Vocabulary Focus. Ex. 1.Match the Russian words and word combinations in column A with their English equivalents in column B. A B работать на полную мощность

Ex. 1. Match the Russian words and word combinations in column A with their English equivalents in column B.

A	B
работать на полную мощность	boom
платежный баланс/ сальдо	to work at full capacity
влезать в долги	peak
отрицательгный рост	balance of payments
экономический подъем	tax cut
пик, высшая точка цикла	recession
низшая точка цикла	negative growth
экономический спад	trough
снижение налогов	to work at below potential
работать ниже потенциальных возможностей	to run up debts

Ex. 2. Express in one word.

Beliefs about what will happen in the future.

1. Money borrowed in order to buy a house or flat (GB) or apartment (US).

2. Money paid for the use of a house or flat owned by somebody else.

3. The amount of something produced by a company, a country, and so on.

4. Spending on new machines, factories, and so on.

5. Owners or managers of manufacturing companies.

6. Spending on goods and services.

7. To dismiss employees.

8. Concerning the number of births, deaths, population movements, and so on

9. An absence of luxury and comfort.

Words for reference: mortgage, investment, lay off, expectations, rent, demographic, consumption, austerity, industrialist, output.

Ex. 3. Complete the sentences using the words given below.

1. Recurrent rises and falls in real GDP over a period of years is called the _________.

2. A (an) __________ is officially defined as two consecutive quarters of real GDP decline.

3. ____ is measured by the annual percentage change in real GDP in a nation.

4. The _______ is the difference between full-employment or potential real GDP and actual real GDP.

5. The phase of the business cycle during which real GDP reaches its maximum after rising during a recovery is called a _______.

6. A _______ is a phase of the business cycle during which real GDP reaches its minimum after falling during a recession.

7. An upturn in the business cycle during which real GDP rises is called a ___.

Words for reference: recovery; peak; trough; economic growth; GDP gap; business cycle; recession.

Comprehension

Ex. 1. Match up the following half sentences:

A	B
1) Companies may have to reduce investment or the size of the work force 2) Companies only invest 3) During a period of economic growth 4) External theories of the business cycle 5) Governments often stimulate the economy 6) Increases in interest rates 7) Internal theories of the business cycle 8) People can demand higher pay 9) People tend to spend less	a) consumers borrow a lot of money. b) if labour costs increase too much. c) if their company's sales are increasing. d) include psychological factors. e) include technological and population changes. f) prior to general elections. g) result in higher rents and mortgages. h) when they are afraid of becoming unemployed. i) while consumption is increasing.

Ex. 2. Choose the right answer.

1. The _______ phase of the business cycle follows a recession.

a. recovery;

b. recession;

c. peak;

d. trough.

2. The GDP gap is the difference between:

a. frictional unemployment and actual real GDP;

b. unemployment rate and real GDP deflator;

c. full-employment real GDP and actual real GDP;

d. full-employment real GDP and real GGDP deflator.

3. A recession is a business contraction lasting at least:

a. one years;

b. six months;

c. three months;

d. one month.

4. When is the GDP gap largest?

a. During peak periods in the business cycle;

b. During trough periods in the business cycle;

c. When unemployment rates are relatively low;

d. When cyclical unemployment is close to zero.

Ex. 3. Answer the questions on the text.

1. What is a business cycle?

2. Which of the various theories of the business cycle mentioned in the text do you find the most convincing?

3. What is the current economic situation in your country? Why?

4. Are most of the people you know currently optimistic or pessimistic about the future? Would you say that they are saving money for bad times ahead, or spending and borrowing without worrying too much about the future? Either way, can you see anything coming that might cause them to change their behaviour?

Text 2

Skim the text to define unemployment, its negative and positive sides.

Unemployment

Unemployment is the number of adult workers who are not employed and are seeking jobs. To be classified as unemployed, a person must be able and willing to work, be actively seeking work, and be without a job. Everyone who fits this description is unemployed. The labour force is the total number of employed and unemployed workers. The unemployment rate is unemployment expressed as a percentage of the labour force.

Try to imagine a world in which there is no unemployment. The world that we've just considered would clearly not be a nice place in which to live and work. Workers and jobs would be badly mismatched, productivity would probably not be very high, and there would be a good deal of unhappiness and lack of job satisfaction. The world that we live in differs from this fictional world in many respects, and we'll focus on two of them.

First, in the real world, people don't usually take the first job that comes their way. Instead, they spend time searching out what they believe will be the best job available for them.

Second, the real world is dynamic and ever-changing. Production and consumption change as new technologies are developed and exploited. The rapid expansion of jobs in the high-tech computer-oriented sectors and the loss of jobs in traditional sectors such as automobiles and steel making have resulted in a large rate of labour turnover, which has resulted in workers moving not only from one sector of the economy to another but from one region of the country to another.

Unemployment has negative sides. The most obvious cost of unemployment is the loss of output and the loss of income. How big this cost is depends on the natural rate of unemployment.

Besides prolonged unemployment seriously lowers the value of a person’s human capital, i.e. the value of a person’s education and acquired skills. When unemployment is prolonged, human capital depreciates or deteriorates – skills lose their value.

A rise in the unemployment rate also causes an increase in the amount of crime. When people cannot earn an income from legitimate work, they sometimes turn to crime. A high crime rate is also one of the costs of high unemployment.

A final cost that is difficult to quantify is the loss of self-esteem that is human dignity, which afflicts people.

Дата добавления: 2014-11-16