Define the following terms:

Fair trade- Is an organized social movement that helps people in developing countries to make better working and trading conditions and to promote sustainability. The certification advocates payment of a higher price to farmers, cuts out the middle man and inspections for higher environmental standards along with working conditions and pay.

Organic Agriculture- Relies on techniques such as crop integration and rotation, green manure and compost, no synthetic chemicals. It sustains the health of soils, does not rely on fossil fuels, and is better overall for ecosystems and people. It boosts local economies and helps foster sustainable communities.

Collective Bargaining- is a process of negotiations to reach agreements on working conditions and pay. a collective agreement on wages, hours, rules and working conditions.

International Labor Rights Forum- Non-profit organization dedicated to achieving just and humane treatment for workers worldwide.

Respond to  the following though questions:

Think about the dinner you had last night.  Pick an ingredient or two and try to track back their production.  Where were they produced?  Who produced them?  Were they “fair trade”

Luckily, i had a deer roast last night. Family brought it out from Illinois for us. So the main course of the meal was sustainably produced, but just about everything else was not. With our cans of cola and beer and green beans and potatoes, we were not reaching a fair trade standard. However, i do feel that it would have been pretty easy and not too expensive to get the fair trade green beans and potatoes from the co-op, they were just left overs from thanksgiving at the Inn. I do see myself in the near future with a huge garden and hunting so we dont rely too much on the unsustainable system.

Ch 22 Blog

Define the following terms:

Command and Control Regulation- Focuses on preventing environmental problems by specifying how a company will manage pollution-generating operations. This includes detailed regulations and ongoing inspection programs.

 

         Subsidy- Is assistance paid to a business, producer or other economic sectors. Most are set in place by the government to prevent the decline of that industry or to encourage it to hire more labor, etc.

 

Tradeable Permits- An allowable overall level of pollution is established and allocated among firms in the form of permits. Cost efficient, market driven approach to reducing greenhouse emissions

 

Cap and Trade- Sets a limit or cap on the amount of a pollutant that may be emitted. Credits (or emissions permits, carbon credits) are sold to firms this increases incentives for companies to cut pollution in order to save money. This will create pollution reduction at the lowest cost to society.

 

Marginal Abatement Cost-  MAC curve- a set of options available to reduce pollution. Tools for understanding emissions trading, reduction opportunities for various sectors in the economy like power, industry, waste, buildings, transport, agriculture, and forestry.

 

Discuss the following thought questions:

How are Pigouvian taxes and subsidies related to market solutions?

 

Pigouvian subsidies are intended as a reward for desirable behavior in the marketplace. It’s an incentive to adhearing to environmental policies. Pigouvian taxes internalize externalities so companies pay the negative costs that society usually absorbs. These are related to market solutions because they influence how companies respond to change in policy by giving incentives for good and bad behavior in the market place.

 

Why might ITQ’s  for a fishery result in a different harvest than setting specific harvest dates?  What are the advantages of ITQ’s as a fishery management tool? Disadvantages?

Individual transferable quotas limit the time of year and length that the resource can be exploited. Determined seasons and tradable permits are distributed based on quotas. This is an advantage because it gives the population of fish time to grow without being overexploited. ITQ’s are a disadvantage because of their tradable nature. There is often unjust distribution involved with trading and usually end up in the hands of the rich and larger companies.

valuation blog

VALUTATION BLOG

Define the following terms:

Contingent Valuation- surveying people on what they would be willing to pay to consume or experience the product. This is the most common method for placing value on intangible goods

Willingness to pay- How much are you willing to pay to save this endangered species?

Willingness to accept- What is your willingness to accept this allotted amount of pollution released. Or willingness to accept living next to an airport.

Discuss the following thought questions:

Why might WTP be different from WTA?  Why is survey design so critical in CV studies?

I feel that people are willing to pay less than they are willing to accept things like externalities etc. They are less willing to pay to save a species and willing to accept that it will never exist again. 

Chapter 19 Blog

1. LDC- Less Developed Countries- do not have advanced technologies that can lower production costs. They usually have two sources of advantage; abundant labor and natural resources.

2. Export-oriented economy- growth depends largely on export sector rather than domestic demand
3. WTO- World Trade Organization- provides mechanisms for enforcing patents globally. Goal is to increase economic growth and the transport of goods between countries. WTO has the power to challenge laws that reduce externalities, as these laws are barriers to trade.
4. ISI- Import-substituting industrialization

Discuss the following thought questions:

What are some drawbacks to an export-oriented development path for LDC’s?  Can you think of an alternative to that path? What are the drawbacks and advantages to your path?

Some drawbacks for LDC’s on export oriented development is that they do not have the advanced technologies that can lower production costs to keep up with the well developed countries with the infrastructure and technologies. Usually these countries rely on their abundant labor and resources and usually these are exploited along with environmental damage. An alternative would be when a country seeks to industrialize and serve the needs of the domestic rather than international. Focus on production for the domestic economy will require higher wages for laborers and a better rate of growth.

Chapter 18 BLOG

Define the following terms:

Absolute advantage- Where both parties to a voluntary exchange must be better off in their own estimation after the trade than before..

 

Comparative Advantage- even if one country is more efficient and produces goods more cheaply than the other, both countries can still benefit from the trade. Internal cost ratios

 

David Ricardo- demonstrated how the key to understanding advantages is to focus on comparative advantage rather than absolute advantage.

 

IMF- International monetary fund.

 

World Bank- International Bank for Reconstruction and Development

Discuss the following thought questions:

Why does our author believe mobile capital is detrimental to comparative advantage?  Can you think of a productive resource that is not mobile?  Does that impact the author’s argument? Why or why not?

The numerical demonstration of comparative advantage assumes labor and capital immobility between two countries. This makes it difficult to decide whether investment in the other country would be profitable. The lawyer and the secretary- it is impossible for the productive energy and capacity of the secretary to be transferred to the absolutely more efficient person of the lawyer. Capital mobility has to be ruled out for comparative advantage argument to work between countries.

 

 

What is the difference between globalization and internationalization?  Why does it matter?

 Internationalization refers to the increasing importance of relations between nations; international trade, treaties, alliances, protocols etc.

Globalization refers to global economic integration of many formerly national economies into one global economy  by free trade, free capital mobility and migration. Economic integration of the globe.

This matters because they are entirely different. Under globalization all national economies are integrated into one global economy and must obey the laws to the WTO. Internationalization is where relations between countries grow increasingly important, but nations remain separ

Ch 3 Blog

Entropic Dissipation- is the gradual erosion and dispersion of material components into the environment in a one-way flow of low-entropy usefullness to high-entropy waste.

 

Determinism- cause and effect- that the earth is already determined, there is no element of freedom of alternatives.

 

Steady-state subsystem- affirms the fundamental necessity of the boundary and the importance of drawing it in the right place                                    The throughput by which the ecosystem maintains and replenishes the economic subsystem must be ecologically sustainable. We must draw the boundary in the right place.

Economic Imperialism- seeks to expand the boundary of the economic subsystem until it encompasses the entire ecosystem. One system macroeconomy as the whole, by complete internalization of all external costs and benefits into prices. The end pursued is ever-greater levels of consumption.

The steady-state subsystem section discusses drawing the “boundary in the right place”.  How would you do this?  What data/information would you need?

This “drawing the boundary in the right place,” would be extremely difficult.  There would have to be a lot of government interaction and policy. We would have to start with the youth and teach future generations that humans are not exempt from the laws of nature. We simply cannot grow anymore, but where should we draw that line? We must set a boundary to become ecologically sustainable, where we are most efficient in allocating resources. Goods and even services must change and that starts with a paradigm shift. This would take a lot of data, finding the most effective way to persuade the public to change.

Ch 16 Blog

Chapter 16 Blog

Fully define the following 5 terms:

Pareto Optimality- Is the most efficient allocation of resources by the market. But this respects the fact of different distributions of income and wealth. Efficient allocation is one that best satisfies individual wants weighted by the individuals ability to pay.

 

Intertemporal allocation versus intertemporal distribution- Intertemporal distribution is the apportionment (The action or result of) resources across different generations and intertemporal allocation is apportionment of resources across different stages in the lifetimes of basically the same set of people (same generation).

 

Lorenz Curve- Is a graph that plots the percentage of total income going to each percentage of recipients. Like what percentage of the total income is distributed to what percentage of people. The closer the curve to a 45 degree line, the more equal the distribution.

 

Gini Coefficient-  Is used to measure the inequality of the distribution of wealth or income across a population. A coefficient of 1 implies perfect inequality (one person owns everything), and a coefficient of 0 indicates a perfectly equal distribution.

 

Intertemporal Discounting-  The process of systematically weighing future costs and benefits as less valuable than present ones.

 

Respond to the following two thought questions:

Why are renewable and non-renewable resources treated differently when discussion a reasonable distribution across generations?

- Renewable and non-renewable resources are treated differently because of the ability of those resources to provide for future generations. Non-renewables could be looked as a stock, or finite natural capital, and renewable resources can be looked at as a flow with certain limitations.

 

Do you value the future less than you value the present?  How is this reflected in economics?  Think back to the NPV discussions around solar panels.  If we change the way the future is valued how does that change those calculations?

I could see a lot of situations where value in the future is less than the present. But in the case of non-renewable resources, those would become more valuable in the future. In the case of solar panels, they would have less value in the future because of interest and wear and tear of the panels. If we calculate future values and NPV we can better make decisions on long-term investments.

If we change the way the future is valued, our calculations on return on investments and such will be more accurate and realistic.