Globalisation & Trade – A few exercises for class and home

L2 S2   Globalisation & Trade – A few exercises for class and home

1. The Globalisation Pendulum - Gap-fill

tailspin   eschew      benefits     predict    tide   protests    blocs    pendulum   waters   disaffection    buzz-word    Doha    tariffs    behind    rules    distort    supply chains    regulation   blow   backlash  

Globalisation became a ____________ in the 1990s but it is today a very divisive term. National economies have undoubtedly become steadily more integrated in the international economy as international flows of trade, investment, and financial capital have increased. This increase has been facilitated by political decisions to free up international trade, promoted by organisations like the WTO. One of the theoretical ____________ is that trade can increase productivity by encouraging specialisation. One benefit that is clear to see is that consumers can buy foreign goods more easily, especially more cheaply, than ever before, and a growing number of companies now have global ____________ or sell in more than one country.

Whether globalisation is a good thing or not is a matter of heated debate.

Economics argue that free trade is a rising ____________ that lifts all boats. Governments in fact ____________ ‘free’ trade when it suits them...   e.g. by subsidizing their own exporting industries (consider the Airbus/Boeing case), and agriculture is also heavily supported. So it is difficult to speak about free markets even in the absence of very low import ____________. Competition, so economists argue, stimulates innovation and efficiency and lowers prices for the consumer. On the other hand, the liberalisation of trade has a twin agenda, ____________. This refers to the removal of social, technical and environmental rules, to make trade even easier.

There’s another process which muddies the ____________ if we want to talk about the definition or the effects of globalisation: regional trading ____________. This refers to groups of countries which are geographically close to each other and which agree to integrate their economies. These trading blocs can take different forms. These blocs range along a continuum from ‘preferential trade areas’, ‘free trade areas’ to ‘customs unions’, ‘common market’ (like the EU) and full economic (and monetary) union. Their general effects are to further reduce barriers to trade and, as a result, ____________ trade by increasing regional rather than global trade.

In terms of the social and environmental effects of globalisation, there has been a strong ____________ in particular since the 2009 crisis. Analysts have argued that both Brexit and Trump’s election are the result of ____________ in segments of the population that feel they have been left ____________ by globalisation. In truth, anti-globalisation sentiment has existed for many years. There was strong resistance to the MAI Agreement put forward by the OECD in 1995, which would have given considerable extra rights and power to MNCs. After 3 years of ____________ the MAI was stopped. And the multilateral ____________ Trade Round, a major international process to advance international trade, also ground to a halt in 1999 as developing countries (especially China and India) refused to accept the terms of trade that were on the table.

The international globalisation agenda seems to be in a ____________. Depending on what Trump does, the era of globalisation may well be over. We may be on the cusp of a new era of protectionism. In a further ____________ to globalisation, the trade talks known as TTIP between the USA and the EU have also been shelved, for the time being at least. This would have (interestingly) put in place similar ____________ to those proposed under the previous MAI.

The historical ____________ of globalisation-protectionism seems to have swung over… or rather seems to be swinging over to the protectionism side. But the future is hard to ____________.

1. Listening Comprehension - ‘Everything is connected’

The trade routes that threaten biodiversity

Go to http://www.nature.com/natecolevol/videos/trade 

One of the major threats to biodiversity worldwide is international trade. The production of goods for export often involves logging, mining, fishing or other activities that can damage natural habitats. To figure out where the drive for these goods is coming from, researchers traced the production of goods in one country to consumers in another. The maps in this video show how consumers in the US and Japan are endangering animal species in 'threat hotspots' around the world.

Go to http://www.nature.com/natecolevol/videos/trade 

This map shows how consumption in the US __________ wildlife in other countries around the world. A cup of coffee sipped in a café in Chicago, for example, could be _______________ Spider monkeys in Central America. The map was created by scientists from Japan and Norway. Let’s zoom in to the ____________ in Central America. Here, species like the Spider Monkey are facing habitat loss because of deforestation. A lot of this deforestation is driven by export industries, including coffee; so the researchers took a closer look at _______ the production of goods such as coffee beans in one country is linked to consumption in another. This is a relatively new approach to the problem of biodiversity _________. In 2012 they calculated that close to one third of global species threats are due to international trade. Here we see how goods imported by Germany threaten around 600 species in countries including Russia, Sudan, and Madagascar. Now the researchers have gone one _______ further, _______________ the specific habitats within countries that are affected by international trade. They looked at almost 7000 species of vulnerable, endangered, or critically endangered animals that appear on the IUCN Redlist. First, they __________ each animal’s ___________. Here’s the stub-footed toad, and the red-faced spider monkey. Then the calculated how much consumption of goods in another country contributes to each animals’ threat level. For example, about 2% of the stub-footed toad’s score can be directly attributed to ____________ driven by the consumption of goods in the US. The rest is probably driven by consumption in other countries, and by ___________.

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