Bernoulli’s Prisoner’s Dilemma: applying the scenario to modern markets March 30, 2021 | City Talk In 1738, the Swiss mathematician and physicist Daniel Bernoulli proposed a simple thought experiment: “A rich prisoner who possesses two thousand ducats but needs two thousand ducats more to repurchase his freedom, will place a higher value on a gain of two thousand ducats than does another man with less money than he.” Let’s place [...]
Frugal February: Brits paid off £1.2bn in credit card debt and overdrafts in final month of full lockdown March 29, 2021 Frugal February: Brits paid off £1.2bn in credit card debt and overdrafts in final month of full lockdown
Covid: UK bank lending surged £29.3bn since March, surpassing EU March 29, 2021 UK bank lending has surged by eight per cent to keep businesses afloat since the pandemic began, surpassing EU lending, according to a new study by UHY released this morning. Banks have offered around £29.3bn in businesses loans over the past year, as lending in the EU increased by an average of 5.3 per cent. [...]
BoE urges banks to keep lending as government schemes come to an end March 26, 2021 The Bank of England has urged banks to continue lending through the recovery as the government starts to wind down its coronavirus loan schemes. While the vaccine rollout has boosted confidence the Financial Policy Committee (FPC), which looks at the risks facing the system, has warned SMEs will need to finance cash-flow deficits this year [...]
Covid-19, a year on: the need for a more diverse UK economy March 26, 2021 In this series, City A.M. looks back at the last year of the pandemic and Covid restrictions and takes stock of its impact on industries and issues at the heart of British society. Read more: Read the full Covid-19, a year on series here. The UK’s economy was hit by a 10 per cent drop in GDP [...]
Furlough: Extra 200,000 workers temporarily laid off in February March 25, 2021 The government paid out almost £4bn in additional furlough costs last month as a further 200,000 people were temporarily laid off. HM Revenue and Customs said it has paid a total of £57.7bn in furlough claims to around 11.4m workers since the pandemic began a year ago. Separate data published today by the Office for [...]
US jobless claims fall to lowest level since the start of the pandemic March 25, 2021 New claims for unemployment benefits in the US fell to their lowest level since the start of the pandemic as the economy rebounds. Initial claims for state unemployment benefits came in at 684,000, down from 781,000 a week earlier, according to the Labor Department. Claims are now at their lowest level since the middle of [...]
Surging services demand boosts UK business activity rebound in March March 24, 2021 Surging services demand boosts UK business activity rebound in March
UK CPI: Inflation rate falls back in February as discounted clothes offset rising petrol prices March 24, 2021 The UK’s Consumer Prices Index (CPI) slipped in February compared to the previous month as rising petrol costs failed to offset discount clothing and footwear. UK CPI rose 0.4 per cent in the 12 months to February, down from a 0.7 per cent rise in January. On a monthly basis, CPI rose by 0.1 per [...]
UK unemployment rate drops slightly to five per cent March 23, 2021 The rate of unemployment in the UK fell slightly to five per cent from November 2020 to January 2021, some 1.1 percentage points higher than the same time last year.