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Файл:English of Global Economics. Учебное пособие
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companies from all directions. Supply is surging — and it will
keep on surging. We are moving toward increasingly perfected
markets. The result is total competition and the demanding
customer.
In real-time economy prices are set second by second,
companies compete on how fast they can be to develop, make
and launch products. Firms, supply chains, industries, markets and
even entire economies are being transformed into ultra-sensitive
systems where changes anywhere are instantly registered everywhere.
But such sensitive systems are fragile. Every now and then they
can, and do, break down or collapse.
Real-time feedback enables organizations to respond much more
quickly and more accurately to customer demands. We can get
better service. For instance, buying a bunch of CDs or books
over the Net, we can immediately find out if they are in “stock”
(at least virtually). Information on the books or CDs which
people with similar taste have bought is at our fingertips. Reviews,
written by other customers on the items we are planning to buy
are displayed on the screen in front of us. It’s the return of the
local grocery store, where the dealer always knew the special
interests and demands of Mrs Jones or Mr Black, though this
time in digital form.
Unit Three
***
In the bazaar, the fish market or at a traditional auction,
prices were (and still are) always set in real time. Over time, shifts
in supply and demand determine the price. Financial markets still
function in that way. When we buy stocks in Motorola, Siemens,
Sony or Nokia, we do not know exactly how much we are paying
until the deal is closed. But, when we get a new mobile phone
from any of these companies we know the price in advance.
Why? The simple answer is that fixed prices reduce uncertainty,
for both the seller and the buyer. Thanks to new technology
and changes in our values, prices for any type of goods or
service can once more be set instantly — as a consequence of
changes in supply and demand. This is precarious pricing. We
are back in the bazaar, but this time the bazaar is not necessarily
limited in space. Auction Web held 330,000 on-line auctions
during the first quarter of 1997. And since then, the auction
market has moved from being lukewarm to white hot. On-line
TRADE AND INVESTMENT
auctioneer eBay carries 9000 products in 1086 categories and has
140,000,000 hits per week. Its customers come from every corner
of the globe.
But real-time pricing is not necessarily tied to the Internet.
The principle goes far beyond that. Some of the new vending
machines that Coca-Cola distributes around the world are loaded
with electronics. The technology enables the machine to sense
the local conditions. Is it raining or is the sun shining? What is
the temperature? If the sun is shining a can may cost a dollar.
If it is raining heavily, the price might go down to 50 cents.
So customers or business managers might glean some ideas
from markets with a lot of experience in operating in real time
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Minneapolis [!mini!pəlis] Миннеáполис; a product launch выпуск но
вой продукции; to unleash market forces высвободить рыночные силы;
a futures market фьючерсный рынок (по сделкам на срок); customer
preferences потребительские предпочтения; entry barriers барьеры для
входа новой фирмы в отрасль или на рынок; an entrant фирма-новичок, новая фирма (в отрасли или на рынке); to surge возрастать, повышаться; an ultra-sensitive system сверхчувствительная система; real-time feedback информация в режиме реального времени; CD
(compact disk) компакт-диск; perfect(ed) market совершенный рынок
(с большим количеством продавцов и покупателей, однородными товарами, свободным входом и выходом, совершенной информированностью); to be in stock иметься в наличии, в запасниках; stocks акции;
precarious [pri!k
pricing ценообразование в режиме реального времени; to be lukewarm
çä. разогреваться; a hit çä. визит на сайт; to glean тщательно подби
рать, собирать.
εəriəs] pricing подвижное ценообразование; real-time
Ex. 13. Read the text and think of the following: (a) why advanced
countries abandoned capital controls in the 1980s—1990s; (b) why
it is becoming increasingly diff icult for governments to set trade
barriers; (c) why capital flees from Russia.
After the first world war the world moved into a period of fierce
trade protectionism and tight restrictions on capital movement.
In the inter-war period (in the 1930s) the volume of world trade
fell sharply and international capital f lows virtually dried up as
governments imposed capital controls to try to insulate their
economies from the impact of a global slump.
Capital controls were maintained after the second world war,
as the victors decided to keep their exchange rates fixed —
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an arrangement known as the Bretton Woods system, after the
American town in which it was approved. In the early 1970s,
the Bretton Woods system collapsed and currencies were allowed
to “f loat” against one another at whatever rates the markets set.
This signalled the rebirth of the global capital market. America
and Germany quickly stopped trying to control the inf low and
outflow of capital. Britain abolished capital controls in 1979 and
Japan (mostly) in 1980. However, France and Italy did not
abandon the last of their restrictions on cross-border investment
until 1990. Today, more economies than ever before have opened
their borders to trade and investment. Not only developed countries
but developing countries in Asia and Latin America have embraced
market-friendly reforms.
A decade ago, about $190 billion passed through the hands of
currency traders in New York, London and Tokyo every day.
By 1995 daily turnover had reached almost $1.2 trillion. In 1990,
$50 billion of private capital f lowed into emerging markets; now
that figure is higher than $336 billion. These bald figures confirm
what every financier from Wall Street to Warsaw will tell you: that
the world’s capital markets have been transformed. Ever larger
sums of money are moving across borders, and ever more countries
have access to international finance.
New technology and new types of financial instruments make it
tricky for governments to impose effective capital controls. Likewise,
the growth of international firms that can switch production from
one country to another would make it harder to erect effective
trade barriers.
New technology also creates distribution channels that protectionist
governments will find it hard to block. A French government that
wanted to shelter its film industry from American competition by
restricting imports may find it impossible to stop foreign films
being beamed by satellite or passed over the Internet.
At the same time, however, it is true that countries with relatively
small and unsophisticated financial markets face greater risks
opening up to foreign capital than more advanced countries do.
One is that capital could suddenly f lee if, as occurred in Mexico
in 1994 and in Thailand in 1997, investors lose confidence in a
country’s economic policies. Another is that investors can lose
confidence in one country because other countries around it are
in trouble.
Unit Three
TRADE AND INVESTMENT
In theory, greater international capital f lows should bring
important benefits. Savings and investment are allocated more
efficiently. Poor countries with large investment needs, are no longer
hamstrung by a lack of capital. Savers are not confined to their
home market, but can seek investment opportunities that offer the
highest returns around the world. Risk is diversified as investors
can spread their portfolios more widely.
Yet in many eyes, the integration of financial markets is
dangerous and destabilising. Bond traders and currency speculators
have supposedly supplanted political leaders in determining
macroeconomic policy. Financial markets are said to be more
volatile as money moves across borders with a mere computer
keystroke.
Although net flows of global capital may be smaller than in
the past, gross international financial f lows are much bigger.
For example, daily foreign-exchange turnover has increased from
$15 billion in 1973 to $1.2 trillion in 1995. Cross-border sales
and purchases of bonds and equities by American investors have
risen from the equivalent of 9% of GDP in 1980 to 164%
in 1996.
The measure of a country’s net inf low or outf low of capital
is its current account. A country’s current-account imbalance is
the difference between the amount it saves and invests. If the
global market were truly global, some countries with high investment
needs might be expected to have large current-account deficits,
and countries with large savings would be expected to have large
surpluses. This has not occurred. In rich countries, current-account
imbalances have averaged 2—3% of GDP during the 1990s. Even at
their peak in the late 1980s, Japan’s and Germany’s current-account
surpluses reached only 4—5% of GDP.
Most investment is financed domestically. In the 1990s, for
instance, only 10% of the domestic investment in emerging
economies has been financed from abroad. This, again, suggests
that capital markets do not fully transcend national boundaries
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.
to insulate изолировать; slump резкий экономический спад; exchange
rate валютный курс; to float свободно колебаться (о валютных курсах);
to be hamstrung не испытывать недостатка; to spread portfolio включать
в инвестиционный портфель большое количество финансовых инст
рументов (во избежание риска); to supplant вытеснять, занимать чь¸либо место; net flow of capital чистый приток капитала.
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Ex. 14. Debate on the following topics. Keep the conversation going
in a round table framework.
1. Foreign trade in the 21st century.
2. E-commerce.
3. Trade and Integration.
4. Treaties and agreements regulating foreign trade relations.
5. Foreign aid to poor countries.
6. Investment.
7. Protectionism and capital controls.
Unit Three
Unit Four
TRANSPORT
AND COMMUNICATIONS
I. Transportation has always been a vital factor in the economic
development of the human race. Nations, regions, cities, industries,
and business firms have grown or failed to grow because of the
presence or absence of adequate transportation facilities.
In colonial America, the same means of transportation were
used which were used just about everywhere else. You could go
on foot or by horse, by wagon, stagecoach, ship, or boat. But
unlike just about everywhere else, the land was not already equipped
with roads, paved or unpaved. There were only narrow paths
used by the Indians, post roads and other highways between major
cities. All of them were earth roads and often became mud-filled
lakes when it rained or when the snow melted. Most Americans
were farmers. They lived on isolated farms, miles from large towns
and used farmers’ tracks and trails for bringing goods to market.
Construction of the roads was very expensive. Therefore,
following a system established in Europe, private companies were
also allowed to build many roads. They then collected tolls from
those who used the roads. Or at least they tried to. Of the hundreds
of companies that built toll roads, most never made a profit or
even got their investment back. They were too expensive for heavy
freight, and besides, the teamsters simply avoided the tolls. Some
toll roads still exist today, especially in the East.
From the earliest colonial days up until the railroad became
dominant after the Civil War, travel by water was the favourite
means of transportation for both passengers and freight. It is no
accident that most of America’s largest cities first grew around
ocean harbours, along rivers, or later, by canals. “Downtown” once
meant exactly that: down where the ground was the lowest, near
the harbour docks or by the river where the first houses and
buildings were constructed.
The Americans had a great advantage when it came to boats
and ships, whether for the inland waterways or the oceans.
Hundreds of oak trees and tall pines were required for just one
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ship. In America, there were enormous forests of hard and soft
woods readily at hand. Shipbuilding soon became a major industry
in America.
The greatest achievement of American merchant shi pbuilding
was the clipper. Clipper ships had beautiful designs and could travel
very fast. After the British changed their laws to allow American
ships to carry British cargoes, Americans received most of the
business from British tea merchants.
But the era of the steamshi p put an end to this romantic period
of fast and elegant wooden sailing ships. By the 1830s, there were
already many steamboats on the inland rivers, especially the Ohio
and Mississippi rivers. Twenty years later, some 750 steamboats were
traveling on the western rivers. These steamboats carried pioneer
families and their wagons, immigrants, soldiers, trappers, salesmen,
gamblers, churchmen, journalists — all coming out West to explore,
settle, civilize, and describe the new territories. They also carried
cattle, cotton, lumber, manufactured goods, and even expensive
furniture imported from Europe.
Canals also did a great deal to open up the interior of America,
to take settlers and immigrants to new areas, to carry their farm
goods to city markets, to move freight at low cost, and to transport
manufactured products and materials.
Trains could go where boats and ships could not. The government
supported many railroads by giving them land for building tracks
and lending them money at a low rate of interest. Millions of
immigrants reached the new territories with the help of the railroads.
Later, trains transported the goods they produced: fresh meat,
fruits, and vegetables. Most of the states that entered the Union
after the Civil War owed their rapid growth to the railroads.
Since that time the United States has developed an enormous
modern transportation system, an extensive network of roads and
highways which enables Americans to travel freely and comfortably
wherever they want. Public, state-supported mass transportation
systems — buses, commuter trains, streetcars, subways — only make
sense in economic and practical terms for those parts of the U.S.
that are densely populated. For example, 53 percent of all New
Yorkers use the mass transit, public transportation system.
The most extensive and one of the least expensive means
of transportation in America is the bus. But many people still
prefer to go by car, and would continue to do so, even if public
transportation were more readily available and less expensive.
Unit Four
TRANSPORT AND COMMUNICATIONS
Relatively early Americans paid attention to traffic congestion
and air pollution caused by vehicular emissions. Some cities began
to ban cars from their central shopping areas, introduce “car pool
lanes ”, which can be used by autos with three or more occupants
on freeways, many universities forbid students to have cars on
campus and large firms encourage ride-sharing among their
employees. But the problem of covering great distances within
a short time remained, and was solved only in the second half
of the 20th century when the airplane became a major means
of mass transportation. During the last thirty years the number
of f lying has grown enormously and is now very common for
most Americans. Often it is cheaper to f ly than to go by car,
bus, or train.
II. Carriage of freight by highway is a relatively new form of
transportation. Intercity trucking grew rapidly as a result of
improvement in vehicles and roads and the growing demand for
the kind of service the motor truck could offer. Transporting
heavy or bulk cargoes such as iron ore, coal, lumber, cement, or
grain has always been cheaper, if slower, by water. And a more
recent invention, the container, has also done much to reduce
the cost of shipping.
Forty years ago arranging shipment was a complex task. It
involved the repeated cargo-handling and storage, a great number
of longshoremen hoisting the goods into the hold and out of it,
placing them into a lorry that would take them to their destination.
Portions of the shipment could have been damaged or stolen
along the way and their storage was risky and expensive.
That first began to change in 1955, when an American
road-hauling magnate named M. McLean hit upon a more efficient
way to ship goods in metal containers. The container crane, a new
invention, made it possible to load and unload containers without
capsizing the ship. The adoption of standard container sizes
allowed almost any box to be transported on any ship. Very soon
dual-purpose ships carrying loose cargo in the hold and containers
on the deck were giving way to all-container vessels that moved
hundreds, and now thousands, of boxes at a time. The need to
build wooden crates to protect individual items was eliminated,
making it feasible to ship consumer goods such as toys and stereo
systems halfway around the world. International shi pping capacity
soared driven by large increases in the volume of goods shipped.
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The shipping container transformed ocean shipping into a highly
efficient, intensely competitive business. But getting the cargo to
and from the dock was a different story. Almost everywhere lorry
and railroad tariffs, set by national governments, were higher than
charges for ocean freight. This started changing in the mid-1970s,
when America began to deregulate its transportation industry.
First airlines, then road hauliers, and railways, were freed from
restrictions on what they could carry, where they could haul it
and what price they could charge. Lorries were no longer forced
to run empty because they were licensed to carry goods on only
one leg of a round-trip journey. Railways were no longer obliged
to maintain unprofitable branch lines, but could focus on moving
freight in large volumes over long distances.
In many countries, deregulation has helped to drive the process
along. A series of technological innovations, known broadly as
“containerization” and “intermodal transportation” has led to swift
productivity improvements in cargo-handling. Over time, America’s
freight railways have dramatically reduced their employment, their
trackage, and their f leets of locomotives and freight wagons —
while increasing the amount of cargo they hauled. Europe’s railways
have also shown marked, though smaller, productivity improvements.
Road hauliers have also been able to improve utilization of their
fleets, thanks to measures ranging from satellite tracking of vehicles,
which enables more precisely timed pick-ups and deliveries, to
soliciting back-haul cargoes to fill vehicles that formerly returned
empty to their home bases.
This freight revolution accelerated in the 1980s, as deregulation
and new technology broke down the boundaries between different
modes of transportation. For the first time, a manufacturer in,
say, South Korea could ask a shipping line to deliver its exports
to the American mid-west. The shipping line might strike a deal
with a railway and hire a road haulier to transport the container
to the destination; take responsibility for meeting delivery schedules
at every stage of the journey; and send a single invoice for the
entire shipment.
Intermodalism (intermodal transportation) has given rise to
cargo companies, which specialize in using a combination of aircraft
and lorries to deliver freight fast. It has led railway companies to
build tracks at dockside, so containers can be moved directly
from ships on to trains. And it has led to partnerships that would
have been unthinkable a decade ago.
Unit Four
TRANSPORT AND COMMUNICATIONS
III. If transportation is the transfer of goods and passengers,
communication is the transfer of information. Information may
be transferred over long distances by telegraph, radio, telephone
and television. In 1962 the first communications satellite was
launched that could ref lect or relay a radio signal. Today satellite
communications are used for relaying television signals, telephone
calls and special teleconferencing calls that may include two-way
video and graphics along with audio.
The communications industry is undergoing a period of rapid
evolution and is certain to change dramatically in the years to
come. Computers and cable systems and telephones and satellite
transmission are now being linked and intermixed. Telephone
companies for example are now allowed into the business of
combining information services and television. And cable TV
operators, using f ibre-optic networks, are now setting out to provide
telephone services. It has been changing since the mid-1990s,
which saw the end of a long and stable era — before the
Internet and wireless technology had hit the mass market, before
the full liberalization of telecoms markets in Europe, Asia and
North America and before the development of broadband networks
and services.
What was often only a few years ago a likely possibility, is in
many cases already in practice — or even a thing of the past.
Not so long ago the fax was an important technological advance.
So was the electric typewriter (with memory!) or the f loppy disk.
The current wave of digitization is affecting us all.
The computer networks and commercial on-line services are
already filled with traffic. This tremendous growth is most apparent
with the Internet, which started as a rather limited U.S. governmental
network, but which rapidly grew into first the nation’s, then the
world’s, central network of networks. The Internet has made it
possible for people all over the world to effectively and inexpensively
communicate with each other. Unlike traditional broadcasting
media, such as radio and television, the Internet is a decentralized
system. Each connected individual can communicate with anyone
else on the Internet, can publish ideas, and can sell products
with a minimum overhead cost. In the future, the Internet may
have a dramatic impact on higher education and business as more
universities offer courses and more companies offer goods and
services online.
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