International Trade And The Global Economy

Look at the label in whatever you are wearing. Then think about where the cotton was grown, where the thread was spun, where the dye came from, which port the container left from and which shipping line carried it. A single shirt may have crossed four borders before it reached you, and at every crossing somebody had to change one currency into another at a rate nobody set on purpose.

This lesson explains why countries trade at all, what free trade means and what the serious arguments against it are, and how a free-trade agreement changes the calculation for its members. You will learn how an exchange rate is determined by exactly the same supply and demand analysis you used for oranges, and work out what happens to consumers and producers when a currency rises or falls. Then you will look at globalisation itself: what has driven it, who has gained, who has paid, and the moral and environmental questions the specification asks you to weigh.