• Join over 1.2 million students every month
  • Accelerate your learning by 29%
  • Unlimited access from just £6.99 per month

AS and A Level: UK, European & Global Economics

Browse by

Currently browsing by:

Word count:
1000-1999 (1)

Meet our team of inspirational teachers

find out about the team

Get help from 80+ teachers and hundreds of thousands of student written documents

How to evaluate effectively in economics

  1. 1 A significant proportion of marks are likely to be for evaluation. Trigger words include ‘assess’, ‘to what extent’ and ‘evaluate’. Evaluation can come during a piece as well as at the end. It includes any critical distance you add to your points.
  2. 2 Stating both sides of an argument or different points of view e.g. advantages and disadvantages will give you a start. Try to group them rather than a list of each. This will score more evaluation marks as you are linking the two arguments.
  3. 3 Discussing the long term versus the short term effects is a good method of evaluating. Don’t be frightened to acknowledge that it may even be too early to say with certainty what the outcome will be. An example of this is the impact of the UK not being in the Eurozone.
  4. 4 If you have made several points, you can gain evaluation marks for prioritising them or just saying which you believe is the most significant and why.
  5. 5 How significant will a particular point be and will it affect different groups of people in different ways. Discuss these for evaluation marks.

Five things to know about exchange rates

  1. 1 Most exchange rates are ‘floating’. This means that the value of one currency expressed in terms of another currency varies according to the demand and supply for and of each currency.
  2. 2 Factors affecting the demand for a country’s currency are the demand for the goods and services of it, the demand of its citizens for imported goods, relative interest rates and speculation. If for example, UK interest rates are relatively high, then people will buy pounds to save in UK banks. This will increase the value of the pound.
  3. 3 Exchange rates affect the competitiveness of a country’s products. Remember the acronym SPICED – Strong Pound Imports Cheaper Exports Dearer.
  4. 4 A strong pound will be worse for UK producers as they will struggle to compete with cheaper imports and UK exports will look relatively more expensive abroad. It will however be useful to reduce domestic inflation.
  5. 5 A weak pound will help UK producers for the opposite reason but may lead to inflation. It will help the balance of payments subject to the Marshall Lerner condition (learn this and use it for evaluation).

What is globalisation?

  1. 1 Globalisation refers to the increasing integration of the world’s economies meaning more international trade, increased international flows of capital, shifting patterns of consumption and production across countries e.g. outsourcing production.
  2. 2 Many reasons are put forward for its growth and it is hard to differentiate between its causes and effects. Is the growth of multinational companies and their desire for greater profits a cause of globalisation or its effect?
  3. 3 Other reasons put forward for globalisation are the reduction in trade restrictions, growth of the internet, cheaper international transport costs, opening up of China and the old communist countries. Again they could be cause or effect.
  4. 4 The effects of globalisation are debatable (more evaluation opportunities). Generally it is seen as increasing the level of wealth as countries specialise more in the products in which they have a comparative advantage.
  5. 5 Recent economic uncertainty has lead to some talk of de-globalisation where international trade declines due to increased protectionism (tariffs and quotas).

  • Marked by Teachers essays 11
  • Peer Reviewed essays 3

  1. Promoting growth and fighting poverty should be the priority in the developing world, not reducing greenhouse gases do you agree?

    We live in the 21st century which is a modern era, where the world is developing at faster speed than ever before and new inventions and technologies are being made every day to increase our standard of living. However there is still one problem that remains unresolved, and that is poverty. How can we be so promising to create a higher standard of living and a better life when poverty is still present and people are dying and struggling every day in order to survive.

    • Word count: 1122
1 essay

Conclusion analysis

Good conclusions usually refer back to the question or title and address it directly - for example by using key words from the title.
How well do you think these conclusions address the title or question? Answering these questions should help you find out.

  1. Do they use key words from the title or question?
  2. Do they answer the question directly?
  3. Can you work out the question or title just by reading the conclusion?

  • Discuss and present the ways in which the Chinese business environment will change now that they have entered the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

    "Conclusion; I feel that now that China has entered the World Trade Organization (WTO) it has boosted up many economical and governmental aspects of its nation. Its GDP has gone up to 7% helping its economic growth rise. Also I feel that foreign confidence improved towards China. Thus making more deals possible between China and other nations. As we could see the exports have reached +19% since they have joined the WTO. These facts I feel show that entering the WTO was a good choice for China. As I said in the report China is now rich, has low-cost labour resource and has a vast market. It holds a lot of land where it can retain various sources and has an enormous population. I feel that I had to change the main question from "Discuss and present the ways in which the Chinese business environment will change now that they have entered the World Trade Organisation. (WTO)" to an "have changed". This was done since China has been through the changes it would have, and is facing the pros and cons of its entering. To end I feel that China will be able to become a major global economic player, if it takes right advantage of the situation."

  • Discuss the characteristics of globalization (part 1) and analyses its impact on China economic development and living standards (part 2).

    "Conclusion To integrate into the global economy, China has become a member of the WTO, opened up its markers and reduced tariff barriers. These successful strategic moves have been rewarded with dramatic increase in its GDP and foreign direct investment. The overall living standards of the Chinese people, as reflected by the country's HDI, have improved with 170 million people lifted out of poverty. However globalization and rapid economic growth have also resulted in a rise in short term unemployment due to structural changes. Its environment deteriorates as economic activities increase. The income gap has exacerbated between the wealthy and the poor provinces. Despite the obvious benefits, globalization has its downsides on China. In embracing globalized trade, China has to face enormous challenges ahead in ensuring sustained economic growth can be achieved in face of a weak global environment or a slowly recovering world economy in the years to come."

  • Discuss the extent to which membership of the Euro zone is beneficial to an individual country's macroeconomic performance.

    "To conclude membership of the euro will bring many benefits, and disagreements. However I recommend that in the near future we do have a single currency proving many countries are operating at similar stages within the economic cycle. As the single currency should increase FDI, and improve BOP position, however in order for this to occur countries need to be operating at similar stages in terms of the economic cycle. It should also increase a countries economic influence in the world which should decrease volatility of the euro and in the long term lead to greater external trade"

Marked by a teacher

This document has been marked by one of our great teachers. You can read the full teachers notes when you download the document.

Peer reviewed

This document has been reviewed by one of our specialist student essay reviewing squad. Read the full review on the document page.

Peer reviewed

This document has been reviewed by one of our specialist student document reviewing squad. Read the full review under the document preview on this page.