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Ýòî èíòåðåñíî
Yates
Unit 1 A. Understanding a printed text (1) The following text will introduce you to the topic of economic issues. Look at the way it is divided into sections and paragraphs. Pay attention to the headings and notes in the margins, and to the illustration and caption. Now look at these questions. 1.What is important in the first paragraph? 2.What is the second section about? 3.What is an oil price shock? 4. What does the the diagram illustrate? 5. What do the oil price shocks show? Read the passage through and find the answers to the questions. Remember, you do not have to understand every word to answer them. 1. THREE ECONOMIC ISSUES 1 Trying to understand what economics is about by studying definitions is like trying to learn to swim by reading an instruction manual. Formal analysis makes sense only once you have some practical Three important questions experience, in this section we discuss three economic issues to show how society allocates scarce resources between competing uses. In each case we see the importance of the questions what, how, and for whom to produce. The Oil Price Shocks 2 Oil is an important commodity in modern economies. Oil and its derivatives provide fuel for heating, transport, and machinery, and are basic inputs for the manufacture of industrial petrochemicals Oil used to be cheap and many household products ranging from plastic utensils to polyester clothing. From the beginning of this century until 1973 the use of oil increased steadily. Over much of this period the price of oil fell in comparison with the prices of other products. Economic activity was organized on the assumption of cheap and abundant oil. 3 In 1973-74 there was an abrupt change. The main oil-producing nations, mostly located in the Middle East but including also Venezuela and Nigeria, belong to OPEC - the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. Recognizing that Then the price of oil rose together they produced most of the world's oil, OPEC decided in 1973 to raise the price for which this oil was sold. Although higher prices encourage consumers of oil to try to economize on its use, OPEC correctly forecast that cutbacks in the quantity demanded would be small since most other nations were very dependent on oil and had few commodities available as potential substitutes for oil. Thus OPEC correctly anticipated that a substantial price increase would lead to only a small reduction in sales. It would be very profitable for OPEC members. 4 Oil prices are traditionally quoted in US dollars per barrel. Figure 1- 1 shows the price of oil from 1970 to 1986. Between 1973 and 1974 the price of oil tripled, from $2.90 to $9 per barrel. After a more gradual rise between 1974 and 1978 there was another sharp increase between 1978 and Oil price shocks 1980, from $12 to $30 per barrel. The dramatic price increases of 1973-74 and 1978-80 have become known as the OPEC oil price shocks, not only because they took the rest of the world by surprise but also because of the upheaval they inflicted on the world economy which had previously been organized on the assumption of cheap oil prices. 5 Much of this book teaches you that people respond to prices. When the price of some commodity increases, consumers will try to use People respond to prices less of it but producers will want to sell more of it. These responses, guided by prices, are part of the process by which most Western societies determine what, how, and for whom to produce. 6 Consider first how the economy produces goods and services. When, as in the 1970s, the price of oil increases sixfold, every firm will try to reduce its use of oil-based products. Chemical firms will To effect of oil price shocks on develop artificial substitutes for petroleum inputs how the economy produces to their production processes; airlines will look for more fuel-efficient aircraft; electricity will be produced from more coal- fired generators. In general, higher oil prices make the economy produce in a way that uses less oil. 7 How does the oil price increase affect what is being produced? Firms and households reduce their use of oil-intensive products which are now more expensive. Households switch to gas-fired central heating and buy smaller cars. Commuters The effect on what is produced form car-pools or move closer to the city. High prices not only choke off the demand for oilrelated commodities; they also encourage consumers to purchase substitute commodities. Higher demand for these commodities bids up their price and encourages their production. Designers produce smaller cars, architects contemplate solar energy, and research laboratories develop alternatives to petroleum in chemical production. Throughout the economy, what is being produced reflects a shift away from expensive oil-using products towards less oil-intensive substitutes. 8 The for whom question in this example has a The "for whom" question clear answer. OPEC revenues from oil sales increased from $35 billion in 1973 to nearly $300 billion in 1980. Much of their increased revenue was spent on goods produced in the industrialized Western nations. In contrast, oil-importing nations had to give up more of their own production in exchange for the oil imports that they required. In terms of goods as a whole, the rise in oil prices raised the buying power of OPEC and reduced the buying power of oil-importing countries such as Germany and Japan. The world economy was producing more for OPEC and less for Germany and Japan. Although this is the most important The economy is an interconnected single answer to the 'for whom' question, the system economy is an intricate, interconnected system and a disturbance anywhere ripples throughout the entire economy, in answering the 'what' and 'how' questions, we have seen that some activities expanded and others contracted following the oil price shocks. Expanding industries may have to pay higher wages to attract the extra labour that they require. For example, in the British economy coal miners were able to use the renewed demand for coal to secure large wage increases. The opposite effects may be expected if the 1986 oil price slump persists. 9 The OPEC oil price shocks example illustrates how society allocates scarce resources between competing uses. A scarce resource is one for which the A scarce resource demand at a zero price would exceed the available supply. We can think of oil as having become more scarce in economic terms when its price rose. B. Check your understanding Now read the text carefully, looking up any new items in a dictionary or reference book. Then answer the following questions: 1. What do you need in order to understand economics? 2. What happened to the price of oil from 1900 to 1973? 3. What did OPEC decide in 1973? 4. Why was there only a small reduction in oil sales? 5. What did the oil price shocks lead to? 6. How do people respond to a higher price for a commodity? 7. What effect do higher oil prices have on the economy? 8. What happens throughout the economy when there are high oil prices? 9. What two effects did high prices have on oil-importing countries? 10. When did oil become scarce? C. Increase your vocabulary In this section you should use your dictionary to help you answer the questions about the text. 1. Look at the first paragraph and say which words correspond to these definitions: • a book which teaches you something • gives as a share • supply of goods, raw materials etc. • separation into parts by examination 2. Look at paragraph 2 again and say what words have the opposite meaning to: • rare, scarce • outputs • expensive • fell, decreased 3. Look at paragraph 3 again and say what words have the the same meaning as: • sudden • people who used goods or services • realizing • replacements • large 4. Look at paragraph 4 again. Can you explain the words: • quoted • gradual rise • sharp increase 5. Look at paragraph 5 again and say what these words refer to: • line 4: it • line 5: it 6. Look at paragraph 6 again and say words have the same meaning as: • as a rule • cut down • six times 7. Look at paragraph 7 again. Can you explain the words: • household • commuter • commodities • designer • architect 8. Look at paragraph 8 again and say what words have the opposite meaning to: • exports • straightforward • get, acquire • didn't need • getting smaller • getting larger 9. Look at paragraph 9 again. Can you explain the definition of a scarce resource in your own words? D. Check your grammar MAKING STATEMENTS ----------------------------------------------------------- Do you remember? This book offers an introduction to economics. Economics is taught at a great many universities. ------------------------------------------------------------ 1. Use the following verbs to complete the paragraph below: concern, base, discuss, be, show, take up, be, hope for, say, offer, wish, live, suggest, provide, govern. Students ________________ economics for different reasons. Some__________________ a career in business, some ____________ for a deeper understanding of government policy, and some____________ about the poor or the unemployed. This book _____________ an introduction which ________________ that economics ___________________ a live subject. It _______________ real insights into the world in which we ____________________. The material that we ______________ in this book _____________ by two ideas. The first ___________ that there ______________ a body of economics which has to be learned in any introductory course. The second ______________ on the belief that modern economics is more readily applicable to the real world than traditional approaches ____________________________. --------------------------------------------------------- Do you remember? I passed my examinations last year. He was accepted by this university as a student of economics. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. Now write the following sentences out in full, like this: Keynes/famous/his/day/economist/own/a/in ... . . (be) Keynes was a famous economist in his own day. 1. 1915/Treasury/London/ in/he/in/the . . . (join) 2. best-known/1935/his/book/in . . . (publish) 3. public/war/during/he/service/the/to . . . (recall) 4. 5th/ in/Cambridge/June/Keynes/1883/on . . . (bear) 5. student/he/distinguished/a . . . (be) 6. instrumental/ the IMF/ in/ the/ 1944/ World Bank/ he/ in/ and/ starling . . . (be) 7. Cambridge University/ to/ 1902/ he/ in . . . (go) 8. a/ he/ as/ Cambridge/ teacher/ to . . . (return) 9. time/ he/ a/ economist/ by/ as/ this/ brilliant . . . (accept) 10. also/ heavy/ his/ he/ by/ workload . . . (exhaust) 11. The General Theory or Employment, Interest and Money/ it . . . (call) 12. 1919/ in/ he, with/ Treaty or Versailles/ he/ because/the . . . (resign, disillusion) 13. April/ on/ 21st/ he/ 1946 . . . (die) 14. book/ conventional/ this/ thinking, enemies/ him/ many/ and ....(go against, make) 3. Now arrange the sentences you have made into a single paragraph. Make sure that the order you arrange the sentences in makes sense! E. Understanding a lecture 1. You are now going to near part of a lecture, divided into sections to help you understand it. As you listen, answer the questions below. Section 1___________________________________ - Complete the following statement correctly: The lecturer has mentioned three economic issues. In this lecture he is going to talk about the first issue the second issue the third issue - Note down what the issue is: _____________________________ Section 2 ______________________________________ - The lecturer mentions five necessities of life. Note down as many as you can: _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ - Complete the following statement correctly: By 'neighbors' the lecturer means people living next door to you people living m the same town as you people living in the same country as you people living anywhere in the world Section 3 ______________________________________ Are these statements correct or incorrect? - National income is the money received by the government. - World income is the total of what every individual in the world earns. Sections 4, 5 and 6 _______________________________________ Fill in the figures the lecturer gives you in the table below. Table 1-1 I World population and income in the early 1980s | |Poor |Middle-inc|Major oil|industria|Soviet | | |countrie|ome c. |c. |l c. |bloc | | |s | | | | | |Income per | | | | | | |head ($) | | | | | | |Percentage | | | | | | |of world | | | | | | |population | | | | | | |Percentage | | | | | | |of world | | | | | | |income | | | | | | Source: World Bank, World Development Report Section 7_______________________________________ - Complete the following statement correctly Most of the world's goods are produced for - poor countries - middle-income countries - major oil countries - industrial countries Section 8 Are these statements correct or incorrect? • Workers in poor countries produce less than those in rich countries. • There's nothing governments can do about the distribution of income. 2. Now wind the cassette back to the beginning of the lecture and listen to it again. This time, instead of answering questions, take notes. The questions you have already answered will help you do this. When you have listened to the whole of the lecture, you will be asked to make a short oral summary of the lecture you have heard. So make sure you note down the most important points of the lecture. 3. You should also write a summary of the lecture, based on your notes. F. Understanding a printed text (2) Read the following text carefully, looking up anything you do not understand. The Role of Government 1 Having mentioned the effect of government tax policy on the income distribution, we now examine in greater detail the role of the government The role of government in society. In every society governments provide such services as national defence, police, firefighting services, and the administration of justice. In addition, governments make transfer payments to some members of society. 2 Transfer payments are payments made to Transfer payments individuals without requiring the provision of any service in return. Examples are social security, retirement pensions, unemployment benefits, and, in some countries, food scamps. Government expenditure, whether on the provision of goods and services (defence, police) or on transfer payments, is chiefly financed by imposing taxes, although some (small) residual component may be financed by government borrowing. 3. Table 1-2 compares the role of the government in four countries, in each case, we look at four measures of government spending as a percentage of national income: spending on the direct provision of goods and services for the public, transfer payments, interest on the national debt, and total spending. Italy is a 'big-government' country. Its government spending is large and it needs to raise correspondingly large tax revenues. In contrast, Japan has a much smaller government sector and needs to raise correspondingly less tax revenue. These differences in the scale of government activity relative to national income reflect differences in the way different countries allocate their resources among competing uses. Table 1-2 Government spending as a percentage of national income in 1985 |Country |Purchase of |Transfer |Debt interest |TOTAL | | |goods and |payments |% |% | | |services % |% | | | |UK |23,0 |17,2 |5,1 |45,3 | |Japan |14,9 |12,7 |4,6 |32,2 | |United States |20,1 |12,2 |4,8 |37,1 | |Italy |27,0 |23,0 |9,2 |59,4 | Source : IMF, World Economic Outlook, 1986 4 Governments spend part of their revenue on particular goods and services such as tanks, schools, and public safety. They directly affect Governments affect what is produced what is produced. Japan's low share of government spending on goods and services in Table 1-2 reflects the very low level of Japanese spending on defence. Governments affect for whom output is and for whom it is produced produced through their tax and transfer payments. By taxing the rich and making transfers to the poor, the government ensures that the poor are allocated more of what is produced than would otherwise be the case; and the rich get correspondingly less. 5 The government also affects how goods are and how it is produced produced, for example through the regulations it imposes. Managers of factories and mines must obey safety requirements even where these are costly to implement, firms are prevented from freely polluting the atmosphere and rivers, offices and factories are banned in attractive residential parts of the city. 6 The scale of government activities in the modern economy is highly controversial. In the UK the government takes nearly 40 per cent of national income in taxes. Some governments take a larger share, others a smaller share. Different shares will certainly affect the questions what, how, and for whom, but some people believe that a large government sector makes the economy inefficient, reducing the number of goods that can be produced and eventually allocated to consumers. 7 It is commonly asserted that high tax rates The question of taxes reduce the incentive to work. If half of all we earn goes to the government, we might prefer to work fewer hours a week and spend more time in the garden or watching television. That is one possibility, but there is another one: if workers have in mind a target after-tax income, for example to have at least sufficient to afford a foreign holiday every year, they will have to work more hours to meet this target when taxes are higher. Whether on balance high taxes make people work more or less remains an open question. Welfare payments and unemployment benefit are more likely to reduce incentives to work since they actually contribute to target income. If large-scale government activity leads to important disincentive effects, government activity will affect not only what, how, and for whom goods are produced, but also how much is produced by the economy as a whole. 8 This discussion of the role of the government is central to the process by which society allocates its scarce resources. It also raises a question. Is it inevitable that the government plays an important The question at the heart of economics role in the process by which society decides how to allocate resources between competing demands? This question lies at the heart of economics, and we return to it shortly when we examine the role of markets in economic life. 9 First, however, we must refine our notion of scarce resources. To do so, we introduce a useful tool of economic analysis, the production possibility frontier. G. Check your understanding 1. Find the terms in the text which describe the following: - money paid to people without asking for a service in return - money paid to people when they stop working - money paid to people who have no work - money owed by the government of a country - the money received by governments from taxation - money a worker keeps after paying taxes 2. Now look at these statements. Using the information in the text, say if they are correct or incorrect. - Governments do not make free transfer payments. - Food stamps are an example of a transfer payment. - Most government income comes from borrowing. - Japan raises more taxes than Italy. - Japan spends very little on defence. - The poor get more of what is produced through taxation and transfer payments. - Governments do not affect how good are produced. - Nobody questions the scale of government economic activity. - Many people believe that high taxes result in people not wanting to work so hard. - The production possibility frontier is a tool to examine the role of government in the economy. 3. Now look at paragraph 7 again. Summarize in your own words the arguments for and against high taxes. Then express your own opinion on whether taxes should be high or low. H. Understanding discourse 1. Listen to this conversation between some students and their tutor. The students should have read the same text that you have just read. The tutor is checking whether they have understood or not. Listen to their tutorial and say whether the students have answered correctly or incorrectly. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 2. Did you notice in that conversation how the tutor asked his questions? If you do not understand something, you can ask for an explanation in a number of ways. Look at this table: (Excuse me) I can you I explain................ (I'm sorry, but) I could you I tell me a bit more about....... I I I I I I don't really understand... I I could you (possibly/ please) repeat I that last bit....... I I what you just I I said....... I I I I Imagine you do not understand the following terms. Ask each other for an explanation: • tax revenue • unempioyment benefit • retirement pension • a 'big-government' country • after-tax income