Economic Activity: Vocab

• Acid rain is precipitation containing acidic components in wet or dry form.

Agglomeration

• A large number of businesses cluster in the same area for mutual advantage.

Agrarian

• Agricultural practice.

Assembly Line

• Moves an item from worker to worker, each repeatedly performing the same task.

Back Office

• Home to non-executives and is less expensive.

Backwash Effects

• Negative effects on a region resulting from economic growth in another area.

Barter

• A system of exchange in which no money changes hands.

Basic Economic Activity

• Actions that create new wealth for a region.

Berlin Conference (1884-1885)

• Divided up valuable regions of Africa for colonization by Europeans.

Break-of-bulk

• Location where goods are transferred from one mode of transport to another.

Bulk-gaining Industry

• The final product is heavier than the raw materials.

Bulk-reducing Industry

• The final product is lighter than the raw materials.

Climate Change

• A change in the earth's climate.

Commodities

• Raw materials that have not undergone processing.

Commodity Dependence

• When a country's exports of raw materials exceed 60%.

Comparative Advantage

• The ability to produce goods and services at a lower cost than others.

Complementary Advantage

• When two regions specifically meet each other's needs through exchange of raw materials and/or finished products.

Containerization

• The system in which goods are loaded into a standardized shipping unit.

Core Countries

• Highly industrialized and wealthy.

Corporate Parks or Business Parks

• Office or corporate buildings clustered together to take advantage of agglomeration economies.

Cottage Industry

• Small home-based business.

Deindustrialization

• Process of decreasing reliance on manufacturing jobs (closing factories).

Ecological Footprint

• Impact on the environment.

Ecotourism

• Travel to a region by people who are interested in its distinctive and unusual ecosystem.

Export Processing Zones (EPZs)

• Special manufacturing zones that offer foreign corporations major tax savings, inexpensive labor, and fewer environmental regulations.

Exports

• A good or service produced in the home country and sold in another.

Footloose

• Businesses which can pack up and move quickly and easily.

Fordism

• The assembly line system of mass production.

Formal Sector

• Portion of the economy monitored by the government, follows regulations, and pays taxes.

Free Trade

• Politics or laws that reduce barriers to trade.

Free-Trade Zones

• Locations where a foreign country can store, warehouse, transfer, or process goods without taxation or duties if goods are exported.

Front Office

• Often home to executives, expensive, designed to impress clients.

Gender Gap

• Differences in privileges afforded to males and females in a society.

Gender Inequality Index (GEI)

• A composite measure of several factors indicating gender disparity.

Gini Coefficient (Index)

• Measure of distribution of income within a population.

Glass Ceiling

• Invisible barrier used to describe women rarely obtaining upper-level jobs in companies, the civil service, or in governments.

Gross Domestic Product (GDP)

• Total value of goods and services produced within a country during a year (per capita).

Gross National Income (GNI)

• AKA Gross National Product (GNP). Total value of goods produced and services provided by a country's economy, even if they are not located in the country.

Growth Poles or Growth Centers

• Economic stimulus associated with technopoles.

Human Development Index (HDI)

• Combines GNI per capita with three social measures: life expectancy, expected years of schooling, and average years of schooling.

Imports

• A good or service purchased by a home country from another country.

Industrial Belt

• Area of industry (factories) stretching across Northern Hemisphere midlatitudes.

Industrial Revolution

• Started mid-eighteenth century in Great Britain.

Industry

• Process of using machines to convert raw materials into manufactured goods.

Infant Mortality Rate (IFR)

• Number of deaths of babies before the age of one (1).

Informal Sector

• The portion of the economy that is not monitored by the government.

Intermodal

• Containers can be carried on a truck, train, ship, or plane.

Just-in-time-delivery

• A system in which the inputs in an assembly process arrive when they are needed.

Labor-oriented industry

• Highly dependent on workforce, located near workers.

Least Cost Theory

• Weber suggests factories are located where they can minimize costs.

Life Expectancy

• Number of years a person is expected to live.

Literacy Rate

• Percentage of the population who can read and write, usually at an 8th grade level.

Locational Interdependence

• Similar businesses will intentionally locate near their competitors in the midst of their customer base.

Location Triangle

• Market for a good and two sources of natural resources.

Losch's Model

• Assumes that businesses will maximize profits regardless of cost.

Maquiladoras

• EPZs in Mexico, usually foreign owned, often along US Border regions.

Market

• Place where products are sold.

Mass Consumption

• Large scale purchasing and use of manufactured goods by customers.

Microcredit

• Loans often to women in to start or expand a business ex: Grameen Bank.

Multiplier Effect

• The potential of a job to produce more jobs (especially secondary sector jobs).

Neoliberal Policies

• A set of reforms that reduced government regulations and taxes, Reagan and Thatcher.

Non-Basic Economic Activity

• Actions that do not generate new money for an area, but recirculate existing money.

Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO)

• International non-profit agencies.

Offshoring

• Moving tertiary and quaternary activities to another country.

Outsourcing

• Contracting work to non-company employees or to other countries.

Per Capita

• By head, or for each person.

Periphery Countries

• More reliant on producing raw materials than on industry.

Pollution

• Contaminating air and water with smoke, chemicals, and waste products.

Post-Fordism

• The system of training factory workers to do more than one job so that they can rotate among a few different workstations during the day.

Postindustrial Economy

• No longer employs large numbers of people in factories.

Primary Sector

• Extracting natural resources from the earth.

Purchasing Power Parity (PPP)

• A measure of what similar goods cost in different countries.

Quaternary

• Managing and processing information

Quinary

• Creating information and making high level decisions.

Raw Materials

• Basic substances needed to manufacture finished goods.

Remittances

• Money sent to family members in a person's home country.

Reshoring

• Returning jobs to a business's home country.

Resource Depletion

• Overuse of resources resulting in unsustainable development.

Rust Belts

• Regions that have large numbers of closed factories.

Secondary Sector

• Making products from natural resources.

Semi-periphery Countries

• In the process of developing, less wealthy than core countries.

Special Economic Zones

• EPZs in China, originally on coastal cities, which have attracted foreign trade.

Spin-off Benefits or Spread Effects

• Positive economic outcomes beyond a growth pole.

Substitution Principle

• Maximizing profits by exchanging one factor of production for another.

Tariffs

• Taxes on items entering or leaving a country, often used to raise the price of imported goods.

Tax Incentives

• Something that saves a corporation money via tax breaks.

Technopole

• A hub for information-based industry and high-tech manufacturing, often located near universities.

Tertiary Sector

• Providing information and services to people.

Total Fertility Rate (TFR)

• Number of babies a woman is expected to have in her lifetime.

Trade Embargos

• A trade restriction placed on a country as an economic sanction.

Trade Relationships

• Treaties or organizations that benefit all members.

Trading Blocs

• Groups of countries that agree to a common set of trade rules.

World Systems Theory

• Wallerstein grouped countries into three categories based on development.