Іноземна мова (для економістів) (МАУП)

Контрольна робота

№ K-28094

LESSON 1

1. READ THE TEXT

GREEN ECONOMY
The term green economy was first coined in a pioneering 1989 report for the Government of the United Kingdom by a group of leading environmental economists, entitled Blueprint for a Green Economy (Pearce, Markandya and Barbier, 1989). The report was commissioned to advise the UK Government if there was a consensus definition to the term "sustainable development" and the implications of sustainable development for the measurement of economic progress and the appraisal of projects and policies . Apart from in the title of the report, there is no further reference to green economy and it appears that the term was used as an afterthought by the authors. In 1991 and 1994 the authors released sequels to the first report entitled Blueprint 2: Greening the world economy and Blueprint 3: Measuring Sustainable Development. Whilst the theme of the first Blueprint report was that economics can and should come to the aid of environmental policy, the sequels extended this message to the problems of the global economy - climate change, ozone depletion, tropical deforestation, and resource loss in the developing world. All reports built upon research and practice in environmental economics spanning back several decades.
In 2008, the term was revived in the context of discussions on the policy response to multiple global crises. In the context of the financial crisis and concerns of a global recession, UNEP championed the idea of "green stimulus packages" and identified specific areas where large-scale public investment could kick-start a "green economy" (Atkisson, 2012). It inspired several governments to implement significant "green stimulus" packages as part of their economic recovery efforts.
In October 2008, UNEP launched its Green Economy Initiative to provide analysis and policy support for investment in green sectors and for greening environmentally unfriendly sectors. As part of this Initiative, UNEP commissioned one of the original authors of Blueprint for a Green Economy to prepare a report entitled a Global Green New Deal (GGND), which was released in April 2009 and proposed a mix of policy actions that would stimulate economic recovery and at the same time improve the sustainability of the world economy. The GGND called on governments to allocate a significant share of stimulus funding to green sectors and set out three objectives: (i) economic recovery; (ii) poverty eradication; and (iii) reduced carbon emissions and ecosystem degradation; and proposed a framework for green stimulus programs as well as supportive domestic and international policies (UNEMG, 2011).
In June 2009, in the lead up to the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, the UN released an interagency statement supporting the green economy as a transformation to address multiple crises . The statement included the hope that the economic recovery would be the turning point for an ambitious and effective international response to the multiple crises facing humanity based on a global green economy.
In February 2010, Ministers and Heads of Delegation of the UNEP Global Ministerial Environment Forum in Nusa Dua acknowledged in their declaration that the green economy concept "can significantly address current challenges and deliver economic development opportunities and multiple benefits for all nations." It also acknowledged UNEP's leading role in further defining and promoting the concept and encouraged UNEP to contribute to this work through the preparatory process for the UN Conference on Sustainable Development in 2012 (Rio+20).
In March 2010, the General Assembly agreed that green economy in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication would form one of the two specific themes for Rio+20 (resolution 64/236). This led to a great deal of international attention on green economy and related concepts and the publication of numerous recent reports and other literature aiming to further define and demystify the concept.
One of the key reports was the flagship Green Economy Report released by UNEP in November 2011 under its Green Economy Initiative. UNEP partnered with think tanks and commercial actors (including Deutsche Bank), lending credibility to its economic analyses (Atkisson, 2012). Importantly, the report also provides a working definition of "green economy" which has since been cited in numerous other publications.
A series of other publications by UNEP, UNCTAD, UNDESA and the UNCSD Secretariat have attempted to elaborate on the concept and outline guiding principles, benefits, risks and emerging international experience. In December 2011, the UN Environment Management Group (a system-wide coordination body of over 40 specialized agencies, programmes and organs of the United Nations) also released its system-wide perspective on green economy - Working Towards a Balanced and Inclusive Green Economy - which identifies and clarifies the use of green economy and other related terms. This report adopts the definition provided by UNEP in its 2011 Green Economy Report. A number of non-government organizations and partnerships have also developed in recent years which aim to promote green economy as a concept and undertake research, analysis and outreach.
There is no internationally agreed definition of green economy and at least eight separate definitions were identified in recent publications. For example, UNEP has defined the green economy as "one that results in improved human well-being and social equity, while significantly reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities. It is low carbon, resource efficient, and socially inclusive" (UNEP, 2011). This definition has been cited in a number of more recent reports, including by the UNEMG and the OECD. Another definition for green economy offered by the Green Economy Coalition (a group of NGOs, trade union groups and others doing grassroots work on a green economy) succinctly defines green economy as "a resilient economy that provides a better quality of life for all within the ecological limits of the planet."

1. Please make up a timeline of at least 10 dates and events from all the texts above.
2. Please, make up an Active Vocabulary on the topic.
3. Please, present your own vision and understanding of how the Green Economy is working for the humanity well-being.

LESSON 2

1. Read and translate the text.
The Five Principles of Green Economy
Humanity faces serious, potentially existential challenges in the coming decades: climate change, collapsing biodiversity, escalating inequality, financial instability, political dysfunction and social fragmentation. These systemic global crises cannot be tackled in isolation. They are all interconnected symptoms of the same underlying malaise: our fundamentally broken global economic system.
Economies are, at heart, a collection of rules and norms that reward some behaviours and punish others. In their current form, our economies incentivize overconsumption, degrade communal bonds, and destroy natural wealth. But this is not inevitable or unavoidable; it is simply how our economies are designed to operate. To solve these problems, a new economic vision is required.
Our vision of a fair, green economic future
Our vision of a green economy is one that provides prosperity for all within the ecological limits of the planet. It is based around five principles:
Well-being: A green economy must create genuine, sustained, shared wellbeing, going beyond mere monetary wealth to prioritize human development, health, happiness, education, and community.
Justice: A green economy emphasizes equity, equality, community cohesion, and supporting human rights – especially the rights of minorities and the marginalized. It seeks a just transition and serves the interests of all citizens, including those yet to be born.
Planetary boundaries: A green economy recognizes that all human flourishing depends upon a healthy natural world. It defends the intrinsic worth of nature, and protects biodiversity, soil, water, air and other ecosystem capitals.
Efficiency & sufficiency: A green economy is low-carbon, diverse and circular. It recognizes that planetary boundaries place practical limits to economic growth, and aligns economic incentives with true costs to society.
Good governance: A green economy builds institutions that combine dynamic democratic accountability with a sound basis in natural and social science and local knowledge. Civil life prioritizes public participation, informed consent, transparency, and accountability.
The green economy is a universal and transformative change to the global status quo, requiring a fundamental shift in government priorities to position social and environmental priorities above financial ones. Realizing this change is not easy, but it is necessary. Without it, progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals will be patchy and inconsistent at best, and economic, environmental, climate and social challenges will continue to intensify.
2. Find out what the difference between green economy and brown economy is.
3. Please, make up a list of threats of brown economy.

LESSON 3
1. Read the text and make up an Active Vocabulary of at least 15 words and word combinations:

If you can walk into a supermarket and find Costa Rican bananas, Brazilian coffee, and a bottle of South African wine, you're experiencing the impacts of international trade.
International trade allows countries to expand their markets and access goods and services that otherwise may not have been available domestically. As a result of international trade, the market is more competitive. This ultimately results in more competitive pricing and brings a cheaper product home to the consumer.
Understanding International Trade
International trade was key to the rise of the global economy. In the global economy, supply and demand—and thus prices—both impact and are impacted by global events.
Political change in Asia, for example, could result in an increase in the cost of labor. This could increase the manufacturing costs for an American sneaker company that is based in Malaysia, which would then result in an increase in the price charged for a pair of sneakers that an American consumer might purchase at their local mall.
Imports and Exports
A product that is sold to the global market is called an export, and a product that is bought from the global market is an import. Imports and exports are accounted for in the current account section of a country's balance of payments.
Global trade allows wealthy countries to use their resources—for example, labor, technology, or capital — more efficiently. Different countries are endowed with different assets and natural resources: land, labor, capital, technology, etc.
This allows some countries to produce the same good more efficiently; in other words, more quickly and at a lower cost. Therefore, they may sell it more cheaply than other countries. If a country cannot efficiently produce an item, it can obtain it by trading with another country that can. This is known as specialization in international trade.
For example, England and Portugal have historically both benefited by specializing and trading according to their comparative advantages. Portugal has plentiful vineyards and can make wine at a low cost, while England is able to more cheaply manufacture cloth given its pastures are full of sheep.
Each country would eventually recognize these facts and stop attempting to make the product that was more costly to generate domestically in favor of engaging in trade. Indeed, over time, England stopped producing wine, and Portugal stopped manufacturing cloth. Both countries saw that it was to their advantage to stop their efforts at producing these items at home and, instead, to trade with each other in order to acquire them.
Comparative Advantage
These two countries realized that they could produce more by focusing on those products for which they have a comparative advantage. In such a case, the Portuguese would begin to produce only wine, and the English only cotton.
Each country can now create a specialized output of 20 units per year and trade equal proportions of both products. As such, each country now has access to both products at lower costs. We can see then that for both countries, the opportunity cost of producing both products is greater than the cost of specializing.
Comparative advantage can contrast with absolute advantage. Absolute advantage leads to unambiguous gains from specialization and trade only in cases wherein each producer has an absolute advantage in producing some good.
If a producer lacked any absolute advantage, then they would never export anything. But we do see that countries without any clear absolute advantage do gain from trade because they have a comparative advantage.
Origins of Comparative Advantage
The theory of comparative advantage has been attributed to the English political economist David Ricardo. Comparative advantage is discussed in Ricardo's book On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, published in 1817, although it has been suggested that Ricardo's mentor, James Mill, likely originated the analysis and slipped it into Ricardo's book on the sly.
Comparative advantage, as we have shown above, famously showed how England and Portugal both benefit by specializing and trading according to their comparative advantages. In this case, Portugal was able to make wine at a low cost, while England was able to cheaply manufacture cloth. Ricardo predicted that each country would eventually recognize these facts and stop attempting to make the product that was more costly to generate.
A more contemporary example of comparative advantage is China’s comparative advantage over the United States in the form of cheap labor. Chinese workers produce simple consumer goods at a much lower opportunity cost.3
The comparative advantage for the U.S. is in specialized, capital-intensive labor. American workers produce sophisticated goods or investment opportunities at lower opportunity costs. Specializing and trading along these lines benefit each country.
The theory of comparative advantage helps to explain why protectionism has been traditionally unsuccessful. If a country removes itself from an international trade agreement, or if a government imposes tariffs, it may produce an immediate local benefit in the form of new jobs; however, this is rarely a long-term solution to a trade problem.
Eventually, that country will grow to be at a disadvantage relative to its neighbors: countries that were already better able to produce these items at a lower opportunity cost.
Criticisms of Comparative Advantage
Why doesn't the world have open trading between countries? When there is free trade, why do some countries remain poor at the expense of others? There are many reasons, but the most influential is something that economists call rent seeking. Rent seeking occurs when one group organizes and lobbies the government to protect its interests.
Say, for example, the producers of American shoes understand and agree with the free-trade argument but also know that cheaper foreign shoes would negatively impact their narrow interests. Even if laborers would be most productive by switching from making shoes to making computers, nobody in the shoe industry wants to lose their job or see profits decrease in the short run.
This desire could lead the shoemakers to lobby for special tax breaks for their products or extra duties (or even outright bans) on foreign footwear. Appeals to save American jobs and preserve a time-honored American craft abound—even though, in the long run, American laborers would be relatively less productive and American consumers relatively poorer as a result of such protectionist tactics.
Other Possible Benefits of Trading Globally
International trade not only results in increased efficiency but also allows countries to participate in a global economy, encouraging the opportunity for foreign direct investment (FDI). In theory, economies can thus grow more efficiently and become competitive economic participants more easily.
For the receiving government, FDI is a means by which foreign currency and expertise can enter the country. It raises employment levels and, theoretically, leads to a growth in the gross domestic product (GDP). For the investor, FDI offers company expansion and growth, which means higher revenues.

2. Answer the questions :
1. What Are the Benefits of International Trade for a Business?
2. What Creates the Need for International Trade?
3. What Are Common Barriers to International Trade?
3. Make up 4 key takeaways for the topic :
• International trade is ...
• Trading globally gives consumers and countries ...
• The importance of international trade was recognized by …
• Still, there is a vision that international trade can actually be bad for smaller nations …

LESSON 4
1. Please, do the quiz giving detailed explanation of your choice. Write down the answers as follows:
1-A, because …
2-B, because …
3-C, because …etc.)
1. The MAIN purpose of a tariff is to:
protect domestic industry from competition.
promote greater specialization within industries.
provide revenue to support continued trade.
provide the government with revenue.
2. Generally, a nation should probably specialize in those products:
for which worldwide demand is high.
for which its needs are greatest.
in which it has absolute advantage.
in which it has comparative advantage.
3. Which of the following BEST describes the effect of free trade upon prices? Under free trade:
domestic prices of exported items tend to rise in the exporting country and decline in the importing country.
domestic prices of all imported items rise, and those of all exported items decline.
domestic prices of all exported items rise, while those of all imported items decline.
domestic prices of exported items tend to fall in the exporting country and rise in the importing country.
4. Economist Waldo B. was overheard making the remark that more tariffs could do nothing but enhance terms of trade for the U.S. “After all,” says Waldo, “we’re the most technologically efficient nation in the world. Why shouldn’t everyone want to trade with us? Meanwhile, we must do something to look out for ourselves.” Waldo’s argument is based on the fallacious assumption that:
most nations of the world want to engage in trade.
tariffs can provide a source of revenue.
technology can enhance a nation's terms of trade.
trade cannot be mutually beneficial.
5. Economists generally dislike the practice of restricting trade. Their MAIN criticism of this practice is that it:
encourages inefficiency in the American market.
doesn’t really save jobs despite its costs.
promotes retaliations among countries whose products are subject to restrictions.
is too difficult and costly to enforce

LESSON 5
2. Please, do the quiz giving detailed explanation of your choice. Write down the answers as follows:
1-A, because …
2-B, because …
3-C, because …etc.)
1. All of the following factors contributed significantly to the chronic deficit in our balance of payments during the 1960s and 1970s EXCEPT:
rapidly expanding technology in Europe and Japan.
mounting U.S. military expenses.
foreign investment by American firms.
increased foreign demand for American exports.
2. If the exchange rate of dollars to francs is $0.14, then the exchange rate of francs to dollars is:
1.4:1
86:1
14:1
7:1
3. The MAIN reason that President Roosevelt went off the gold standard was that:
he believed that a devalued dollar might rekindle a failing economy.
he foresaw the establishment of a new international agreement under the Bretton Woods system.
rumors that Britain would soon abandon the gold standard could no longer be ignored.
many economists of the time predicted higher dollar values if the gold standard were abandoned.
4. The MAIN criticism most economists of today would probably make of the Bretton Woods agreement is that it:
was inherently inflexible, and thus not adaptable to changing economic conditions.
was based on the false assumption that the ability of one country to compete with another changes over time.
depended too heavily on adherence to the gold standard.
demanded a fundamental realignment of currencies for which most countries were unprepared.

LESSON 6
Please, do the Supply and Demand Quiz giving detailed explanation of your choice. Write down the answers as follows:
1-A, because …
2-B, because …
3-C, because …etc.)

1. A basic assumption that economists make about consumer behavior is that...
a) an individual’s desire for a particular commodity during a given period of time is infinite.
b) consumers are consistent about their preferences as measured by the satisfaction derived from various goods.
c) one consumer’s preferences tend to be very much like other consumers’ preferences.
d) the marginal utility a consumer receives from a given commodity will always increase as consumption increases.

2. Utility is a measure of...
a) demand.
b) output.
c) usefulness.
d) satisfaction.

3. The law of diminishing marginal utility implies that...
a) the more of a commodity a consumer purchases, the less likely he will be to purchase that same commodity in the future.
b) the usefulness of any commodity tends to decline following consumption of the first unit.
c) increase in personal satisfaction will eventually decline as more and more units of a commodity are consumed.
d) as consumption of a commodity increases, market demand inevitably declines.

4. A consumer is in equilibrium if...
a) she is spending the same percentage of income on all commodities in her market basket.
b) the marginal utility for each commodity she purchases is equal at all consumption levels.
c) the total utility received from various commodities is equal.
d) any other allocation of her income would lead to a reduction in total utility.

5. If the marginal cost of a given commodity is lower than the average variable cost, we can conclude that...
a) average variable cost is at a minimum.
b) average total cost is at a minimum.
c) average variable cost will decline.
d) average variable cost will remain constant.

6. According to Economics U$A economist Richard Gill the experience of Marin County residents during the drought of the early 1970s shows that...
a) scarcity is not as much of a factor in determining price as economists once thought.
b) people tend to make better use of resources when they are scarce.
c) price has more impact on demand for scarce resources than on demand for abundant resources.
d) when there is no substitute for a resource, price virtually controls demand.

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