Ôn thi nói tiếng anh chuyên ngành kinh tế speaking english

INTRODUCTION: Economics: the science which studies human behavior as a relationship between unlimited wants and limited resources which have alternative uses The role of economics is to help people to make good choices Question: What, How & For whom … The way we distribute limited resources SCARITY : Demand > Supply Scarity happens when demand is bigger than supply Wants are unlimited and wants are unsatisfied Unlimited wants always exceed(=are bigger than) the available resources Three big questions: What things will be produced? The producers produce goods the customers’ need and they can bring them the relevant expect returns The most important goal of the company is profits- the difference between total sales and totals costs How things are produced? Producers maximize profits by keeping the minimum costs by using the most efficient methods of production at competitive price For whom things are produced? This depends on supply and demand in the markets for factors of production UNIT 1: THE RESPONSES GUIDED BY PRICES EFFECT THREE ECONOMIC ISSUES I -Example of oil shock: Price of oil increases make a decrease in demand and an increase in supply It means when the price increases, the suppliers want to sell more to get higher profit and the buyer will decrease the volume/quantity of the goods and try to find the substitute/alternative goods The increase in oil price affects three economic issues: The effect of oil price shocks on how the economy produces: Higher oil price make the economy produce in a way that uses less oil and find another substitutes 2 The effect on what is produces: There is a shift away from expensive oil-using products towards less oil- intensive substitutes The effect on for whom question: Society allocates scare resources between competing uses A scare resource is one for which the demand at a zero price would exceed the available supply II- The role of government 1.Income of government: + Tax: + Borrowing: IMF, WB Outcome of government: + Public goods: public transportion, school… + Transfer payment: pensions, retirement, unemployment benefits… + Debt interest 3.Effects of the government on questions: - What: Governments directly affect “ what is produced” via spending their revenue on goods and services such as school, public safety - For whom: Government affects for whom output is produced through tax and transfer payment: taxing the rich and making the transfers to the poor - How: Government affects via the regulations (about safety, environment…) UNIT 2: OPTIMAL OUTPUT COMBINATION The law of diminishing (Quy luật lợi suất giảm dần): Each additional worker adds less to total industry output than the previous additional worker added The Production Possibility Frontier (PPF - Đường giới hạn khả sản xuất): this shows the maximum combinations of output that the economy can produce using all available resources The frontier presents a trade – off (sự đánh đổi); more of one commodity implies less of the other + All points that lie in PPF means the society is producing efficiently + All points that lie outside PPF are said to be unattainable (không đạt được) with given resources + All points that lie inside PPF are said to be inefficient because society is wasting resources No free lunch: You can not get something for nothing There is always a trade-off when doing something (referring to PPF and opportunity cost) UNIT 3: MARKETS The role of markets: + Markets bring together buyers and sellers of goods and services + A market is a shorthand expression for the process by which households’ decisions about consumption of alternative goods, firms’ decisions about what & how to produce, & workers’ decisions about how much and for whom to work are all reconciled (trung hòa) by adjustment of prices How markets solve the basic economic problems: In US: markets where buyers and sellers set quantities and prices for commodities solve the problems of how, what & for whom UNIT 4: MICROECONOMICS AND MACROECONOMICS Microeconomics (Kinh tế học vi mô) - Microeconomics analysis offers a detailed treatment of individual decisions about particular commodities - Microeconomists (các nhà kinh tế học vi mô) ten to offer detailed treatment of one aspect of economic behavior but ignore ( bỏ qua) interactions ( tương tác) with the rest of the economy in order to preserve the simplicity of the analysis Macroeconomics ( Kinh tế học vĩ mô) - Macroeconomics emphasizes the interactions in the economy as a whole It deliberately simplifies the individual building blocks ( phận cấu thành riêng lẻ) of the analysis in order to retain a manageable analysis of the complete interaction of the economy Partial Equilibrium analysis & General Equilibrium analysis - Partial Equilibrium analysis (Phân tích cân cá thể/ phần): a study of equilibrium prices and outputs in the many specific markets which are the component parts of the market system - General Equilibrium analysis (Phân tích cân tổng quát): an overall ( tổng quát, tổng thể), big-picture view of the interrelationships ( mối quan hệ qua lại) among all the various markets and prices (parts) which make up ( tạo lên ) the maket system Microeconomic and Macroeconomic Models: - Microeconomics is the branch of economics that studies the decisions of individual households and firms - Macroeconomic also study the way that individual markets work and the detailed way that regulation and taxes affect the allocation ( phân bổ) of labour and of goods and services In short, Macroeconomic studies the economic as a whole - The major distinction between Microeconomics and Macroeconomics: Microeconomics analyze the behavior of individual components (industries, firms, households) & Macroeconomics study the functioning of the economy as a whole Seven big questions: Production ( Sản xuất ) and consumption (tiêu dùng) of goods & services Wages & Earnings (Lương & thu nhập) Unemployment (Thất nghiệp) Inflation (Lạm phát) Government spending, taxation & regulation (Quy định, thuế & chi tiêu phủ) International Trade Distribution of wealth and poverty The economy (Nền kinh tế): - The economy is a mechanism ( chế) that allocates scare resources among competing uses, determining what, how and for whom the various goods and services will be produced - Types of coordination mechanisms ( chế điều phối) : the command mechanism ( = central planning mechanism: chế mệnh lệnh) & market mechanism UNIT 5: ECONOMIC ANALYSIS Externalities (tác động ngoại lai, ngoại biên) - An externality effect occurs when the economic agent’s behavior (in consumption or in production) has an effect on another’s well-being, but that effect is not reflected in dollar or market transactions: Tác động ngoại biên xuất hành vi ứng xử chủ thể (trong việc tiêu thụ hay sản xuất hàng hóa dịch vụ) có tác động lên chủ thể khác tác động không phản ánh tiền hay giao dịch thị trường - Externalities may be positive or negative: + In Production: • Positive: training of workforce (đào tạo nguồn nhân lực), development of a commercial area… • Negative: Pollution (ô nhiễm) + In consumption: • • Positive: House renovation Negative: Smoking, loud music UNIT 12: NATIONAL INCOME ACCOUNTING Measuring GDP - Gross Domestic Product (GDP = Tổng sản phẩm quốc nội) measures the - - output produced by factors of production located in the domestic economy regarless of who owns these factors Gross National Product (Tổng sản phẩm quốc nội) GNP is the total value of all final goods and services produced within a nation in a particular year, plus income earned by its citizens (including income of those located abroad), minus income of non-residents located in that country Basically, GNP measures the value of goods and services that the country's citizens produced regardless of their location When an economy has no transactions with the rest of the world we say that it is a closed economy - Value added ( giá trị gia tăng) is the increase in the value of goods as a result of the production process + Value added is calculated by deducting from the value of firm’s output cost the cost of the input goods that were used up in the act of producing that output: Giá trị gia tăng phần giá trị chênh lệch giá trị hàng hóa giá trị thứ dùng để làm hàng hóa - Final goods: are goods purchased by the ultimate user ( người tiêu dùng cuối cùng) - Intermediate goods: are partly finished goods which form inputs to another firm’s production process and are used up in that process Objectives and Instruments in Macroeconomics a- Objectives (mục tiêu): - Output: high level + rapid growth rate - Employment: high level of employment + low involuntary unemployment - Price-level stability with free markets - Foreign balance: export & import equilibrium + Exchange-rate stability b- Instruments ( Công cụ) - Fiscal policy ( sách tài khóa): Government expenditure + Taxation - Monetary policy: Control of money supply affecting interest rates - Foreign economies: Trade policies + Exchange-rate intervention - Incomes policies: From voluntary wage-price guidelines to mandatory controls ( kiểm soát bắt buộc) 3- The overall picture - - - Microeconomics places the emphasis on a detailed understanding of particular markets Macroeconomics is concerned with broad aggregates (tập hợp) such as the total demand for goods by households or the total spending on machinery and buildings by firms The inflation rate ( tỷ lệ lạm phát): is the percentage increase per annum in the average price of goods and services The unemployment rate ( tỷ lệ thất nghiệp): is the percentage of the labor force that is unemployed Labor force ( lực lượng lao động): is the number of people working or looking for work Economic growth ( tăng trưởng kinh tế): is the increase in real GNP ( Gross National Product = Tổng sản phẩm quốc dân) - The government has a variety of policy measures through which it can try to affect the performance of the economy as a whole UNIT 13: MONEY AND BANKING Money & its functions - The crucial feature ( đặc điểm chính/ bật) of money is its acceptance as the means of payment or medium of exchange - Barter economy (nền kinh tế hàng đổi hàng) has no medium of exchange Goods are traded directly or swapped for other goods + Disadvantages of barter economy: trading is very expensive because people must spend a lot of time and effort finding others with whom they can make mutually satisfactory swaps - other functions beside medium of exchange function of money: + Unit of account ( đơn vị tính toán): is the unit in which prices are quoted and accounts are kept + Store of value ( phương tiện cất giữ): because money can be used to make purchases in the future + Standard of deferred payment (thước đo cho việc toán trả chậm): Different kinds of money: - Commodity money (tiền hàng hóa): goods acts as money to exchange for other - - - goods Token money (tiền danh nghĩa, tiền tượng trưng): a token money is a means of payment whose value or purchasing power as money greatly exceeds its cost of production or value in uses other than as money Legal tender: ( đồng tiền pháp định): Society enforces the use of token money by making it legal tender The law says it must be accepted as means of payment IOU money (=I Owe yoU= tiền nợ): is a medium of exchange based on the debt of a private firm or individual Example: bank deposit ( tiền gửi ngân hàng) Modern banking - Financial intermediary ( trung gian tài chính): is an institution that specializes in bringing lenders and borrowers together - - - Commercial banks are financial intermediaries with a government license to make loans and issue deposits, including deposits against which checks can be written A clearing system ( hệ thống toán bù trừ): is a set of arrangement in which debts between banks are settled by adding up all the transactions in a given period and paying only the net amounts needed to balance inter-bank accounts The central bank (ngân hàng trung ương/ ngân hàng nhà nước): is the banker to the commercial banks Liquidity ( tính khoản): refers to the speed and the certainty with which an asset can be converted back into money, whenever the asset-holders desire Money itself is thus the most liquid asset of all UNIT 15: INTERNATIONAL TRADE The pattern of world trade - How to calculate international trade? To calculate international trade, we can count the total value of exports by all countries or the total value of imports and they must be the same - International trade has been playing an increasingly important part in national economies - The Great Depression (Cuộc Đại suy thoái) in 1930s & the Second World War ( Đại chiến giới lần 2) virtually (hầu như) destroyed international trade World trade Pattern (Mô hình mậu dịch giới) major groups of countries: + Industrial or developed countries with the largest share of world trade and world income: Western Europe, North America, Japan + Oil-producing countries: Saudi Arabia, Kuwait + Soviet bloc: comprises (bao gồm) Russia & countries in Eastern Europe + Non-oil LDCs ( có phải viết tắt từ: Low – Developed Countries = nước phát triển ???) : the remaining countries The commodity composition (cơ cấu hàng hóa) of World trade - Primary commodities (hàng sơ chế/ nguyên liệu): agricultural commodities, - minerals, fuels Manufactured or processed commodities ( hàng thành phẩm/ hàng chế biến): chemicals, steel,… Good and bad arguments for tariffs a The First – best argument: is a case where a tariff is the best way to achieve - a given objective The optimal tariff (thuế quan tối ưu) : The First – best argument for tariff: when a country wants to restrict imports until the benefit of the last import equal to its cost to country as a whole, it will set the optimal tariff + The optimal tariff is a straightforward application (ứng dụng minh bạch) of the principles of efficient resource allocation b Second-best arguments are cases where the policy would indeed be - beneficial but where there is another policy that would be even better if only it could be implemented The principle of targeting says that the most efficient way to attain a given objectives is to use a policy that influences that activity directly Policies that attain the objective but also influence other activities are second-best because they distort these other activities c Way of life: A tariff helps domestic producers but also hurts domestic consumers through higher prices d Luxuries ( hàng xa xỉ): A tariff on imports of luxuries will reduce their consumption but, by raising the domestic price, may also provide an incentive for domestic producers to use scare resources to produce them e Defence (phòng thủ): a production subsidy (trợ cấp/ hỗ trợ sản xuất) rather than an import tariff is the most efficient way to preserve domestic industries in case there is a war f Infant Industries ( công nghiệp non trẻ): A tariff is needed to provide protection to new or infant industries until they have mastered the business and can compete ( cạnh tranh) on equal terms with more experienced foreign suppliers g Revenue: Tariffs and taxes (income taxes & expenditure taxes) contribute the greatest part to government revenue Imposing a tariff has effects: - 1st: It encourages inefficient domestic production - 2nd: It encourages consumers to reduce their purchases of the tariffed good - below efficient levels 3rd: It raises revenues for the government 1st & 2nd necessarily impose efficiency costs on the economy