Macroeconomics: UK economy, IB Economics

Some surprising news from the retail sector, with a number of retailers - Next, B&M and Greggs - suggesting that, contrary to what you might have thought, they've had a better Christmas than expected. 

However, will this translate into a sustained period of spending?  

The CEO of Next offers a bleak assessment of the state of the High Street. These really are the very worst of times. But, again, we need to be positive and try to think about what sort of High Street, and, more generally, what sort of society we want to live in going forward. 

And this is why the depreciation of the pound is a bad thing - Next, among other retailers, have pointed out that most producers of clothing and homewares price their output in dollars and so if the pound falls relative to the dollar, imported goods become more expensive. 

Hence, some people see the cost of living crisis lasting longer than could perhaps first have been expected.