Английский язык для экономистов - Малюга Е.Н.
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J^ К. Case study
K.l. Below are the quotes dealing with globalization and poverty. They are arranged in order from the most pro-globalization to the most anti-globalization. Read them through and give your point of view. 204
Английский ЯЗЫК ДЛЯ экономистов
"Globalization, then, is growth-promoting. Growth, in turn, reduces poverty. ...the liberalization of international transactions is good for freedom and prosperity. The anti-liberal critique is wrong: marginalisation is in large part caused by not enough rather than too much globalization." — Raze-en Sally, London School of Economics.
"Personally, I do not believe that those [poor] people are victims of globalization. Their problem is not that they are included in the global market but, in most cases, that they are excluded from it." — Kofi Annan.
"There needs to be a better balance between the role of markets and the role of government. Simplistic reforms based on free-market ideology don't work. The way that East Asia managed globalization, which combined an export-orientation with policies aimed at poverty reduction, worked even for the poor people. These countries did liberalize trade, but only as they created jobs." — Joseph E. Stiglitz, 1991 winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics.
uObscene patterns of poverty and inequalities amidst ostentatious wealth are thus the very stuff of our global system. They raise basic issues of morality and ethics for the prosperous areas of the world. VVe need to be asking whether the current inequalities are legitimate and just? Can something be done to achieve some degree of human decency?" — Robert Fatton, Jr., University of Virginia.
K.2. Does globalization bring great opportunity to the world or does it bring deeper poverty? Unit 12
Economics and Ecology
A. Preliminary discussion
1. What environmental problems can you name?
2. Do you think that environmental problems can be solved economically?
3. Did all the environmental problems result from the economic activity of people?
B, Pre-reading exercises
B.l. Skim the text and give its key idea.
B.2. Scan the text for the following information.
1. What four problems concerning environment does the author mention in the text?
2. Why does the author think that these problems can't be solved without global measures?
3. What are these measures?
C Reading
C.l. Read the text and answer the questions.
1. In what way does economic activity influence nature?
2. What examples of the best global policy in the sphere of environmental protection were given in the text?
3. What must be next steps of CITES?
Global Problems Need Global Solutions
Consider a global environmental problem like the depletion of the ozone layer caused by human release of chemicals. As we will see when we look 206
Английский ЯЗЫК ДЛЯ экономистов
at this in more detail, many types of activities release these chemicals, and the total of the global release causes the depletion. The harm of ozone depletion has global effects, with some countries more affected than others.
What would each country do if it sets its own policy toward this problem? From the purely national viewpoint, each country would recognize that chemical releases have some ne-
gative effect on its people, and it might use a policy to limit releases if it thought the national harm was large enough. But, for the whole world, total releases would be much too large. Each country would ignore the harm that its own releases did to other countries, so it would not be sufficiently stringent with its own environmental policy.
To get closer to the best global policy, the countries would need to find some way to cooperate. Each would need to tighten its standards compared to what it would do on its own. If each country does this, the whole world is better off. Many, but perhaps not all, of the countries will also be better off. Each country incurs some costs in tightening its standards, but each also derives benefits from the reduction of the environmental damage.
Still, it may be very difficult to reach this global agreement. One problem is that there may be disagreement about the costs of the environmental damage or the costs of tightening standards. Science is unlikely to provide a definitive accounting, and countries differ in their willingness to take environmental risks. Even if this problem is not so large, others are likely to arise. Countries that suffer net losses from tightening may be unwilling to take part, unless they receive some other kind of compensation, given countries that gain from the global agreement have a perverse incentive. A country can gain even more by free-riding. That is, it can gain most of the benefits if other countries abide by the agreement to tighten standards, even if this country does not and it avoids the costs of tightening its own standards.
Because of the problem of free-riding, a global agreement needs some method of enforcement, to get "reluctant" countries to agree in the first place, and to assure that they abide by the agreement after they have it established. There is no global organization that can provide these enforcement services. Countries can establish an enforcement mechanism as part of the global agreement, but it is not clear what it should be. It is generally Unit 12. Economics and Ecology
