... "Data will be a core resource in the future". 

“If the UK wants to make sure that in the next phase of the digital revolution Britain has the Googles, and the Amazons and the eBays … then the government needs to turn its current enthusiasm [for data] to a really solid, defined implementation for a national core data set,” evangelises Mr Shakespeare.

“This is a major new piece of infrastructure for all society. It will be a platform on which we live our lives.”

Gavin Starks, ceo of the Open Data Institute, a quasi-independent agency responsible for assessing the government's use of data, agrees that the opening up of public data would provide an opportunity for businesses across Britain.

“Health care, transportation, finance, insurance; it will affect many, many different sectors, the change will be as broad as the web itself. There’s a huge amount of value to be unlocked".

An analysis by Deloitte, launched in tandem with the Shakespeare Report, calculated that the use of public data in 2011-2012 had added up to £7.2 billion ($11 billion) to the UK economy.

In one case, opening up live transport information from Transport for London saved Londoners' working time valued at up £58 million in one year alone, Deloitte guesstimates. Opening up more public data would unlock more value, the accountants argue.

Read the original unabridged WSJ.com article.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

... the group of non-OECD [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development] nations.

With world output growth projected at 3.3% in 2013 and 3.7% in 2014, the forecast again points to a global recovery that is hesitant, below par, and uneven. 

NIESR summarises its projections thus:

• The world economy will grow by 3.3% this year and by 3.7% 2014, remaining below trend.
   
• In the developed world, divergence continues; the USA will grow just over 2% in each year, while the Euro Area zone remains in recession and will grow only about 1% in 2014.
   
• Unemployment remains very high in most countries, at depression era rates in some peripheral Euro Area countries.

This outlook reflects, especially in the advanced economies, weak demand resulting from several factors, especially continuing fiscal consolidation and deleveraging by private sectors, impaired credit intermediation in many cases, and significant policy uncertainties.

Of most concern is the continuing slump in the Euro Area, which is expected to remain in recession in 2013 and seems unlikely, on current policies, to experience better than weak growth next year.

In the USA, private sector demand has continued to be strengthened by a substantial improvement in the financial positions of banks and households, but this is partly offset by accelerated fiscal adjustment.

NIESR's growth projections for Japan have been raised to 2% per annum in 2013–14, taking into account the announcement of significant fiscal and monetary stimulus measures.

But the main drivers of global growth remain the developing and emerging market economies, especially in Asia; prospects seem good for a broad strengthening of growth in these economies this year and next, following the moderate slowdown experienced in 2012.

Read the original unabridged NIESR article.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

... viewed in context with people's economic status. 

The Great British Class Survey posits that defining (and understanding) classes as "amounts of different types of 'capitals'" help us to view class across a number of dimensions.

The French sociologist, Pierre Bourdieu first developed this approach in 1984, suggesting there are different types of capitals which give people an advantage in life.

Economic, cultural and social capitals may overlap but they are different. Using this approach, the survey distinguishes between people with different amounts of each of the foregoing three capitals.

It's been difficult to test this approach in Britain because comprehensive questions on cultural and social capital are rarely asked in national surveys. Sociologists need large amounts of data to unravel the complicated way the different capitals interact with each other, in many different people.

Mike Savage from the London School of Economics and Fiona Devine from the University of Manchester say they were "excited to test this approach for the first time" by designing a survey with BBC Lab UK.

The survey's results identify a new model of class with seven classes ranging from the 'Elite' at the top to a 'Precariat' at the bottom.

Read the original unabridged BBC article.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

... single big acquisition that "wouldn’t fit Bertelsmann’s risk profile”.

The company, which last year benefited from the best-selling book Fifty Shades of Grey, currently relies on Europe for 80% of its sales. Rabe, who took office at the beginning of 2012, is overhauling Bertelsmann’s portfolio with a push into music rights, education and emerging markets. 

Says Mr Rabe: “It is our clear objective to grow the company in the next couple of years. Assuming a little bit of tailwind from a recovery in Europe, we expect to grow to €17bn this year and €18bn in the next.”

Bertelsmann’s total global sales grew 4.5% to €16bn last year, Rabe added, although his forecast doesn’t include potential acquisitions.

Operating earnings before interest and taxes from continuing operations will remain at more than 10% of revenue in coming years even as the company invests in new digital products and reorganizes its legacy businesses such as printing.

Read the original unabridged Bloomberg.com article.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

... Russia's online advertising spend will this year grow from 19% of total national adspend to 22%, while spending on print media will decline from 13.9% to 12.6%. 

Conversely, TV ad revenues in 2013 will account for 46.4%, down on 48% in 2012. 

According to Vedomosti, publishing houses in Russia received between 2% and 25% percent of their revenues from internet advertising.

Mikhail Voshchinsky, managing director of Aegis Media, said that spending on online marketing was growing because new technologies such as real-time bidding had made online ads more transparent and straightforward to advertisers.

Read the original unabridged Vedomosti article.

*Vedomosti is co-owned by the Financial Times and The Wall Street Journal.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

 ... the nation's performance was nevertheless among the strongest in the world. This year, GDP is forecast to grow between 8%-8.25%. 

China's population, unlike the Western and Asia-Pacific economies, is currently fixated on saving as opposed to spending.

Mr Zhu believes there are several things the central government could do to boost domestic consumption.

"Number one, you should give people more opportunities to work and then to earn more money, so they will be able to consume more," he said. "I think this is the most important thing and will be the driving force for China's growth strategy in the next few years."

He also suggested that China further open its service sector to allow more competition while crafting supportive tax and fiscal policies, particularly for small and medium-size enterprises. These measures, he said, would go a long way toward raising individual incomes.

The IMF official urged Beijing to increase spending on health, education, pensions and other social programs, which would help allay public concerns about the economy and encourage people to spend more.

The government, he said, should have a policy to discourage investment.

Interest rates on loans are too low, while necessities such as energy, transportation, water and electricity are extremely cheap, fueling excessive expansion of certain parts of the economy.

However, Eswar Prasad, a professor at Cornell University in New York and a former China division chief at the IMF, suggested last month that it's wrong to think of Chinese GDP growth as continuing to be driven by exports and investment.

According to Mr Prasad: "China has made substantial progress on reducing its external imbalance, with the surpluses on both the current account and the trade balance falling sharply from their peaks in 2007," Prasad said at a hearing of Congress' US-China Economic and Security Review Commission."

He also listed the three major challenges for China:

• Implementing reforms to improve the quality and efficiency of growth
   
• Continuing to shift from capital-intensive production
   
• Creating jobs and helping more of the benefits of growth to reach Chinese households.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

... promising small and delivering big.

If Sir Martin remains true to form, his gloomy prognostications for the world economy will show WPP triumphing over adversity despite unpropitious global economic conditions between now and 2020.

Sorrell warned that 2013 will be another demanding year, with slow or stagnant growth in western continental Europe (excluding the UK) likely to continue for some time. He added: "We may well only be half way through a lost decade, post-Lehman."

Given that half a decade has already elapsed since Lehman's collapse in 2008, Sir Martin's forecast of a "lost decade" veers toward the obvious.

On a more pragmatic note, the WPP supremo sees the USA's budget deficit as the "elephant in the room" and last-minute attempts in the US Congress to deal with the problem on New Year's Eve "only succeeded in kicking the can further down the road".

Never averse to florid similes, Sorrell also considers the US deficit as the most threatening of his five so-called "grey swans".

In plain English the reference relates to the "known unknowns" affecting the global economic outlook (the converse of "black swans", which take the market by surprise).

Sir Martin's grey swans also include the Eurozone crisis, turmoil in the Middle East and a slowdown in fast-growing economies such as China, Brazil and India.

He is also unhappy at Prime Minister David Cameron's decision to stage a referendum on the UK's membership of the European Union, which Sorrell sees as adding "further uncertainty" to the UK economy.

Read the original unabridged Guardian article.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

... aging demographics, the long-term shift toward services, increasing energy prices, high levels of consumer debt and greater inequality among consumers in advanced economies.

The forecast, Succeeding in Low Growth Markets, is published by WPP-owned consultancy The Futures Company.

Among its many conclusions, the report asserts: “The broader effect of digital networks has been to expose national economies to much more competition than previously.”

This, concludes the report, has resulted in “suppressing middle income wages and removing swathes of middle-income jobs.”

All is not gloom however. Digital technology is credited with spurring innovation which, the report believes, could help workers shift to more productive sectors of the economy.

However, “it’s hard to see at the moment where those new jobs will come from.”

Perhaps the most counterintuitive [not to say 'contentious'] factor cited by the report is the rise of digital technology, which has “stripped value out of economies.”

The report estimates that digital networks have accounted for 60% to 80% of productivity gains in advanced economies since 1995.

Read the original unabridged MediaPost article.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

... revolutionize the way we make almost everything.”

As New York Times blogger Nick Bilton observed: "Mr Obama has pushed new technologies before, like solar and wind power, as remedies for our nation’s [manufacturing] problems, and those attempts have only revived the debate about the limitations of government industrial policy.

"But this one shows more promise. The question is, can the United States get a foothold in manufacturing one 3-D printer at a time?

According to Hod Lipson, an associate professor and the director of the Creative Machines Lab at Cornell University, the answer is an emphatic 'yes'. 

“3-D printing is worming its way into almost every industry, from entertainment, to food, to bio and medical applications.”

But it won’t necessarily directly create manufacturing jobs, except perhaps for the printers themselves. Dr Lipson warns.

The technology “is not going to simply replace existing manufacturing anytime soon.” Nonetheless he believes that 3-D printing will give rise to new businesses.

“The bigger opportunity in the US is that it opens and creates new business models that are based on this idea of customization.”

Read the original unabridged New York Times article.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

... unite the USA, the world's largest economy, with four other 'top ten' nations: Germany, the UK, France and Italy.

It would also help defuse the long running rift between the US and EU over the free flow of information across borders.

This is an increasingly important priority for US multinational mammoths like Google, Facebook and Amazon but could be hard for EU members France and Germany to accept because of privacy concerns.

The USA and European Union already enjoy the largest economic relationship in the world - albeit (according to Reuters) "one of the most complicated".

Acknowledging that negotiations will be tough, Representative Dave Camp, the Republican chairman of the House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee, welcomed President Obama's initiative. "A strong, comprehensive trade and investment agreement with the EU has the potential to create significant good-paying jobs for Americans," said Camp.

Mr Camp and the Senate Finance Committee leaders also said they planned to push this year for renewal of "trade promotion authority," a law that expired in 2007 that allowed the White House to submit trade deals to Congress for a straight yes-or-no vote without any amendments.

Such legislation has long been considered essential in persuading other countries to put their best offers on the table in trade talks with the United States.

Read the original unabridged Reuters article.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.