retail investors and deploying a number of methods to liquidate them. By knowing these behavioural habits they set traps such as spoof orders and false breakouts to confuse smaller investors. Traditionally, order flow analysis has only been accessible to large institutions due to the prohibitive price point. As opposed to traditional candlestick charts used by most retail traders, order flow provides detailed information as to what is happening within a candlestick detailing volume analysis at each price point within it.

However, with advances in accessible technology, retail traders are now able to access order flow software for a fraction of the price thereby levelling the playing field somewhat giving hope to the 95% of retail traders who consistently lose.

THE BENEFITS OF HAVING GREATER FEMALE REPRESENTATION IN LEADERSHIP ROLES

51.4% of companies are owned by men and 48.6% are owned by women. 65% of men are in leadership roles and only 35% of women are. This shows an obvious lack of women representation in management roles. Women are generally more empathetic people as they have motherly instincts to help and comfort people. This would mean most women would run a company with a paternalistic style trait. Paternalistic leadership is when the dominant authority figure treats employees and partners like extended family, as they genuinely care about staff well being and safety. The benefits of this style of leadership are loyalty and trust as well as obedience. Many people feel as if a women empathy is the most important trait women can bring to the workspace. An empathetic leader can accept other people’s views and understand why that is their view. This allows the leader, as well as employees, to openly interact without passing judgement and allow the whole workplace to feel heard. Having empathy also requires an open mind allowing new ideas to enter the business giving a fresh perspective on most things. This all shows that when women have a leadership role the company or business is more efficient as employees have more motivation due to the satisfaction, they get from being heard and respected by their leader.

Women in leadership roles can also help bridge the gender pay gap. Globally the pay gap between men and women is 16%. This would mean women earn £86 for every £100 a man earns. Many statistics are based of the money earnt by a man or a woman not taking into consideration the time spent working. More women have part time jobs resulting in them earning less than someone in a full time role, however the problem is when a man and a women have the same job role and work the same number of hours yet there is still as gender pay gap. Having a woman in a leadership role can possibly bring more light to the issue as it personally affects them. This could lead to a close in the gender pay gaps in most businesses that women run attracting more employees to work for one of these companies as they show change that allows diversity shine through. This once again shows that having women in leadership roles has many benefits and this point shows they allow diversity and acceptance as well as equality which is a worldwide issue that people have struggled to break for many years.

Women leaders are a requirement of the twenty firstcentury. Organizations must empower women with leadership roles to be more productive and show their potential, increasing workplace diversity and supporting and participation of everyone in the company. Furthermore, studies have also outlined that companies with greater gender diversity, not just within their workforce but directly among senior leaders, are significantly more profitable than those without. Overall, there are many factors pointing to the benefits of a company when women are in a leadership role and more female representation is important in the workplace to ensure these benefits can occur.

PRIVATE VS STATE EDUCATION

Like everything, there are good things and bad things. There are extremely good private schools and extremely good state schools, similarly there are extremely bad versions of each. The key idea is that it depends on the specific school. Some private schools specialise in sport: Sedbergh; Millfield; Whitgift, say. While others specialise in producing top grades: Westminster; St Paul’s. Meanwhile others have a high prestige and status factor: Harrow; Eton; Radley. To say private education is better is not always true, as some state schools are excellent too.

Rather, comparison based on a specific child’s needs and requirements is a better way of structuring the argument. State schools are funded directly by the government, this means there is a low scope for learning outside of the National Curriculum. Typically, this leads to lower teacher passion to teach beyond the scope of the narrow syllabus. Private schools, by their very nature, are less regulated and allow for more freedom within the school. This allows students to access a breadth of extra curricular activities such as: music concerts; a huge range of sports from golf to cricket to rowing; and debating societies. The access to these facilities are often not available at state schools due to under funding, allowing private school pupils to access a far more holistic education. This allows them to find a true passion of theirs and pursue it further, which has a huge array of benefits in the future, including a far greater skillset for employment.

There is a huge statistical advantage of attending a private school for admittance in the UK’s leading universities. Only 7% of school children attend private schools, yet 35% and 42% of yearly undergraduates who attend Cambridge and Oxford respectively went to a private school. For instance, Westminster School has an outstanding rate of sending 50% of its pupils to Oxbridge. Graduation from these 2 giants in the academic world almost guarantees employment, opening a wide door of opportunities. The reason private schools are able to achieve this is due to: better quality teaching; more extra curricular opportunities; and better grades on average. Another important factor is the cost of fees at a private school. They vary massively depending on: the location of the school; the age of the children; and the type of school, boarding or day. Harrow School in London costs £41,500/year while St Peter’s School costs £30,000/year. Schools in and around London tend to be the most expensive and often rank top of the UK independent school charts.

Similarly, state schools in and around London tend to be statistically better academically. Take Brampton Manor School in East London (a state school), which as a higher Oxbridge admittance rate than plenty of private schools. Different schools attract different types of children and parents, which is a key, it depends on the child. Overall, if fees were not an issue, then the answer would be simple: private schools provide a superior education. However, fees and other factors are certainly an issue in the real world. There are hundreds of top private schools in the UK, with some offering

GENDER PAY GAPS

The gender pay gap has declined slowly over the years and has fallen by approximately a quarter over the last decade. Although it has improved significantly compared to what it used to be in the past, there is still much more that needs to be done by firms in order to close this gap completely. However, despite pressures businesses face to close the gap, the majority of the UK’s biggest employers still pay men more than women. As of 2022, the average gender pay gap of all firms reported in the past financial year is 10.4% with women in the UK being paid just 90p for £1 earned by men, on average. For some businesses, this gap is even bigger.

One example of this is the multinational bank, HSBC, which pays women only 49p for £1 earned by a man. HSBC has consistently struggled to close its gender pay gap and despite improvements of 4% on the previous year, HSBC posted a mean hourly pay gap of more than 50% for the fifth year running.

Another business with a significant gender pay gap is British Airways, where women earn 78p for every £1 that men earn. This has increased from 35% in 2017/18 to 46% this year. However, this is an improvement on the previous year when on average women were paid less than half what men made. Surprisingly, women at British Airways received more in bonuspay than men, earning £1.03 for every pound that men were paid. However, this is only a little difference and doesn’t make up for the large gender pay gap in British Airways. Apple, a multinational technology company, has one of the highest gender pay gaps of any Silicon Valley tech giant operating in the UK. Women earn 81p for every £1 that men earn. Although the company may have managed to close its gender pay gap

by 10% since 2017, reducing it from 26% to 16%, the bonus pay gap at Apple is even more drastic with women earning only 58p for every pound earned by men.

But what are the reasons for this, and do they justify it? Social pressures and norms influence gender roles and often shape the types of occupations and career paths which men and women follow, and therefore their level of pay. One of the key reasons for the large gender pay gap at HSBC is that there is a much larger percentage of men that occupy high paid positions at the company. 88% of the people in the upper pay quartile are male. This is the same for British Airways where the upper hourly pay quartile is 81.5% men and for Apple which has a workforce that is filled with men, especially in the highest paid positions. It’s a basic principle of fairness that men and women should have the same economic opportunities in life, therefore it’s not justified. Gender stereotypes need to be beaten and more women should be encouraged to take on important and higher paying roles in business as pay is based on experience.

HOW DOES SOCIAL MEDIA AFFECT TV ADVERTISING?

Social media is now involved one way or another in everybody’s daily life. It feeds into so many different aspects of our life even including watching Television. Social media has enhanced the effectiveness of television advertisements which claims to be a positive effect on the TV industry. Advertisers can use their social media campaigns and advertisements to improve brand awareness and attract new customers. Social media affects the advertising in the TV world as it enhances the effectiveness of the advertisement. Advertisers can now use their social media campaigns and television advertisements in sync to improve brand awareness. As many people are now addicted to their phone and social media it means they will see social media more allowing influencers or big creators to promote rather than traditional adverts.

One of the major dominators of trending TV adverts is John Lewis. John Lewis is known for their annual Christmas adverts, and this allows for hashtags to surround the AD every year. This means it becomes a trend on social media almost immediately, this creates a straightforward way for the brand to advertise as once trending. This allows for it to already be advertised without the company spending loads of money. This can also happen through posts on Instagram, twitter or Facebook as a TV company can post on their accounts to advertise something which if it gets to the right target market and shared then can go viral and is quick and beneficial for the business.

Television has always had adverts, but social media and the internet have affected the way that they are presented. Adverts these days want to draw you in and must look at the trends in the market to grab the audience attention. They can collect primary research through social media to then reflect on their advertising to allow for more sales which is more revenue. It also allows for people to talk about it and share it online through social media as it is a strong form of communication.

Social media also provides additional information to a small TV advertisement you have provided, allowing the audience to look at your brand in more detail by searching it up on online. This can show social media can provide their own market research and add any additional information for your audience after watching an eye catching ad on TV.

THE IMPACT OF THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC ON GLOBALISATION

When China first announced that they were fully locking down their economy on 23rd January 2020, most countries, especially Westernised ones looked on in blissful ignorance, never believing that what was happening there could happen to them. How wrong they were. The world’s largest exporter in terms of Real GDP is China and so when their economic output dried up, the rest of the world started to notice but were getting increasingly concerned about the health crisis that was heading their way.

Globalistation is the increased interconnectedness of countries, cultures and languages and is driven by trade. The COVID 19 pandemic brought into sharp focus for everyone around the world, how reliant we all are on globalistation in the modern day; with the opening weeks of the pandemic leaving shops with nothing on their shelves, hospitals short of vital equipment such as Ventilators and PPE (Personal Protective Equipment), Globalistation shot to the forefront of the world’s mind. At the very beginning of the pandemic, China were the first to rely on their global network as countries, including the UK, were happy to send out health equipment to them, something we would later be asking to have back. As more and more countries needed help from their global trading partners, less and less help was being sent out. The startling shortages and subsequent health catastrophe for the United Kingdom made us question how reliant we are on each other and subsequently, the UK is now trying to have enough resources available and producable on home soil to cope with any future global issues such as wars and pandemics.

We saw once again in 2021 just how dependent the whole world is on globalisiation, when between the 23rd and the 29th March 2021, The Suez Canal was blocked by the Cargo Ship ‘The Ever Given’ which caused delays to global supply networks. These delays lasted much longer than the 6 days that the canal was blocked, with many packages having their delivery dates pushed backed for months. The COVID 19 pandemic coupled with this delay to one of, if not the most important canal in the world meant that many countries struggled with supply chains. The provision of COVID 19 vaccines became a global issue and as Britain had left the EU in 2016, they were able to secure vaccine contracts more rapidly than the European Union and subsequently had much higher vaccine rates faster. This allowed them to open up the economy again and increase Real GDP. The COVID 19 pandemic made us re think our reliance on globalistation and many countries are now securing supplies but globalistation will not be going anywhere anytime soon.

THE RISE AND FALL OF NFT’S

NFT’s are non fungible tokens that can be thought of as trading cards, but digital. In essence it can be literally anything virtual, but its rise has been due to the popularity of collecting digital art as shown by the sale of the Nyan Cat NFT, which sold for roughly £570,000. Buying an NFT allows the owner to be the single possessor of a piece of digital art in the entire world, meaning that they hold the original copy even though the digital file can still be downloaded; similar to the Louvre owning the Mona Lisa, yet people can still print copies.

The reason for buying NFT’s is the same as the reason for buying physical art the novelty. All NFT’s are completely unique and consequently there is great demand for getting the ownership rights. Take for example the CryptoPunk series, a collection of alien portraits of which the most expensive one sold for £19.5 million. NFT’s can also be seen as an investment opportunity with some rising upwards of 1000% of their original value during the pandemic. Consequently, the popularity in these tokens has ballooned since the middle of 2021 with lots of major corporations making their own NFT’s to appeal to growing market.

However, there was a public outcry against these companies as their NFT’s were low quality attempts at cash grabbing. Details of the environmental impact of NFT transactions also emerged, showing that the ridiculous amount of energy required to verify each transaction was equivalent to driving 500 miles in a car. Therefore, sales for NFT’s dropped and organisations that initially had planned to release NFT’s have now been turned away. Nevertheless, the main market for NFT’s continued, but this all changed in early 2022, when the crypto market began to fall. NFT’s are purchased using a cryptocurrency called Ethereum, so as its value fell, demand for NFT’s also fell as they became less affordable. This can be seen in the case of John Terry’s NFT’s, whose value have now plummeted by 99% due to a combination of the aforementioned crypto crash and copyright claims from the Premier League. Overall, NFT’s have fallen by 92% between January and June 2022, but there is still a future for these digital artworks.

Although their future remains uncertain, the demand for NFT’s is still there and growth from 2021 is predicted to be around 230%, and when cryptocurrencies inevitability recover, their popularity may be restored to January levels, and we could see NFT’s slowly start to replace tangible artwork in the coming decades.

IS FUEL PRICE INFLATION HAVING THE MOST SIGNIFICANT IMPACT ON AGRICULTURE?

With red diesel being at 115.06p per litre, farmers incomes are being heavily eroded into. In fact, many farmers may struggle to break even. Inevitably, this will have an impact on consumers as supermarkets will have to charge premium prices to cover the rising cost of producing the crop. For many, this raises the question of what suitable alternatives actually are there. In response to this question, NFU president Minette Batters said: ‘While agricultural vehicles have become more efficient, it is impossible for farmers to move away from using red diesel as there are currently no commercially viable alternative fuels.’ The inflation of fuel prices is also making it expensive for transportation costs, making it costly to deliver the crop to intended suppliers.

However, there are other significant impacts currently affecting the farming industry. For example, the Ukraine war has led to a fertiliser shortage, increasing its cost, making yields on average more expensive for farmers to produce. Brexit has also affected labour, as foreign workers are no longer easy to get hold of. An article in the Farmers Guide said that ‘in a normal year, around 95 per cent of the 60 70,000 seasonal workers across agriculture and horticulture would be filled by EU nationals.’ In an attempt to prevent this issue further damaging the farming industry, several schemes like ‘Pick for Britain’ have been set up to encourage British workers to fill the role. Following the exit from the EU, UK farmers no longer receive the £4 billion annual payment from the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Though there is discussion of the UK government introducing a similar scheme, there is no sign of this to be implemented soon.

In conclusion, the inflation of fuel prices has undeniably had the most significant impact on the economics of agriculture. This issue is only expected to worsen as the government recently announced that most organisations will pay an extra 46.81 pence per litre from April 2022. Prema energy, wholesalers of liquid fuels, claim that this will account for an approximate 40% increase in fuel prices. This is very worrying for UK farmers and we are still yet to see any viable alternatives to diesel.

YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT

Youth unemployment as been a growing issue for decades and the unemployment for young men has risen from 4% in 2000 to 9% in 2021 and will likely have many economic impacts in the future, but what is causing this crisis and how can it be helped?

This is due to a lack of jobs as the transfer from schools to jobs due to a lack of experience meaning the older and more experienced workers get the jobs, leaving younger people unemployed. However, this then causes a constant cycle of young people being unable to find the experience required without working as an intern who will be paid poorly (if at all) and due to Covid 19, there has been a distinct lack of jobs as people are forced to stay indoors, thus causing many young people to be unable to even attempt to start work. Also, many young people might want to start their own business, but without the financial support from affordable loans this can be incredibly hard to make happen or make it hard for young people to repay their loans, this means that many young people are put off this idea and thus cannot find a job in this sense. Another reason for this increase is unemployment, specifically in young men, could be due to worsening mental health, as this causes these men to be unmotivated and less likely to go out and look for jobs. Finally, youth unemployment could be caused by a rise in the age of retirement, as this means the people with more experience stay in the labor market for longer and so fit into the potential jobs the young people could take instead.

However, contrary to this worrying fall in employment for young people, there has actually been an increase in the employment of young women as there was a 78% fall between 2006 to 2021 in the number of women who were economically inactive due to having to care for family, this is due to an increase in information about teenage pregnancies and therefore reduction in teenage pregnancies and the increase in employment of young mothers as they are forced to work in poorly paid jobs in order to support their child.

In conclusion, the supply for labor is much higher than the quantity demanded, this means that youth unemployment will be a constant issue and will likely cause the government to have to spend more on welfare to support this crisis, and the lack of disposable income is likely to reduce consumption, therefore causing the demand curve to shift in, causing a reduction in economic growth. However, this could be stopped by creating a welfare system that supports young people in finding these jobs or training opportunities, or by making sure education priorities employability skills making these people more attractive to employers. Finally, they could also make it easier for young people to start their own businesses, by reducing the interest rates on loans made out to younger people thus creating more jobs.

HAS COVID 19 CHANGED THE TRADITIONAL OFFICE MARKET IRREVERSIBLY?

In 2019, the office market continued much as it had done for the last 50 years, with continued year on year growth in demand for good quality office accommodation, on a national and regional scale. There were hotspots in the UK, notably London which was driven by TNC’s given London's pre eminence as a World Financial Centre, even after “Brexit”. Other developments in regional centres were often driven by Government policy, to relocate government ministries and departments to level up some of the social inequalities in the UK, for example HMRC in Leeds and other government bodies into Glasgow. The general trend was increased demand from the public and private sector for typical office space of a higher quality but reliant on staff working within an office environment, Monday to Friday, 9 am to 5 pm.

However, everything changed on the 23rd March 2020 when the UK entered its first lockdown. The closure forced firms and individuals to change their established working practices quickly and irrevocably. Prior to Covid, there had always been a perceived reluctance by firms to allow workers “to work from home” for fear that this was just a day off and efficiency and productivity would not be achieved. The result of this “working from home” practice is that productivity has not decreased in many industries where most people's efficiency can be measured by the financial return they receive set against their costs. Importantly, because people are not travelling to work they are often able to work longer hours, but perhaps with a better work life balance particularly in the London context where commuting is such a time consuming and expensive undertaking.

Since the easing of Covid measures there has been a gradual return to the office but not on the same scale as prior. Firms and organisations have accepted a hybrid working week allowing remote working and a better employee work life balance. There is a trend towards meetings in the office for team working but where staff members can work remotely on other days. The overall impact of this has been to reduce demand for new office space whether refurbishment or new build. The size requirement, because employees are prepared to hot desk means smaller accommodation is now required but more flexible to allow a hybrid working environment.

Whilst the Covid 19 pandemic had a huge impact on the traditional office market during Covid, it has since bounced back but not to the same level. Firms now have smaller space requirements and require space to work collaboratively with shared facilities and flexible terms. This is seen in the move to serviced offices for all types of organisations, even large ones. In the long run there will always be a role for office space as not everything can be done online. The British economy needs companies to occupy office space, especially for the large cities of London, Bristol, Manchester and Leeds where without office workers there will be a knock on effect on retailing, leisure and hospitality trade the multiplier effect.

THE ECONOMIC IMPACT OF COVID-19 ON THE MUSIC INDUSTRY.

Due to Covid 19, the music industry had a mass decrease in contribution to the UK economy, from 5.8 billion pounds in 2019, to 3.1 billion pounds in 2020. Lockdowns caused many job losses, whether that be teachers not being able to teach students and going out of business, or performers not being able to give live performances, leaving them with no work, and little money to live off of. Employment in music comes at a risk, as three quarters are self employed with no government support. So the arrival of covid and restrictions had colossal effects on unemployment as 1 in 3 jobs in music were lost as the rate of employment fell by 35% from 197,000 in 2019, to 128,000 in 2020.

When lockdowns were eased, household spending was down 19% from pre pandemic levels, which caused many issues for the music industry. It is a highly elastic industry because it's a leisure activity which is a luxury to people, therefore it is extremely difficult for businesses to protect their profits by raising prices as they will just lose even more money.

This diagram highlights that a small increase in price of concert tickets from firms in an attempt to protect their profits will cause a proportionally much greater increase in quantity demanded, demonstrated by the greater shift from Q to Q1 than P to P1 along a relatively inelastic demand curve.

Price of a concert ticket

S D

Music has been a significant aspect of British society for thousands of years. With 57% of the population listening to music, I believe that it will remain prominent in UK culture. Without music, many people would lack the means for recreation, diminishing their standard of living. So music will make a comeback, if that be naturally through the free market, or even if it takes government intervention.

1 Q

Quantity of concert tickets

THE INFLATION OF FOOTBALL TRANSFERS

The definition of a transfer is what happens when a player who is under contract with one club moves to another one. This player, to be associated with a club, is under a contract for a period of time. The contract will have a year of expiry that will have been agreed to. As well as this the contract involves the players set salary. This is usually divided into a weekly wage. This could also include bonuses for reaching certain achievements. If a players contract runs out and they do not sign a new deal with their current club, then they become a free player who can be signed purely off a wage. This means players sometimes run down their contracts at a current club, and sign no new deal with their current club and therefore go for free, where another club can offer them a salary without buying them out their old contract, so no fee goes to the old club. This was after the rules changed in 1995 after Bosman wanted a move as his a contract ran out and his former club wanted £400,000 for him. His next club refused to pay as his contract ran out. Bosman wanted a move so he took this to court and won.

What defines a price tag for a player?

Age: The older a player, the cheaper as around 29+ a player won’t improve much however a player who is only 20 has longevity.

Talent/Ability: this is the main cause for the price of a player. Higher the ability on the pitch, the higher the price.

Desire to sell: if a club doesn’t want to sell due to good relations and a long contract then the price of a player will be much higher than the same player with worse circumstances.

Cristiano Ronaldo moved from Manchester United to Real Madrid for 80 million pounds. At the time he was 24, so a good age and as for ability he was the best in the world winning the Balon d’Or, the highest footballing achievement, the year before. And Manchester United’s desire to sell was low. Ultimately this resulted in a record signing at the time in 2009. We can also look at the most expensive signing ever. Neymar in 2017 was sold from Barcelona to PSG for 222 million euros. Neymar was 25 at the time, in his prime for ability and definitely in contention for the top player with Ronaldo and Messi for 2016. As for desire, Barca had brilliant history with Neymar and a long contract of 4 years in 2017. This ultimate in the biggest sum in footballing history. To put this in perspective the top 10 signings of 2008 were 221 million euros.

Comparison of inflation

2007 top signings of Torres from athletico Madrid to Liverpool was 39 million pounds, second was Robben from Chelsea to Real Madrid for 36 million pounds, and finally Pepe from Fc Porto to Real madrid for 30 million pounds. This gives us a top 3 average of 35 million pounds.

As for 2021, Grealish moved from Aston Villa to Manchester City for 105.75 million pounds, Lukaku moved from inter Milan to Chelsea for 103.5 million pounds and Sancho moved to Manchester United from Dortmund for 76.5 million pounds. This gives us a top 3 average of 95.25 million pounds.

So a percentage increase of the inflation of this 15 year gap is a total increase of 172.14% .

Now we look at the UK inflation rate over the last 15 years. Inflation goes up at 2.2% every year on average according to the Bank of England, 35 million pounds in 2007 would equate to 47,736,726.27 pounds in 2021.

This is a percentage increase of 36.39%.

We can see this massive level drop of percent between real inflation and transfer prices over the last 15 years.

So, In general football has increased massively in viewership and ownership money. If we look at the champions league final for example, and at the UK broadcaster at the respective times, we see in 2007 an estimate of 7.9 million people watched. And in 2021 it was estimated to have viewership of 8.7 million views. This is not a massive increase, but still an 800,000 people increase. However this isn’t the most relyable data so I will also look at shirt sales for the shirt of the most expensive player of both years.

In 2007, Liverpool sold 320,000 Torres shirts globally and in 2021, Manchester City sold 1,176,471 grealish shirts globally. This gives a percentage increase of 267.65%.

As well as these factors, teams with big money in the bank spend more to gain an advantage over their competition on players. This will push all teams to spend more on the same product as the demand is so high. This is arguably the most reasonable factor in footballs massive inflation.

In conclusion, transfers have rapidly inflated compared to the UKs Inflation rate. In my opinion this is down to rich owners trying to buy their teams the best players, creating rich increase on player values as demand is always so high.

HOUSE PRICES AND TRENDS

Due to covid 19 the average housing price increased by 9.6% over the year to January 2022 down from 10.0% in December 2021. The average house price after covid in January 2022 was 274,000 which is 24,000 higher than before.

Post lockdown there was a large trend of people selling their homes to move from the city to move to the countryside. Many people move to the countryside for their own reasons. But the main reason people are moving to the countryside is because they can work from home this means that they don’t need to be living in the city near their work offices. As well as people moving for work reasons many people are moving for health benefits such as better air quality and being in the countryside is means people are more connected with nature and this can leave people feeling calmer and happier. With people being trapped in their homes due to the lock down rules this meant that they were not able to spend their money on goods so they had more money sat in the bank as well as having more money they also spent more time in their homes where some homeowners might have realised either they don’t like their homes, or they wanted an upgrade now that they have more money. With the interest rates being lower at banks it meant that it would be easier for people to get loans from the bank. Meaning people would be more interested to move houses. with the demand for property being high and there being very little property being available this meant that the prices for homes were higher as people would be able to charge a premium price as there as a high demand and a low supply.

The stamp duty holiday played a large role in the trend of home purchases. When people used to purchase homes for £250000 they would pay £10000 on top of that but due to the cut of stamp duty they would only have to pay £7500 and for the top end of the property market where people would be purchasing houses for £500000 they would have to pay an excess of £30000 they would only have to pay £15000 this is exactly half of what you used to have to pay this played a larger role for people investing or purchasing homes.

TIKTOK’S IMPACT ON BUSINESS MARKETING

TikTok is changing the course of marketing and commerce. A platform that once aimed at younger, teenaged audiences has grown and expanded to a much more diverse and older, multi generational app users. 58% of users are over the age of 25. Tick Tock has undergone massive growth over the last few years, booming with more than 1 billion users, the video focused social networking app overtook Google as the most popular site in 2021. TikTok’s mantra ‘Don’t make ads. Make Tick Tocks’ is a call for brands to stop making hard sell ads and instead connect with their customers through relatable and genuine content. TikTok is disrupting traditional content within marketing, it’s also changing consumer purchasing behaviours. 67% of TikTok users say the platform introduced them to products they’d never thought of before the hashtag; #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt has over 4.1 billion views, testament to the scale of TikTok’s influence on shopping behaviours. TikTok provides marketers with a level playing field when it comes to reach and engagement. Unlike social media platforms such as Instagram or YouTube, TikTok accounts with zero followers can get millions of views on a new video thanks to the viral nature of the algorithm. If the content appeals to the audience, the engagement will follow. Tick Tock helps brands with ad creation and promotion of products and services. Amazon is an example of a company promoting its services through Tick Tock, a big name that understands marketing, Amazo0n influence the market their services. Responsible for having five accounts on TikTok run by Amazon (@amazonprimevideo, @amazonmusic, @amazonfashion, @amazon, and @primestudent). Amazon Prime Video has the most followers, over 6.7M followers the brand uses Tick Tock to launch great, traditional ads. Amazon is the third most hashtag challenged brand on TikTok, with Netflix and Kraft Foods leading the pack. Amazon recognize influencers' potential, which is why they partnered with over 40 micro and mega influencers in a single Amazon Fashion campaign as one of the best TikTok campaign ideas to carry their #PajamaJam challenge to the next level. Tick Tock is Available in more than 150 markets in 75 languages, no

video app is on more mobile devices worldwide. A study found that 56% of users feel more positive about a brand after seeing it on TikTok and that ads on the platform are more “creative” and “original” than other digital platforms on average. By embracing a more personal tone or a behind the scenes approach, brands appear more relatable and trustworthy, allowing for more meaningful connections with customers. Businesses can boost their marketing campaigns through Tick Tock by participating in existing TikTok trends is justone way tointeract with the community, but brands can also create their own trends. Little Moons posted a TikTok video that included searching for its mochi ice cream at a big Tesco and waiting five minutes before eating. The video started a movement, with users sharing their own TikTok’s about finding and eating the delicious treats. The brand’s Tesco sales increased by 1300% and saw its biggest week ever in UK grocery sales

across all retail partners. Tick Tock has had a very significant impact on business marketing, using Music and audio as immediate means of marketing, businesses are able to use Tick Tock as an inlet, introducing their latest products, on a wide customer base. Tick Tock connects customers emotionally and captures the attention of firms target audiences, as algorithms tailor relevant adverts to people’s phones that match their FYPs and interests. Brands can take over 100% of the screen, creating an immersive experience with no distractions, allowing companies to easily reach out to their target market much quicker and efficiently. Tick Tock’s app set up allows businesses to not have to chase followers to get their content seen. Tick Tocks user interface is optimised for discovery, prioritizing good content over all else, leading longer session times and high engagement, increasing brands outreach on potential new customers. There are four simple ways a business can successfully market their brand or business on Tick Tock: 1) Start a branded Channel/Create an account. 2) Collaborate with influencers. 3) Start a hash tag challenge. 4) Run Tick Tock Advertising, Advertisers can sign up to TikTok for Business to run self serve advertising campaigns.

HOW HAS THE RISE IN LIVING COSTS AFFECTED BUY NOW PAY LATER SCHEMES?

In recent years and months, we have all seen the increase in buy now pay later services offered by instore and online retailers. These appear helpful to some to manage their finances at first but can spiral out of control rapidly if not managed correctly.

Buy now pay later schemes are an offer of interest free financing in which you can purchase a good in monthly instalments (usually every 4 months). This is an interest free way of financing, so how do these services make money? The companies make money from the retailer, not the consumer. The buy now pay later service business model is based on increasing a retailers demand and increasing the average basket value and boosting sales. They earn money by taking a percentage of revenue form the retailer and also making money from those who do not meet their payment deadlines and are charged interest for not repaying.

With the recent cost of living crisis prices have increased. This is due to high energy bills and rising inflation. With rising inflation, prices increase making everything more expensive this means that your money does not ‘stretch’ as far and for some families with lower levels of income will have to make hard decisions on where their money needs to be spent.

This is detrimental for buy now pay later services as the majority of their consumers are from lower income households. As the increase in living costs is tightening peoples spending and reducing household consumption, demand has fallen for more expensive goods and consumers are now purchasing cheaper alternatives. Buy now pay later finance options are usually only available on larger purchase items. Due the reduce in demand for these items there has been a reduction in revenue for buy now pay later companies such as Klarna.

However, it can be argued that the cost of living crisis has benefited buy now pay later companies. This is because as people’s income is decreased, they turn to buy now pay later financing options as consumers cannot afford to purchase their desired good in full at that moment in time. If a consumer chooses to do this and does not meet the payment deadline, they will be charged interest on their debt/purchase. Ultimately, this makes lots of revenue for buy now pay later companies resulting in positive effects on the business

So, with the recent increase in living costs we can be sure that buy now pay later services are here to stay due to their large revenues from those who fail to repay their debts. But they have still been hit hard from the large reduction in demand.

WHY SHOULD CORPORATE STRATEGIES BE FOCUSED ON SUSTAINABILITY?

As global perceptions change, sustainability is turning into a must for businesses. It is more important than ever for businesses to adopt sustainable business strategies to close the knowledge action gap. To meet the requirements of the present without sacrificing those of the future generations is to practise sustainability. Economic, environmental, and social pillars are three segments that support sustainability.

Only 60% of businesses have a sustainability strategy, despite the fact that 90% of CEOs believe sustainability is vital. Companies that claim to be sustainable frequently fall short in terms of implementation. One of the reasons this is happening is because CEOs and business boards are not as involved with sustainability initiatives as they ought to be; potentially due to higher initial costs of implementing sustainable strategies.

However, the use of a sustainability strategy’s enables long term investment by a business. In terms of sustainability, inaction now can result in greater losses later. Many business executives are embracing the circular economy as they become more conscious of the need of recycling and reusing.

Benefits of business’ moving towards sustainability is that it allows for added brand value and a competitive advantage. The largest generation in the population is the millennials. According to a Nielsen survey, millennials are twice as likely as baby boomers to claim they are modifying their behaviour to lessen its impact on the environment. This demonstrates how corporate brands may significantly raise their values by emphasising sustainability, and many of the top brands in the world are already doing so. By 2030, Apple promises to have completely carbon neutral products and supply chains; further meeting consumer demands who are greater expecting sustainability in future products and services.

Overall, a business sustainability strategy can enhance brand value, satisfy customer demands, boost productivity, draw in talented employees, and open up new prospects. For example, IKEA's invested in sustainability throughout its entire business operations.

MUSIC ROYALTIES

Music Royalties are payments collected for the use of an artist's music, whether that be from streaming the music or the use of it in TV & films. These payments would usually go through an artist's label ( if they have one) or rights holder first and then the payments get split out to their respective artists & contributors.

The Types Of Royalties:

Streaming Royalties: With the rise of the use of streaming services for music digital streams are accounted for for royalties. However, different streaming services pay different amounts for streams, for instance Spotify pays around £0.0033 per stream whilst the lesser known music streaming platform Tidal pays around £0.013 per stream which is the highest out of all streaming platforms.

Digital Performance: Digital performance royalties come from radio streams, for digital royalties the US dedicated SoundExchange to be the designated collection society for digital streams. SoundExchange royalty breakdown includes

• 45% to featured artists

• 5% to non featured artists

• 50% to the rights owner of the master recording

Sync Licensing Fees: When music is synchronised with other content, e.g. Adverts, TV shows, Movies & Video Games. Unlike other royalties, where music users pay an all round blanket fee to gain access to all the music, sync licensing is a 1:1 deal.

Public Performance Royalties: When a song is played in a commercial environment, for example, bars & restaurants. These public performance royalties can be split into two subgenres, royalties paid by the streaming service & royalties generated by the public broadcasters, e.g. radio stations, clubs, venues. These public performance royalties will then be collected & distributed by performance rights organisations (PROs), in the UK this would be PRS. Public performance royalties on the streaming side are collected & distributed to the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) where an ‘all in royalty pool’ is made, and this board determines the sum that the streaming services m,ust pay out to the songwriters & publishers etc.

Mechanical Royalties: When a copyrighted composition is reproduced or distributed either in physical or digital form. These physical forms can be Cassette, Vinyl, CD’s. However, in today's modern world these physical copies are less common, so, digital streaming is the most common form of mechanical Royalties. This is when a user chooses to play a specific song on demand, forcing a reproduction of the composition.

THE ECONOMIC IMPACT THE WORLD OF MOTORSPORT

A study done by the FIA has shown that the World of Motorsport has a huge 160 billion euro total gross output annually. This is not including the value of the multiplier. Such as people spending money in hotels. The study has shown that the sector has 1.5 million paid jobs and a further 302,000 volunteers. The value of the multiplier is 66.9 billion euros which is due to all of the extra add ons as teams will then have to pay for hotels and buy food in the surrounding areas of the circuit and as such will generate large amounts of money in these areas.

Furthermore, in the areas where the races take place there will be a large increase in the number of tourists. This is due to the fact that lots of people travel to these areas and spend lots of their disposable income there which further generates revenue for them. There are some race tracks in areas which otherwise would have just been farming land and deemed almost useless but because of the circuit the nearby cities and surrounding area has grown out of it.

An example of this is Brackley where the factory and headquarters of Mercedes Formula 1 team is based and additionally, 7 out of the 10 F1 teams are located in areas near to Silverstone (The Circuit where the British Grand Prix takes place). As a result of this, the nearby towns and villages have prospered. Furthermore, with the additional 1.5 million paid jobs from the motorsports industry, and the average salary in motorsport being £36,000 per year, the average tax the government would gain from each employee annually in the UK would be £8,145 per person. If all of these people were to work in the UK, it would mean that the government would receive £12,217,500,00 in income tax revenue. Also, there are further things in which the government can tax from the motorsport industry such as fuel. This money could then be used in different areas such as investing back into the NHS.

THE CAR MARKET

The cost of both new and second hand cars have risen dramatically over the past 24 months so what are the causes of this?

Well, there has been a lack of supply for new cars as there was an industry wide shortage of semiconductor chips. This meant supply fell behind and vehicles were not built. This has caused the second hand car market to rocket as new cars haven’t been supplied. The average increase is by 30% plus with some cars reaching nearly 65% such as the Vauxhall Zafira all within a year due to demand increasing so rapidly. This however could also be due to Brexit. Brexit has caused an import tax of 10% of all vehicles. This has meant less cars are coming into the country, so there has become a higher demand for second hand cars already in the country. So as the tax’s have risen prices have had to rise to cope with these changes so profit can still be maximised.

However, there has also been an excess in demand greatly due to the pandemic. This has led to people no wanting to use public transport, so they have bought a cheap second hand car to get around as an easy alternative. This has caused the price of cars to rise due to demand pull as people are more willing to pay money to stay safe from covid. As we have slowly recovered from the pandemic, people have been on less holidays and have spent less money as we have been living from home, so they have had more disposable income. This has meant more people are willing and able to buy a new or newer used cars as they have more money to spare. This has caused a large demand for cars and as people are willing to spend more money the prices have risen as people will still be willing to pay the increased price.

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HOW THE RICH GET RICHER: ART EDITION

Composition with red blue and yellow’ by Piet Mondrian sold for $50.6 million. The piece consists of lines and blocks of colour, nothing too elaborate or intricate, yet it’s worth a fortune. The simple painting could benefit the owner massively in making tax free money and deductions as well as cleaning up any loose ends financially.

Fine art nowadays can easily be used for tax evasion and money laundry. Tax evasion easily occurs by buying a painting at a given price and storing at a freeport, tax free. The painting will remain in the freeport being expertly looked after in its wooden box with temperature controlled rooms and earthquake and explosive resistant structures. During this time effective marketing will be undergone to spread the word about the painting, increasing the feeling of exclusivity and luxury. This will ultimately increase the price and value of the painting as it will likely gain more fame and popularity from a wider audience. This allows for the piece to be appraised years later and have an increased value than before. Depending on if you are in a region where you can claim a tax deduction for a donation, the buyer would then donate the piece to a museum. If the painting was originally worth $10 million but, at the time of donation was valued at $15 million the owner has then saved themselves $5 million in taxes. This, therefore, with the correct guidance and legal advice, can allow for an efficient loophole and deduction in the amount of tax paid.

The alternative, less legal method, is money laundering through art. This includes someone buying a cheap painting from a small, not so well known artist and storing at a freeport. The painting may occasionally be taken out for exhibitions to help increase its exposure and begin circulation of the painting to make it slightly more well known. The painting would then be put up for auction at its lower price and the current owner places an anonymous bid. The price paid for it by the owner is highly inflated and drives all other competition out. This achieves a recorded transaction and an impression that the art piece is worth some money. When the owner wants to clean their cash, they can get a professional appraising of the painting, and it will now be worth a large sum of money. With the assistance of a shell company, they can use their dirty money to purchase the painting. The buyer will then receive their own money from the shell company providing a seemingly legitimate reason why the buyer has received a large sum of money, making it hard to track down.

The price of art is a subjective matter. It relies on many factors including age, condition, popularity and most importantly the quoted price of the seller. With the value tending to increase, it’s a popular form of assets and is normally exchanged on primary markets such as galleries and museums or secondary markets like auctions. It would be near impossible to regulate the financial exploitation of art as the rich are difficult to infiltrate and art is only making the rich get richer.

CRYPTOCURRENCY AND MONEY LAUNDERING

For drug lords, organised crime bosses, terrorists and smugglers making money is only ever one half of their business. Legitimising funds in order to safely move them round the world remains a huge challenge for every part of the world’s crime empires forcing them to run traditional money laundering schemes through taxi firms, sweet shops and shell companies. The emergence of crypto markets has opened a new route for illegal money and this has forced financial security forces to consider both how cryptocurrency can be used for money laundering and how to identify when this has been done.

Laundering through crypto has become a business in itself allowing drug lords to turn cocaine into super cars with greater ease than ever before. Once illegal drugs have been smuggled into the country and distributed through the existing routes street dealers sell their product for cash, specific couriers then collect the cash from the dealers and convert it into clean Bitcoin, for a four percent fee. Cryptocurrency can be bought through cash (fiat) however originally the crypto currency remains as dirty as the cash that bought it; these laundering syndicates use Tumbler schemes to ‘clean’ the money. By splitting up original lump sums and cycling the components through various coins, at computer speed to avoid exchange rate loss, before ‘reassembling’ the sum, syndicates can begin to launder illegally earned money which they then send, less four percent, to specific, hard to trace, addresses specified by the drug gangs At this point it is effectively impossible to link a lump sum sitting in a bank account with cash halfway across the world and drug lords or other criminals are able to transfer their illegally earned money into any account they choose, perfectly legitimately.

The financial action task force (FAFT) are attempting to implement a “travel rule” to combat this method of money laundering. This rule would require cryptocurrency companies to collect and share customer identities when passing funds between each other and would allow security services to trace large deposits of money back to their source. However, this would require international cooperation and would likely be poorly enforced in the LEDC’s where financial integration currently occurs. Investment into AI technology to better analyse block chains (the history of crypto purchase) would be both expensive and environmentally damaging however, coupled with a well enforced “travel rule” could allow Interpol and financial security services to severely damage international money laundering. In 2021 money laundering through crypto rose by an estimated thirty percent pushing an estimated €8.6 billion through tumbler schemes and integration processes; because of this the pressure for reform to the current system is increasing. Whilst cryptocurrency is an exciting new market it must be adequately regulated to ensure its positive impacts outweigh its negative effects. This would only work through a worldwide effort, funded by the western world with incentives for LEDC’s to buy in. If this was effectively implemented cryptocurrencies’ use as a money laundering agent would be severely damaged and organised crime would once again be forced to use traditional, less effective, methods of money laundering.

A PESTLE ANALYSIS OF SPAIN’S ECONOMY

There are many external factors affecting businesses in Spain and they can be analysed and split into 6 groups political, economical, social, technological, legal and environmental.

POLITICAL: Spain is classified as a democratic constitutional monarchy, which is also known as a parliamentary monarchy. This means that the ruling monarch (Felipe VI of Spain) acts as the largely ceremonial head of state. However, the democratically elected Prime Minister (Pedro Sánchez) acts as the head of the national government. Spain consists of 17 autonomous regions which are known as ‘Comunidades Autónomas’ in Spain.

ECONOMICAL: Spain is the 14th largest economy in the world but faces many economic challenges including unemployment and due to the exports going up it leads to an appreciation in the exchange rate. Spain’s exports mostly end up in countries such as France, Germany and Italy. This means that the pound is stronger against other currencies which means the imports are cheaper as Spain imports consumer goods, machinery, chemicals and other commodities mostly from Germany, France and China. This leads to a decrease in variable costs and so a decrease in the price which leads them to have a constant profit which can make them increasingly competitive against other countries’ economies. Key industries which contribute to Spain’s GDP include tourism, manufacturing, agriculture, energy and electricity. Also, the corporate income tax is 25% which is the tax payable by any registered company under the Companies Act of 2013 on the profit netted in a particular financial year.

SOCIAL: The current population of Spain is 47.35 million in comparison to England which has a population of 55.98 million. However, there are some social challenges facing Spain today. For example, ageing population, pressure on the health care system, child poverty, low incomes and drug epidemic particularly in big cities in addition to the gender inequality which has been a problem for many years in Spain since the Franco era where the women had to stay at home and look after their children and clean the house while the men went to work all day every day and it made it difficult for women to get a job and a proper career.

TECHNOLOGICAL: Spain is an advanced nation in technology. Their contributions in air and road traffic control, international securities, renewable energies, civil engineering, and mobile communications are well known around the world. Spain also have advanced social media; the main networks include Facebook, Instagram, Pintrest, Twitter, Youtube, Reddit and Tuenti.

LEGAL: Spanish judiciary is independent; however, its reputation came into question due to Catalonia’s crisis. Direct or indirect discrimination in workplace is against the law and employees are entitled to protection and privacy. There is a strict law on when employees have to work which is that full time employees must work 40 hours a week (average), and they cannot work more than 9 hours a day unless there is an agreement in place.

ENVIRONMENTAL: Spain is one of the greatest holiday destinations in the world. Popular tourist destinations include Barcelona, Madrid, Valencia, Seville and Malaga with stunning beaches, ancient sites and beautiful mountains. Tourism is one of the dominant industries contributing approximately 11% to the Spanish economy. However, environmental challenges such as deforestation, air pollution, water pollution, and desertification have been some of the major concerns for the country. Due to tourism being a main source of finance for Spain it also comes with drawbacks which effect the environment of Spain including high levels of noise caused by airplanes and cruise ships, abuse of natural resources and loss of public spaces. The Spanish government would like to introduce solar panels in the near future also because Spain imports €40 billion (£35 billion) worth of gas and oil annually, mainly from Algeria and Saudi Arabia and it could not only help the environment but also save at least part of that money by boosting solar energy.

COST CAPS IN FORMULA 1

In 2021 the cost cap of 145 million dollars per team was introduced. This represented a huge change in the ethos of F1 as it is the first financial regulation set by the governing body of the FIA. During the history of the sport, constructors have been heavily reliant on the lucrative sponsorship deals brought in from outside firms, as the prize money falls a long way short of the total cash spent on R&D, manufacturing parts, transport by each individual team.

So why is there a need for cost caps? Coming out of the pandemic, there were doubts in the back rooms of even the larger teams, funded by global OEMs as to whether their involvement in F1 and general motorsport was still both sustainable and benficial. The FIA recognised the challenge which faced the sport and have come up with their ideal solution which will make F1 a much better investment in the long term for the teams as it will rely on less outside sponsorship. The cost cap excludes all marketing costs, race driver fees/salaries and the costs of the team’s three highest paid personnel. 145$ million is not a fixed figure either, as teams’ maximum resource pool has been shrunk to 140$m in 2022 and will be again by a further 5$m in 2023. Furthermore this should ensure closer racing between the teams as there will not be such a large gap between the previously successful teams and the teams new to the sport.

However, there are certain drawbacks associated with implementing cost caps in Formula 1. One of these costs is the reduced incentives for teams to find sponsors and finish as high as possible in the constructor’s standings, earning them more prize money. In previous seasons, the teams which could bring in the most money from sponsors and prize money would perform to a higher standard, therefore partially removing this incentive is a step backwards for the top teams. Furthermore, there will be great difficulty in the regulation of the cost cap. Due to the teams all having vast and complicated finances, it is difficult to track how much money goes where. There would also need to

be a sufficient fine/punishment for breaking the cost cap, so teams do not interpret it as a fee which can be payed in order to increase the cost cap. so what happens if a team spends too much? There are three categories of potential breaches. The first is a procedural breach, such as a team submitting their accounts late or inaccurately. The second is a minor overspend breach, when a team’s report shows they have exceeded the cost cap by less than 5 percent or the Cost Cap Administration finds they have exceeded that percentage. The third is a material overspend breach, where a team’s submission of their accounts or an investigation by the panel shows they have exceeded the cost cap by more than 5 percent. Once a breach has been identified, three forms of penalty are possible. The first is a financial penalty. The value of the fine will be determined on a case by case basis. The second is a minor sporting penalty which could be a combination of a reprimand, deduction of constructors and/or drivers points, a ban for a certain number of races, limitations on testing both CFD and on track and/or a reduction of their cost cap. Ideally, the size of the punishment equals the size of the advantage gained.

In conclusion, cost caps in Formula 1 are a positive regulation and will bring extra value to the sport, however, there is a balance to be drawn between having the cost cap too low, and there will be too few incentives for teams. Whereas if the cost cap is too high, the barriers to entry will be too high and teams will struggle with finances, this would lead to poor racing.

THE ECONOMIC IMPACT OF WIMBLEDON

The development of Wimbledon has accelerated the development and redevelopment of neighbouring buildings. One of the seven macroeconomic objectives have been achieved as lots of investment has been put into greening the area to attract visitors and tourists. The initial injection of the cost to redevelop the area has caused a local multiplier effect as large businesses and tourists are bringing investment and spending money in the local economy. Therefore, smaller businesses can keep afloat. Wimbledon Village is very attractive and offer high quality comparison brands. However, it works hard to remain adaptable and resilient to changing consumer habits. In the local area of Wimbledon, the residents tend to have a higher income therefore a higher spending power. In 2021 Wimbledon generated a total revenue of £288 million. Only £35 million of this was spent on the winnings for the players. Meaning the rest is spent on further development and even incomes for locals that work there. This will increase the standard of living for the local area as the unemployment level will be lower.

During the two weeks that Wimbledon tennis is held. 5 tonnes of rubbish must be cleaned up and taken each day. This suggests that scarce resources are being used at an unsustainable rate and the needs and wants of the future generations aren’t being considered. With the amount of rubbish polluting the area it may create conflict between the government and residents. During Wimbledon over 500,000 people visit to watch the tennis, this will dramatically increase the amount of noise pollution creating negative externalities.

The average price for a house sold in Wimbledon in 2021 was £890,577. Whereas the average price for a house in London is £523,666. The price of houses in Wimbledon are increasing by 18% each year this is over 5 times the amount of the average inflation rate for properties in the UK. This shows the desire and exclusivity of the Wimbledon area. Those who are looking to buy properties in Wimbledon must be very wealthy. This will cause the accelerator effect as the increase in GDP will result in a proportionally larger rise in capital investment and spending.

THE ECONOMICS OF BIG DATA

Some of us will have heard the term ‘Big Data’ mentioned in various contexts. The term has been crucial in news coverage of events such as the Cambridge Analytica Facebook scandal. It is often received with suspicion and fear, but what exactly is Big Data?

To understand what Big Data is, we first need to consider how it arose in the first place. In the age of rapidly increasing interconnection, vast amounts of data are produced, as every action we take, whether it be clicking on an image, browsing clothes online or watching a show on Netflix represents a small amount of information about us. To a computer scientist, Big Data is simply a large volume of information, characterised by huge variety and rapid generation.

However, an economist can see Big Data as a resource waiting to be exploited. For example, data on shopping habits, weather and crop planting have existed for decades, but not until now, with the rise of huge and rapidly growing data sets, has there been an incentive to develop technology capable of cost effectively collecting those data and using them in an informative way. That is, Big Data allows a level of insight never seen before; retailers can collect records of every purchase a specific customer has ever made; companies can know who exactly has viewed a particular advert of theirs and where and when they viewed it; farmers can keep track of every plant’s history to identify weeds and predict where they will grow in the future with unprecedented accuracy. A report from McKinsey Global Institute estimates that, globally, Big Data could fuel annual growth valued at $3 trillion in just seven industries; essentially, the proliferation of data in the economy presents a huge opportunity to boost growth by putting resources to work in a more intelligent, better informed manner. This growth has undoubtedly been aided by technical economies of scale, where firms spread the cost of research and develop new data collection methods by simply collecting more data. This, in turn, has led to a boom in the collection and processing of user data as companies, keen to reduce data collection costs, are collecting more information to tap into Big Data more affordably and cost effectively.

Big Data is clearly lucrative, but this presents a challenge to data privacy. Due to the huge applications and potential in industry of large, personalised data sets, this type of data is treated as an asset, as capital. The more personalised the data, the more insight they give, meaning there is ever more incentive for ‘middle men’, Cambridge Analytica being an

example, to collect hyper personalised user data and sell them to third parties. These data are rarely collected transparently whenever you visit a website and “accept all Cookies”, do you know what this really means? Most of us probably choose “accept all” to avoid the hassle of trawling through pop up menus to find the “reject all” button. However, not so many of us are informed about what the “accept all” button does. It allows websites to send small files of information to your computer, which data collection firms can use to identify you and monitor your online behaviour. The main problem lies in that in a survey conducted by the UK Government, only 13% of respondents claimed to fully understand what ‘cookies’ are and what they do.

This lack of information is highly concerning, mainly because once a user’s data is collected, the user has no say on what the collector can do with it. This means that the user can no longer take action to protect this information from cyber criminals as they have no say in where it is stored; instead, data collection firms may choose to store the data on servers that often lack the latest security due to the firms not being incentivised to invest in this area as users are not sufficiently informed to “opt out” of data collection.

The availability of Big Data and new data management and analytic technology have produced a unique moment in the history of data analysis. The convergence, not at all by chance, of these trends means that we have the capability to analyse huge, detailed data sets quickly and cost effectively for the first time. These capabilities are not trivial; they represent a genuine leap forward and a chance to achieve enormous gains in efficiency, productivity and profitability. Nevertheless, the issue of data privacy is not to be ignored, and as the role of Big Data increases, governments will be expected to intervene more decisively to protect users.

FINANCIAL IMPACTS ON FOOTBALL CLUBS DURING COVID 19

The last Premier League game before the COVID 19 pandemic was played on the 9th March 2020. Very few people realised what impact this was going to have on clubs, fans, players, and everyone else involved. Because there were no matches on or no spectators allowed live, clubs lost a substantial amount of matchday revenue. This had a greater impact on some clubs compared to others, but what was for certain, is that the pandemic created immense financial complications surrounding all aspects of the sport.

Total revenue of all Premier League clubs dropped by over half a billion pounds in the 2019/20 season. Even though average revenue increased during the 2020/21 season, a substantial proportion of this was through broadcasting. 69% of revenue was achieved through broadcasting in the 2020/21 season compared to most other seasons in which it made up under 60%. In the Premier League, matchday revenue only made up 0.3% as fans were unable to attend as generate revenue. Many football fans renewed or even bought subscriptions to sports channels such as Sky Sports, BT Sport and Amazon Prime. Of course, this was an opportunity for these channels to televise as many games as possible and provide high standards of viewing. However, this advantage didn’t necessarily mean all games in the Football League could be televised. In this way, many Premier League and few Championship clubs gained revenue from this but the rest of the EFL were not benefitting from this at all. The majority of clubs further down in the Football League heavily rely on tickets, food and hospitality as their main source of revenue on a matchday, which plummeted during the pandemic.

As well as matchday revenue for all clubs decreasing substantially during COVID 19, the costs they had to pay also became a problem. Most players didn’t have to take pay-cuts in the Premier League, but many managers and executives agreed to doing this. Clubs did have to utilise the furlough scheme but resulted in backlash from fans, so certain clubs reversed this issue. The costs required to keep stadiums at a good standard even when they weren’t in use by anyone, hit clubs hard. So, as matchday revenue was non existent and wages and maintainance costs remained relatively high, profits declined massively.

Overall, the COVID 19 pandemic had a negative impact on all clubs but the drop in matchday revenue resulting from it, had a worse impact on the EFL clubs rather than the Premier League clubs. This is due to the drop in income usually generated from a standard matchday and a full stadium.

THE EFFECT OF FORMULA ONE ON THE BRITISH ECONOMY

Britain is home to some of the most notable firms and engineers for motorsport, resulting in Seven of the 10 Formula One teams basing themselves in Britain. These teams invest an estimated £1bn into research and development every year, making £2bn in revenue. The motorsport industry employs more than 40,000 people in the UK. Therefore a huge amount of capital is invested into the British economy causing a multiplier effect. A multiplier effect is when a change in one of the components of Aggregate Demand leads to a multiplied final change in the level of GDP, this can cause aggregate demand to shift outwards as investment by firms is a component of aggregate demand. Furthermore, These 7 teams have enhanced the productive potential of the British economy as the technological advancements in formula one can lead to positive effects in other industries such as domestic car manufacturing. The head of the Williams Formula One team has said the value of F1 to the UK economy is undervalued and that the sport is at the forefront of vital research and development that can boost the manufacturing industry. The 39 year old said Formula One is leading the way in the development of hybrid technology in engines and kinetic energy recovery systems, known as Kers. Williams has set up an advanced engineering division to transfer the innovations developed in Formula One into other areas, such as road cars. This increase in the productive potential of the British economy has seen a cluster of motorsport firms forming in the midlands. The UK Motorsport Valley business cluster has reported continuous growth every year, with it now reaching revenues of £9bn. Now almost 3,500 companies associated with motorsport are based within the valley, employing around 40,000 people. That represents around 80% of the world’s high performance engineers. Almost 90% of those companies export their products and services abroad. As a result Formula One has had a wider impact on the economy, in terms of jobs, skills and innovation. Therefore formula one is also affecting supply in the long run, as it is providing a larger quantity of high quality labour. This means LRAS is likely to shift outwards, supplying the UK economy with a greater pool of high quality engineered products.

The importance of Formula One’s home race in Britain has been revealed in new data which shows that sponsors based in the country have fuelled an estimated $2 billion of investment in the sport over the past 15 years. The race attracted a crowd of 142,000 last year giving it the highest attendance of any event on the calendar. Britain is home to the second highest number of F1 sponsors and last year 20.8% of the 216 companies partnering with the sport were based in the country. The large amounts of spectators at the event spend and consume huge sums of money, potentially extending aggregate demand or even shifting it outwards by a small amount.

THE BUSINESS OF EUROVISION

The Eurovision Song Contest is Europe’s favourite show where most European countries compete against each other in various stages of competition to be able to gain a place in the final. The number of countries is cut down to 22, and these finalists will each compete against each other with their own songs to try to win the Eurovision Song Contest trophy.

Winning the contest means that the country who wins will have to host next years contest in their own country. Running Eurovision is not cheap. The 2022 contest was hosted in Italy, from the recent years win by Måneskin. The country which hosts Eurovision is expected to pay from £10 Million £25 Million. This price is generated by lighting, sound, entertainment, payment of staff, advertisement, special effects, flights etc.

Although the hosting country must pay a large sum. There are ways that they can pay for the amount. ‘The Big Five’ is a concept where all participating countries compete in one of the two semi finals, except for the host country of that year's contest and the contest's biggest financial contributors known as the "Big Five" France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom.

The reason in why this is good for Eurovision is because it means the hosting country has guaranteed funds into the show. A bonus for hosting Eurovision means the rate of tourism goes up. As Eurovision is known worldwide, it can cause great benefits for the hosting country, as it gives a chance to show off the country to not only the visitors, but to the viewers who are watching Eurovision this causes many benefits for the country. For example, at this year’s event crowds gathered at the Valentino Eurovillage to collectively watch Eurovision together. This will have a huge impact on local restaurants and hospitality because of the sudden inflow of customers and visitors. Although tourism is good for local restaurants and hotels, it can cause a strain on the businesses as they are not used to the number of customers this means the restaurants will be dealing with the pressure of a large number of customers.

As Ukraine won the Eurovision this year, it has been up for discussion on who will host next years contest as the Ukraine will be unable to fund/host it because of the obvious reasons to do with the war. This means the UK have a high likelihood of hosting Eurovision 2023, since the UK came second place. This could lead to a high increase in tourism and a good amount of income.

WILL CRYPTOCURRENCY REPLACE CASH?

There are many reasons to believe digital currency may or may not have the ability to replace cash in the long term. The creators of Bitcoin didn’t intend to replace cash at the start but since it had a huge impact on the economy, the question has arisen about whether or not it will replace cash. Satoshi Nakamoto is the pseudonym used by the creator(s) of Bitcoin, the system's goal was to allow individuals to reclaim financial power through a decentralised financial system.

Crypto is experiencing a renaissance and is increasing the market cap which currently sits at $1.82 trillion and keeps on increasing despite prices crashing to almost half their original value during the past few months. One of the main reasons why it will take a long time for cryptocurrency to replace cash is due to digital currencies being used for buying stocks and selling them at a future profit when the time is right. Although, a recent article by The Washington Post showed us that in the US there are almost 30,000 Bitcoin ATM’s which has seen exponential growth from the 1,800 machines in operation 4 years ago. This significant increase in the usage of digital currencies could lead to a flood of withdrawals from high street banks, risking financial stability and the wider economy.

Another factor affecting cryptocurrency taking over is due to its volatility. One Bitcoin could be worth $50,000 and another day they could drop to half price, this is because these assets are still considered speculative. Due to so many people believing cryptocurrency should have such a large value in many instances they have reached the expected value.

It is possible that in the long term cryptocurrencies will be used to “pay for things” which was the creator’s original intent, but that means that there will need to be extreme changes to the global infrastructure to accommodate crypto as legal tender. For the transition to happen without problems there will be a huge time lag because if the transition is done without care billions of people will be losing the money they have in cash. This is due to consumer norms changing over time.

In conclusion, if there is a transition from cash to cryptocurrency it would take a long time, as well as taking into consideration global preferences and economic stability.

INFLATING FOOTBALL FEES

10 Years Ago, the record transfer fee for a footballer was £80 million, this was the fee paid by Real Madrid for the services of Cristiano Ronaldo, arguably at the time one of the best footballers on the planet. Nowadays, £80 million gets you a player like Darwin Nunez, a young striker that has only had one breakthrough season in the Portuguese League. Furthermore, the current record transfer fee for a footballer stands at £200 million, this was the figure needed to pay out the release clause of Neymar at Barcelona and send him to Paris Saint Germain.

There is an assumption that due to an increase in the value of TV rights and advertising, top teams can bring in more world class players than ever before. However, this doesn’t seem to be the case as there hasn’t been a vast increase in the number of world class players in circulation during the same period. This has led to the demand pull inflation of the fees paid to get footballers because aggregate supply has not changed however the aggregate demand has heavily increased as newly promoted teams are required to spend more money than ever to stay in the Premier League upon promotion and maintain the increased revenue received by staying in the league.

It is estimated that the annual inflation growth rate on the transfer market for Top 5 league footballers has been 26%. Compared with 2011, the same player would cost almost three times more now. Due to this hyperinflation, smaller clubs now need to look elsewhere for players such as Portugal, Italy, or the Netherlands to find good players at prices that fit within their transfer budget due to good Premier League ones becoming unaffordable for them. Also, this transfer inflation

means that clubs now need to do more research as it is more important than ever to calculate whether the signing not only is worth the perceived value but fits into the club's system and core beliefs to not waste their cash reserves on an individual that doesn’t perform as intended. One unfortunate instance of this was the transfer of Romelu Lukaku from Inter Milan to Chelsea in the Summer of 2021. Chelsea spent £97.5 million for his services however he only managed 8 goals throughout the Premier League season and only 15 goals in all competitions. Subsequently, after this poor season and other external factors, Lukaku was loaned back to his old club Inter Milan in 2022 for a loan fee of £8 million.

THE STATE OF THE GLOBAL ECONOMY

Throughout the past few years the global economy has struggled due to covid and now due to the Ukraine war. The war has caused numerous issues which effect each economy significantly. Russia is a major supplier of oil, gas and metals and with Ukraine supplying lots of wheat and corn, the prices of certain products have spiked massively.

Over the last past year, the conflict between Russia and Ukraine has caused huge disruptions within almost every economy. The initial effect is how global energy prices have increased, the rise in price has caused many to struggle with bills and therefore have no disposable income to spend on luxury items and other necessity’s. Russia is Western Europe’s biggest supplier, distributing 40 per cent of its oils and fuels. This distribution has obviously decreased supply worldwide as Russia has had sanctions placed on it, meaning there is far less oil coming from Russia. This therefore causes an increase in the price of oil, which in turn means firms and individuals struggle to afford energy prices. A business uses roughly 15000 25000 kWh of fuel per year, this amount has increased in price by more than many firms can afford, leading to businesses closing down. Individuals and firms are now not buying goods or services from Russia, meaning people are buying from the same places as the UK economy, this is another reasons for the raise in price and competition for the good Show on the graph is the increase in crude oil price.

The war has also been damaging global trade, which will impact low income countries the most, however will still have affected every country. The world trade organisation (WTO) has said the global economy will “darken” due to the war, as imports and exports of goods have decreased from 4.7% to 3%. The graph on the left portrays how exports and imports have been affected. Ukraine is a major exporter of wheat and corn, however, due to the Russia’s invasion it has caused major issues for Ukraine to export goods or to even get goods imported. Russia has had sanctions out on it, this means Russia’s connections to European ports have been cut, and commodity exports to other destinations have been constrained. Leading to the global economy to struggle and to not perform as good as people wished, not being beneficial especially after coronavirus.

HOW VALUABLE IS THE EIFFEL TOWER FOR FRANCE’S ECONOMY?

The Eiffel Tower has been declared the most valuable European monument, and six times more so than its nearest rival, the Colosseum in Rome. The question is, how valuable really is the Eiffel tower to France? It is difficult to measure its true value, with a wide variation of opinions. There are three possible valuations of the Eiffel tower: $44 million, $480 million, and $510 billion.

The first figure is the inflation adjusted value using the Consumer Price Index as it cost $1.5 million to build in 1889. However, we know that this is far too low because planning and design alone would cost around $50 million. Also, there are many other factors that need to be considered when estimating the Eiffel Tower’s true value. It has 7 million visitors a year, with a turnover of $87.2 million in 2019 with around 600 people working for it.

The second valuation was made over a decade ago by ‘Pricing the Priceless’, however they have little evidence to back their estimation.

The final figure, of $510 billion valuated by ‘Monza and Briazana’ is suggested to be the most accurate, as it considers the overall economic benefit that the monument brings to the French economy, including ticket sales and the incremental revenue that hotels and restaurants can charge for views of the tower. The number one reason why tourists decide to visit Paris is because of its attractions, highlighting the true importance of the monument. Perhaps, without the Eiffel Tower, many businesses with relations to tourism would not be thriving as they are today.

Usually, a valuation is associated with a deal or a transaction, but as France is unlikely to sell the Eiffel Tower, the valuation is important for taxes, insurance, and budgeting. However, we understand that the cultural and artistic value of the French monument is far more important than the monetary value for the French and people from across the world.