Gross Domestic Expenditures (GDE): the Need for a New National Aggregate Statistic

In national income and product accounts, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is widely recognized as the most common denominator of economic performance. However, because it measures final output only, GDP overemphasizes the role of consumer spending as a driver of economic growth rather than saving, business investment, and technological advances. In an effort to create a more balanced picture of the production/consumption process, I create Gross Domestic Expenditures (GDE), a new national aggregate statistic that measures sales at all stages of production. Drawing from the annual input-output data compiled by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, gross business receipts from the IRS, and other sources, GDE estimates gross spending patterns in intermediate production (goods-in-process) and final output. GDE should be the starting point for measuring aggregate spending in the economy, as it measures both the "make" economy (intermediate production), and the "use" economy (final use or GDP). It complements GDP and can easily be incorporated in standard national income accounting and macroeconomic analysis. In the United States, GDE appears to be more than twice the size of GDP, and has historically been three times more volatile than GDP, and serves as a better indicator of business cycle activity. I conclude that consumer spending represents approximately 30 percent of total economic activity (GDE), not 70 percent as often reported. This conclusion is more consistent with the leading economic indicators published by the Conference Board

Do-it-yourself digital: the production boundary, the productivity puzzle and economic welfare

Part of the debate about the ‘productivity puzzle’ concerns potential mismeasurement of GDP due to digital activities. This paper discusses some measurement issues arising from digitally-enabled substitutions in activity across the conventional production boundary. Production boundary issues are not new, as conventionally defined GDP statistics account for the monetary cost but not the time cost of consumption and production. This means changes in the way time is allocated between market and home production affect measured growth and productivity. Just as technological innovation in domestic appliances led to a substitution from home production into market consumption in the second half of the 20th century, today’s digital innovations are driving some reverse substitution out of the market into home production. Statistical agencies do not currently collect the data needed to measure the scale of the switch, but the available evidence suggests it may be enough to make a contribution to understanding the puzzling behaviour of measured productivityEconomics Statistics Centre of Excellenc

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Revisiting the relevance of economic theory to hotel revenue management education and practice in the era of Big Data

Abstract This paper explores the role of economics in hospitality education and industry practice, with a particular focus on revenue management, and puts forward an argument for a return to the inclusion of economic theory in UK hospitality education, not seen since the 1990s. Given the increasing amounts of pricing data available to both managers and customers and the consequent market complexities now seen, developing economic literacy is demonstrated to be a crucial skill required for future hospitality graduates, allowing them to make successful revenue decisions and sense-check with confidence the decisions made by automated revenue systems. Economic literacy is defined as a balanced understanding of economic theory that can be applied in real-life business scenarios, extending beyond simple consideration of supply and demand to a mixture of neoclassical and behavioural approaches to economics

Mineralogical attenuation for metallic remediation in a passive system for mine water treatment

Passive systems with constructed wetlands have been consistently used to treat mine water from abandoned mines. Long-term and cost-effective remediation is a crucial expectation for these water treatment facilities. To achieve that, a complex chain of physical, chemical, biological, and mineralogical mechanisms for pollutants removal must be designed to simulate natural attenuation processes. This paper aims to present geochemical and mineralogical data obtained in a recently constructed passive system (from an abandoned mine, Jales, Northern Portugal). It shows the role of different solid materials in the retention of metals and arsenic, observed during the start-up period of the treatment plant. The mineralogical study focused on two types of materials: (1) the ochre-precipitates, formed as waste products from the neutralization process, and (2) the fine-grained minerals contained in the soil of the wetlands. The ochre-precipitates demonstrated to be poorly ordered iron-rich material, which gave rise to hematite upon artificial heating. The heating experiments also provided mineralogical evidence for the presence of an associated amorphous arsenic-rich compound. Chemical analysis on the freshly ochre-precipitates revealed high concentrations of arsenic (51,867 ppm) and metals, such as zinc (1,213 ppm) and manganese (821 ppm), indicating strong enrichment factors relative to the water from which they precipitate. Mineralogical data obtained in the soil of the wetlands indicate that chlorite, illite, chlorite–vermiculite and mica–vermiculite mixedlayers, vermiculite, kaolinite and goethite are concentrated in the fine-grained fractions (<20 and <2 μm). The chemical analyses show that high levels of arsenic (up to 3%) and metals are also retained in these fractions, which may be enhanced by the low degree of order of the clay minerals as suggested by an XRD study. The obtained results suggest that, although the treatment plant has been receiving water only since 2006, future performance will be strongly dependent on these identified mineralogical pollutant hosts.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT

Internet of Things for Sustainable Mining

The sustainable mining Internet of Things deals with the applications of IoT technology to the coupled needs of sustainable recovery of metals and a healthy environment for a thriving planet. In this chapter, the IoT architecture and technology is presented to support development of a digital mining platform emphasizing the exploration of rock–fluid–environment interactions to develop extraction methods with maximum economic benefit, while maintaining and preserving both water quantity and quality, soil, and, ultimately, human health. New perspectives are provided for IoT applications in developing new mineral resources, improved management of tailings, monitoring and mitigating contamination from mining. Moreover, tools to assess the environmental and social impacts of mining including the demands on dwindling freshwater resources. The cutting-edge technologies that could be leveraged to develop the state-of-the-art sustainable mining IoT paradigm are also discussed