Программа по формированию навыков безопасного поведения на дорогах и улицах «Добрая дорога детства» 2
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21. “The students haven’t mentioned the command economy”. 1) The students mentioned the command economy. 2) The command economy hasn’t been mentioned by the students. 3) The students have mentioned the command economy. Read the text There are 3 types of economies: a command (planned) economy, a market economy and a mixed one. A mixed economy is a combination of market and planned economies. In mixed economies some resources are controlled by the government and other resources are used by demands of consumers. Technically, all economies of the world are mixed. Practically, in all economies the balance between market elements and planned elements is always changing. Some countries are nearer to command economies but others are nearer to free market. For example, Hong Kong has some state–controlled industry, Cuba has privately-owned and state -controlled firms. So, in a mixed economy the government and private sectors interact in solving economic problems. State allocates money for education, science and health, while private firms produce cars, furniture, electrical items and other goods. What do the underlined words from the text mean? 22. “one” 1) type 2) economy 3) command 4) market 23. “others” 1) economies 2) elements 3) countries 4) markets Choose the appropriate Russian variant of translation according to the text 24. “so” 1) такой 2) итак 3) тоже 4) так как 25. “while” 1) если 2) потому что 3) или 4) а, в то время как Choose and copy sentences containing information from the text 26. All economies act together in any type of economy. 27. State gives allocations for health and furniture. 28. In economies the relation between the economic elements is always the same. 29. There are no private firms in Cuba. 30. Money for social needs is allocated by state. Тексты для чтения по специальности 1 Economics is a social science studying economy. Why study economics? In fact, people do it for countless reasons. For many people concern for the economy goes no further than the price of tuition or the fear of losing a job. Many others, however, are becoming aware that their job prospects and the prices they pay are somehow related to national trends in prices, unemployment, and economic growth. Although few people think in terms of price indexes and graphs, most of us now recognize the importance of major economic events. And that's why so many people worry about such abstractions as unemployment rates, inflation, economic growth, etc. Economics has deep routs in, and close ties to, social philosophy. An issue of great importance to philosophers, for example, is distributional justice. Why are some people rich and others are poor? And, whatsoever the answer, is it fair? A number of nineteenth century social philosophers wrestled with these questions and out of their musings economics as a separate discipline was born. As a scholarly discipline, economics is two centuries old. The first scientist who made extraordinary contributions in economics was Adam Smith. Almost a century later, as capitalist enterprises began to spread, there appeared the massive critique of capitalism: Karl Marx's "Capital". In 1936 John Maynard Keynes published 'The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money". Economics was supposed to help government monetary and fiscal policies to tame the worst ravages of business cycles. What exactly is the subject that the economists from Smith to Marx to the present generation have analyzed? Economics is the study of how societies use scarce resources to produce valuable commodities and distribute them among different people. As you begin your study of economics, keep in mind that economics will teach you a new way of looking at the world. In some cases, you will find that the topics we discuss are completely unfamiliar to you. But most of the time you will be looking at things that you already know about from a different perspective. You will discover, for example, that the complex decisions of huge multinational corporations are based on some of the same principals that guide everyday choices like whether to take a day off or to stay up late studying. Market and Command Economies 1 Economics is a science that analyzes what, how, and for whom society produces. The central economic problem is to reconcile the conflict between people's unlimited demands with society's ability to produce goods and services. In industrial Western countries markets are to allocate resources. The market is the process by which production and consumption are coordinated through prices. In a command economy, a central planning office makes decisions on what, how, and for whom to produce. Economy cannot rely entirely on command, but there was extensive planning in many Soviet bloc countries. A free market economy has no government intervention. Resources are allocated entirely through markets. Modern economies in the West are mixed and rely mainly on the market but with a large dose of government intervention. The optimal level of government intervention remains a problem which is of interest to economists. The degree of government restrictions differs greatly between countries that have command economies and countries that have free market economies. In the former, resources are allocated by central government planning. In the latter, there is not any government regulation of the consumption, production, and exchange of goods. Between the two main types lies the mixed economy where market and government are both of importance. 2 1. Many economists specialise in a particular branch of the subject. For example, there are labour economists, energy economists, monetary economists, and international economists. What distinguishes these economists is the segment of economic life in which they are interested. Labour economics deals with problems of the labour market as viewed by firms, workers, and society as a whole. Urban economics deals with city problems: land use, transport, congestion and housing. However, we need not classify branches of economics according to the area of economic life in which we ask the standard questions: what, how and for whom. We can also classify branches of economics according to the approach or methodology that is used. The very broad division of approaches into microeconomic and macroeconomic cuts across the large number of subject groupings cited above. 2. Microeconomic analysis offers a detailed treatment of individual decisions about particular commodities. Microeconomists tend to offer a detailed treatment of one aspect of economic behaviour, but ignore interactions with the rest of the economy in order to preserve the simplicity of the analysis. A microeconomic analysis of miners' wages would emphasise the characteristics of miners and the ability of mine owners pay. It would largely neglect the chain of indirect effects to which a rise in miners’ wages might give rise. For example, car workers might use the precedent the miners' pay increase to secure higher wages in the car industry, thus being able to afford larger houses, which burned more coal in heating systems. When microeconomic analysis ignores such indirectly induced effects it is said to be partial analysis. 3. Macroeconomics emphasizes the interactions in the economy as a whole. For example, macroeconomists typically do not worry about the breakdown of consumer goods into cars, bicycles, televisions, and calculators. They prefer to treat them all as a single bundle called "consumer goods" because they are more interested in studying the interaction between 3 Demand is the quantity of a good that buyers wish to buy at each price. Other things equal, at low prices the demanded quantity is higher. Supply is the quantity of a good that sellers wish to sell at each price. Other things equal, when prices are high, the supplied quantity is high as well. The market is in equilibrium when the price regulates the quantity supplied by producers and the quantity demanded by consumers. When prices are not so high as the equilibrium price, there is excess demand (shortage) raising the price. At prices above the equilibrium price, there is excess supply (surplus) reducing the price. There are some factors influencing demand for a good, such as the prices of other goods, consumer incomes and some others. An increase in the price of a substitute good (or a decrease in the price of a complement good) will at the same time raise the demanded quantity. As consumer income is increased, demand for a normal good will also increase but demand for an inferior good will decrease. A normal good is a good for which demand increases when incomes rise. An inferior good is a good for which demand falls when incomes rise. As to supply, some factors are assumed as constant. Among them are technology, the input price, as well as degree of government regulation. An improvement in technology is as important for increasing the supplied quantity of a good as a reduction in input prices. Government regulates demand and supply, imposing ceiling prices (maximum prices) and floor prices (minimum prices) and adding its own demand to the demand of the private sector. 4 A change in demand takes place when one of the factors assumed constant changes. An increase in income results in a rise of the quantity demanded, provided the goods are normal. A change in the price of one good has an income effect and a substitution effect. The income effect of a price increase is to reduce the quantity demanded of all normal goods. For inferior goods, the income effect works in the opposite direction. The substitution effect leads consumers to buy less of the goods whose price has increased. The substitution effect of a price rise will also reduce the demand for the goods that are complementary to the goods whose price has risen. In practice, there are three types of relationships between goods: the goods may be substitutes, complements, or independent. The definition of the three types of relationships is based on the substitution effect of the price change of a good. (1) The substitution effect is positive for substitute goods, the price of the good (j) and the quantity of the good (i) move in the same direction. If the price of j increases, consumers tend to substitute i for j. If the price of j decreases, then consumers tend to substitute the relatively cheaper j for i. In both cases, there is a positive relationship between the price of j and the quantity of i. An example is butter and margarine. (2) The substitution effect is negative for complementary goods such as buns and hot dogs. In this case, the price of hot dogs (j) and the quantity of buns (i) move in opposite directions. An increase in price of j (hot dogs) means that the quantity demanded of j decreases and the quantity of the complementary goods i (buns) also decreases. The same happens when the price of j decreases. In both cases there is negative relationship between the price of j and the quantity of i. Notice what if the goods change places in the equation, it may result in a different coefficient. Let us consider the consumption of sugar and coffee. A change in the price of coffee may have some influence on the use of sugar, but the change in the price of sugar probably will have very little influence on the use of coffee. (3) The substitution effect is zero for independent goods. Independence means that no substitution or complementary relationship exists between the two goods. 5 To have a glimpse in the working of the economy as a whole may be of use to a student of economics. In every economy there are lots of households to supply labor and capital to firms that use them to produce goods and services. Firms provide incomes for households, who in turn use this money to purchase the goods and services produced by firms. This process is called the circular flow of payments. The gross domestic product (GDP) is the total money value of all final goods produced in the domestic economy over a one-year period. The GDP can be measured in three ways: (a) the sum of the value added in the production within a year, (b) the sum of incomes received from producing the year's output, (c) the sum to spend on the year's domestic output of goods and services. The total money value of all final goods and services in an economy over a one-year period, that is the GDP, plus property income from abroad (interest, rent, dividends and profits) make the gross national product (GNP). The GNP is an important measure of a country's economic well-being, while the GNP per head provides a measure of the average standard of living of the country's people. However, this is only an average measure of what people get. The goods and services available to particular individuals depend on the income distribution within the economy. We now recognize that assets wear out in the production process either physically or become obsolete. This process is known as depreciation. There has to be part of the economy's gross output to replace existing capital, and this part of gross output is not available for consumption, investment, government spending, or exports. So we subtract depreciation from the GNP to arrive at national income. National income measures the amount of money the economy has available for spending on goods and services after setting aside enough money to replace resources used up in the production process. Since output is determined by demand, the aggregate demand or spending plans of households and firms determine the level of the output produced, which in turn makes up the income available to households. Aggregate demand is the amount to be spent by firms and households on goods and services. Governments also step in the circular flow of income and payments. They buy a considerable part of the total output of goods and services in an economy adding their demand to the demand of the private sector. Since government spending is a large component of aggregate demand, and since taxes affect the amount households and companies have for spending, government spending and taxation decisions, which are referred to as4 fiscal policy, have major effects on aggregate demand and output. 6 Does one characterize a country in economics by the location of economic activity of its population or by the location of its population wherever (где бы ни) such activity may take place? The GNP follows the second method. For example, if a French company owns a factory in Germany, it contributes to the French GNP. While the GNP depends on who owns property, the GDP depends on location. It is produced by all factors of production within the country, both domestic and foreign owned. To draw a line between GNP and GDP is not an easy matter as the difference between them is small but there exist interesting exceptions. Switzerland earns a considerable share of its income abroad, which is due to the large number of Swiss-owned multinational companies. Its GNP has been reported to be more than its GDP by 5 percent. It is known tat Pakistan, too, has a GNP bigger than its GDP since its large population living abroad regularly transfers labor income to the home country. Most interesting is Kuwait which has used its oil income over the years to acquire (приобретать) property abroad. As a result of its high investment income, its GNP is known to be bigger than it GDP by 35 percent. |
