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Barack Obama is convening his advisory council on International trade as he outlines his agressive goals in doubling USA's exports. This fits into week 36's lesson quite nicely as we are learning about the Basics of International Trade and how it may be beneficial for nations. To double a country's exports would be very difficult but we will see how Obama does over the next year or so!

This is a perfect example of how much international trade means to developing countries such as Kenya. This article talks about the 17th annual Kenya International Trade Exibition where a vast quantity of countries from all around the world come to take part in the great event where all types of goods are exibitioned. It states that its a great way for African companies to gain custormers and also also for the East African economies to sky rocket. So to sum up international is basically a win win situation for both buyer and producer.

This article disclose a description of the situation about education in Asia. There are a lot of kids who want to get an English-language education in countries like USA or UK, but they would like to stay closer to their families, because not everybody can easily leave home and go to foreign country alone. Because of the high demand for schools that give international-level-education in English, there are more and more schools like that. But still I think supply of that type of education and schools is miserable, and that might be one of the reasons why the prices are so high. For example, in Kazakhstan we have a British school - Haileybury. It has an IB program as well as Riverstone International School does, the one that I go to. But! Riverstone is situated in Idaho, USA, and charges about $15,000 for one year of High School. Haileybury - aroung $32,000. The reason why I mentioned the location of Riverstone is because of the huge difference between being in US and Kazakhstan. Staying here in America helps to study English and understand cultural difference, being back in Kazakhstan, helps to stick to your family, but one will never fully undestand that international tone and go beyond certain level of English. Plus the prices are very different even if we would add tickets, insurance, etc, to go to America is even cheaper and has more benefits and positive sides. So in the conclusion, I just want to say that these type of schools is demanded by a lot of Asian (and not only Asian) students, but can be afforded only by affluent middle classes. Thus I hope there would be more supply of that type of schools, which led to competition between schools and cheaper prices (or our education system will change and we will have one standard system everywhere).

A negative externality is a cost incurred by a comapny or a party that did not agree to whatever action caused the extra cost. This article discusses the negative externalities that we incur when we use fossil fuels etc. The cost of production and damage caused by the use of fossil fuels is not included in the price we pay for 1 gallon of gasoline. This is the negative externality. A lot of the government involvement in the private sectors is actually aimed at reducing such negative exteranlities concerned with environmental pollution. Several companies also try to reduce externalities by introducing policies. For example, SAP AG has policies that its employees cannot buy cars that have carbon emissions beyond a certain limit.

Your article is very interesting. In the end the writer talks about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, two weeks ago or something like that I read that BP (they were the owners of the deepwater Horizon) will pay $4.5 billion in fines and other payments, the largest of its kind in US history. It is a lot of money but how can we estimate the value of million animal life's and the destruction of a big part of the Gulf of Mexico. The worst is that we could avoid it because the BP company saved money in the security systems in these Deepwater. I think that after this disaster the government should check all the deepwaters in order to reduce the possibilities of new cases.

A negative externality is an action of a product on consumers that imposes a negative side effect on a third party. Many negative externalities are related to the environmental consequences of production and use. for example the emmisions of green house gases. in this article it explains that when i company creates negative externalities neither the company nor the consumer pays for them so there the government has to step in to stop it by ptting regulations which increases the cost of the comapanies decreasing the negative externalities. but national companies complain because they say if regulations are set they cant compete with international firms like in china where there are no regulations for fuel negative externalities. for example a negative externality was the gulf of mexico oil spill where BP oil prices didnt rise to clean up the mess but the taxes did

The ocean is one example of a common access ground. It's not exactly owned by anyone. The ocean is being explored more and more everyday. One way is through fisheries. The rapid increase in demand for fishes has led to the sudden decline of the fish populations. Take Bluefin tuna as an example. The increase in demand for tuna sushi has led to a huge depletion worldwide for the past 15 years. This has also led to an increase in price as the populations are becoming more rare. A Bluefin tuna once sold for more than £1m at a Tokyo auction. It is said that most of the tuna caught are shipped to Japan for consumption. Since the ocean has international access, coming up with regulations need to be communicated among many countries. 48 member nations of International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic came out and voted to maintain strict catch quotas. This relates to the tragedy of the common. Anyone can access the ocean and catch as much fishes as they like. They only take into account the money they can gain from catching more tunas. This shows a lack of consideration of the generation where some are only concerned about themselves. Without strict regulations, the population of tunas may become extinct in the near future.

It is a very interesting article because many people doesn´t know about the problem with the fish population. We are depleting all the oceans and we don´t think about the consequence of our acts. The problem is that we are really selfish because no one care about the future generation. We will leave them a completely depleted world (this idea is very present in the film Avatar) However it is very difficult to control the people from capturing too many or too small fishes or other animals. It is a tragedy of commons because it is the depletion of a shared resource by individuals, acting independently and rationally according to each one's self-interest, despite their understanding that depleting the common resource is contrary to the group's long-term best interests.

Oceans are one of the Commons, and as any other commons, it becomes overconsumed. Fishers all around the world keep devastating populations of the fish. To prevent overfishing, pollution and other human impacts, leading international marine scientists are proposing radical changes in the governance of the world's oceans. They carried an experiment in Chilie, and based on it, scientists state that they would be able to help to reverse "the tragedy of the commons". Problems in Chilie made people be open to new arrangements, scientists and fishers began working together to improve the situation with fish. By working together for some years, scientists became able to reveal about fish stocks and and the surrounding marine ecosystem. The new laws gave exclusive ocean territories to local 'artisanal' fishers, and excluded the big industrial fishing fleets, which had their own exclusive fishing zone. Scientists and small fishers then worked together to understand and rebuild the shattered fish stocks in their zone, leading to a shared vision and voluntary agreements on how to manage them.

I find this article particularl interesting because due to a political change in Chile, it has now effected the common resource tradegy of the Oceans. It has reduced the over fishing in Chile, which has let the fish start to regenerate. The research has found out that the key to managing the fisheries depends on making decisions flexible enough to cope with the changes that the ocean goes through.

I find this article particularl interesting because due to a political change in Chile, it has now effected the common resource tradegy of the Oceans. It has reduced the over fishing in Chile, which has let the fish start to regenerate. The research has found out that the key to managing the fisheries depends on making decisions flexible enough to cope with the changes that the ocean goes through.

Recently the European Union has imposed a tariff on U.S. ethanol on the account of dumping. Dumping in international markets occurs when a country exports a good or service at a price that is lower in the foreign market than the domestic market. With a duty of $83.20 per metric ton, this tariff will cost exports more than $930 million per year. Tension has been building as there is a strain in transatlantic trade due to this implementation of a protectionism technique.

It is an article about the government of China that has decided to impose a 6.5% tariff on materials from most U.S. polysilicon suppliers. A tariff is a tax that is charged on imported goods. The Chinese government decide to impose this tariff in order to prevent dumping from USA. Dumping is the selling by a country of large quantities of a commodity, at a price lower than its production cost, in another country. However it is difficult to deduce if this tariff is imposed to prevent dumpling or if it is a revenge for the tariff that the USA government imposed Chinese-made solar cells one year ago. I think that the Chinese government should talk first with the USA government because protectionism is a very dangerous weapon because it often invite to retaliatory actions. This may reduce the benefits that can be gained from international trade by all consumers and producers in all countries.

This article is a great one that suits this week's topic of economic development perfectly, because it includes both the financial information about the goals and reasons for the development trip, but it also exposes us to the political side of the development scene, as the truth of the matter is that many such deals depend upon political partnership as well.

This article describes the effect of raising taxes on the people. Tax payed by the rich can be used by the government for man reasons such as implementing new policies, improving public amenities, and to benefit the poor. The article says that raising taxes has two main effects, one that people work less since work is now less rewarding. It also may cause people to feel the need to work longer hours because the might need to make some more money to keep the household running. One important determinant of the effect of tax rates is the relative position compared to other countries. Another is the international mobility. This mobility occurs because people believe that in other countries with lower taxes their pay will be greater and they can live a better life. The greater the mobility, the greater the elasticity of supply with respect to changes in taxes.

A trade group representing milk processors debuted an ad campaign Tuesday to eliminate New Deal-era federal price controls on unprocessed milk. The International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA) complains that the current price support system for dairy farmers dates back to 1937. Its ads call for "Big Government to get out of your milk." The main concern is that family with children are gradually paying more for milk hence the consumption of milk has dropped in the past years.

In this article author talks about the economical influence of immigrant, the burden they bring to the taxpayers and the way one of the leading economists Gordon Haston proposes to solve that problem. So the Haston's idea is to impose taxes on employer for hiring immigrants, thus burden would be on employers and it would ease up the political opposition for immigration, and regular people's taxes will be lower. But in this way the employment of low-skilled immigrants is generating an externality, and that the employer who make up one side of these exchanges are not internalizing the cost of this externality. So the question is who's supposed to pay for immigrants? That question causes the huge discussions in political life of countries, especially this year during the election in US. A lot of people were arguing whether they choose Barack Obama who helps poor people, or to decrease the amount of money they get and choose Romney. It's an important question for any family that pays tax, so I choose that article.

Danish government aims to reduce corporate tax to 22% by 2016. It also aims to increase international competitiveness by offering tax credits, reducing energy tax and public investments. This amendments is implemented in the hope of stimulating growth and make it more attractive for foreigners to run a business in Denmark. Reducing corporate taxes allow companies to have more capital for investments. This could potentially increase factors of production. This wil give corporate incentives to produce more efficiently. In all, this policy can produce a shift in the supply curve to the right, giving positive supply-side benefits.

The IMF, International Monetary Fund, points out that US's economy is likely to see a 1.5 or 2% growth without the tightening fiscal policies. IMF also points out that there is very low private demand in Great Britain. They suggest government to adjust its initial fiscal plans. We can see that this relates to the use of fiscal policies and their impacts. Here, we can notice that instead of boosting economic growth, US fiscal policies, which I believe is the fiscal cliff. The government's plan is to increase tax rates and decrease government spending. This could possible reduces income and slows the growth of the economy.

I choose this article because it's surprising that the countries in Africa are experimenting a big economic growth. The article reports that Economic growth in East Africa, including Kenya, is expected to remain among the fastest in Africa this year aided by natural resource discoveries, improved agricultural performance, and economic diversification, a new report showed. The main reason for this economic growth are the natural resources, we have to remember that in Africa there are huge quantities on natural resources. In Africa the main problem is the inequality because the power and the resources are in the hand of few. There are international companies that controls the big parts of the resources. Another issue to take into consideration is that I some Africans countries the government aren't working properly because they use the money to buy weapons or they use the money for they own benefit.

I found a similar article that talked about Africa's situation at the moment, many countries in Africa are having a rapid economic growth, people are becoming wealthier and even a middle class is emerging. Africa in general has got plenty of resources to ensure an econoic growth for many years. However, as you say, inequality is the biggest problem as a minor group within the country owns everything, there is still cheap labour and many people starving to death. I totally agree with you, the governments in Africa don't function properly as they dont allocate the money for people's benefit and they keep it for themselves in order to have more power and become wealthier.

The article talks about the overall German economy. The economy ministry states that although there is weak development in industrial output to the point where there is contraction the GDP during the fourth quarter of 2012, there are many signs that indicate the growing economy. He states that the economy has reached its lowest point already. The country sees a growth of 0.8 percent in industrial orders as there is an increase in euro zone. Furthermore, many surveys indicate that many businesses, investors, and consumers are becoming more optimistic. Data has shown that there is increase in exports, international trade, and as well as a decrease in unemployment. Contribute by a narrowed US trade deficit indicates an increase in global demand. This article can be related back to the business cycle. As you can see, by description, German's economy is in a trough phase and with evidences indicating that it is leading towards the recovery phase. This shows that there is a lowest point in the phase where the economy can not get any worse. There is a point that there is still consumption. We can also see that during the recession, GDP decreases, aggregate output decreases, aggregate demand decreases, and unemployment increases. This clearly reflects the business cycle.

This article explains how singapores GDP is likely to be revised upwards. Their economy "expanded at a faster pace during the fourth quarter of 2012 than was earlier estimated, helped by higher production of oil rigs and pharmaceuticals in the final weeks of the year". It is likely that it grew 1.2 percent.

I thought this article was relatable since we are all students and looking at internships in the future is something many of us will have to go through. In this article, it explains that sometimes students are reluctant to take up unpaid internships. This is because even though it would be very good for work experience some can not afford to not get paid. Being a student is expensive: having to pay for their education, a place to live and everyday essentials. I thought this was a very good example of opportunity costs, either gain the work experience but have to cut down on living costs because you are not getting paid or find a paying job but that might not best suited for your interests. Another issue they mentioned was that if all interns were obligated to be paid that many companies would cut back or completely get rid of their internship programmes. So this was another example of opportunity cost, either have fewer internship programmes and positions and, if you are lucky to get the job, get paid or, continue to have many unpaid internship positions.

As the third major international crop, the price of corn rising is affecting the globe. As droughts plague the agriculture of African countries, the price of corn is surging, reminding us again that world hunger is still prevalent in the world today. The title of the article was eye-catching and reading it through "economic lens" really made it interesting. Droughts in Africa is affecting the agriculture of corn and making crops scarcer. In addition, price of fertilizers is two to four times more expensive in Africa, detrimentally affecting the region, which uses the most fertilizers. The opportunity cost of purchasing fertilizers is enormous as the money spent on fertilizers can be used for providing services for workers, better equipment or improving on infrastructures. Furthermore, farming technology is still quite primitive compares to North American standards and as a result the production possibility curves are smaller than other agricultural regions. This article was really interesting because it relates so closely with what we have learned so far, and it reminded me that world hunger is still very much present in our world.

NEW YORK-According to a new report published Friday by the United Nations Development Programme, Raider Nation has for the fifth straight year held the lowest position in the Human Development Index rankings. Taking into account such factors as health, education, and poverty, the report stated that the Human Development Index value of Raider Nation is 0.302, far below the global average and indeed at the very bottom of the 187 territories surveyed by the international organization.