Burlington High School
Burlington, Kansas
Teacher: Devra Parker
World’s Economy
By Jacob Mann
12th Grade
The world economy can be represented in various ways, and broken down in various ways. It is inseparable from the geography and ecology of Earth, ecrogians which represent different agricultural and resource extraction opportunities, and each have natural capital of their own that provides nature's services to humankind. There are many ways they measure this. For example, GDP is Gross Domestic Product, which is the purchasing power of the nation, and they usually have a certain number and a percent of change in the years. Another main goal we will look at would be the imports and exports of goods. In the global economy every country has their strenghts and their weaknesses, some are not so clear as others.
Chile’s economy is a free market system which is a plus for a foreign country. They even rank higher than the United States. Chile’s weakness is that they seem to favor exporting more than they do importing. That could be a problem in the near future. For a decade Chile had some impressive growth rate numbers, but, in 1999, they experienced a global economic slowdown. In 2003 the country had a clear and plain recovery with a growth domestic product (GDP) of 3.3%. The economy is continuing to rise since there was a GDP of 6% in 2004, and a suspected GDP of 6.1% in 2005. Chile relies heavily on international economic trade. Some of the main products is agricultural in the forms of; wheat, corn, grapes, beans, sugar beets, potatoes, and fruit. The United States is Chile’s number one exporter and their number two importer.
The country of Jamaica faces some serious problems but has the potential for growth and modernization. They have now suffered their fourth consecutive year of negative growth. Their economy is mostly free, but the government runs many major corporations. They have what they call a “Free Trade Zone” which has encouraged investment in garment assembly, light manufacturing, and data entry for foreign firms. The weakness in the financial sector, speculation, and lower levels of investment erode confidence in the productive sector. The government continues to raise new sovereign debt in local and international financial markets in order to meet United States dollar debt obligations, to clean up liquidity to preserve the exchange rate and to help fund the current budget discrepancy. Jamaica’s GDP is around $11.3 Billion. Jamaica has low exportation ($1.4 Billion) and importations ($2.7 Billion) numbers, but over 39% of exports go to the U.S. and 50% of imports come from the United States. The main money maker is the industry which includes tourism, bauxite, textiles, food processing, and rum.
The Ukraine is a mostly unfree country. They were formerly an important agricultural and industrial region of the Soviet Union, Ukraine now depends on Russia for most energy supplies, especially natural gas, although lately it has been trying to diversify its sources. The lack of significant structural reform has made the Ukrainian economy vulnerable to external shocks. After 1991 the government liberalized most prices and erected a legal framework for privatization, but widespread resistance to reform within the government soon stalled reform efforts and led to some backtracking. Output by 1999 had fallen to less than 40% of the 1991 level. Loose monetary policies pushed inflation to hyperinflationary levels in late 1993. The current government has pledged to reduce the number of government agencies, streamline the regulatory process, create a legal environment to encourage company owners, and enact a very large tax overhaul. The GDP in 2000 showed strong export based growth of 6%, the first growth since independence, and industrial production grew 12.9%. The economy continued to expand in 2001, as real GDP rose 9% and industrial output grew by over 14%. Growth was under-girded by strong domestic demand and growing consumer and investor confidence. Rapid economic growth in 2004 is largely attributed to a surge in steel exports to China.
Libya is a socialist-oriented economy which depends primarily on revenues from the petroleum sector. This contributes practically all export earnings and about ¼ of the GDP. These oil revenues and a small population give Libya one of the highest per capita GDP’s in Africa. Libya has a small population in a large land area. Population density is about 50 persons per square mile. Ninety percent of the people live in less than 10% of the area, primarily along the coast. More than half the population is urban, mostly concentrated in the two largest cities, Tripoli and Benghazi. 50% of the population is estimated to be under age 15. Native Libyans are primarily a mixture of Berbers and Arabs. Small Tuareg and Tebu tribal groups in southern Libya are nomadic or seminomadic. Among foreign residents, the largest groups are citizens of other African nations, including North Africans, West Africans and Sub Saharan Africans.
The global economy can be a strange and complicated place for many reasons. This is only about four countries and only one from each category, so there is still a lot to be learned. In the global economy every country has their strenghts and their weaknesses, some are not so clear as others.
The Benefits of Free
Trade
Q1-Be the Devil’s Advocate and Counter Benjamin Franklin’s statement that “No
nation was ever ruined by trade.”
World Trade does hurt the economy and the society. For example; exports and imports, if a country imports far more than it exports then there could have some great consequences. Relying too heavily on foreign governments and causing a recession in the economy. On the other side exporting too much could limit your own supplies and make your country weak. The importation of drugs is another example of how importing can hurt the country.
Index of Economic
Freedom and Annual Report
(Chapter 3 for
links to countries)
Q2-Name five
countries whose ranking surprised you.
Hong Kong
Libya
Chile
Ukraine
Jamaica.
Q3- Write one sentence each to explain why you chose the countries you did in Q2.
I chose these countries because they interested me and I would like to learn more about their economy.
Q4-The USA was not ranked first in any of the years exhibited online in the
Annual Report nor in the 2005 index. List the twelve countries that ranked
higher on the Index and the countries that out ranked the USA in the eight
Annual Reports.
Answers To Questions Prompted By The Required Reading
1.Hong Kong 2.Singapore
3.Luxembourg 4.Estonia 5.Ireland 6.New Zealand 7.United Kingdom 8.Denmark
9.Iceland 10.Australia 11.Chile 12.Switzerland
Q5-The Index uses 50 variables in 10 categories. The Report shows 21 variables in 5 categories and lists 24 sub-variables in its online charts.
Take the 10 categories of the Index and place all 45 variables found in the Annual Report charts under one of the Index categories. The Trade Policy category is already done as an example. Many variables might well go under more than one category. Do the best you can using each variable only once until all are categorized. We will be able to tell if thought is put into the exercise.
We do not have enough information to answer this question.