Objectifs globaux : Understand how GPD grows in a very general way.
Objectifs travaillés : Economics vocabulary review, text comprehension, types of economic growth.
Resources :
PDF: Economics vocabulary
PDF: Why do we need growth?
PDF: Extensive and intensive growth
PDF: Evaluation: What are the factors of economic growth?
Contents
Activité 1
Describe the image.
We can observe here the cohabitation on the same land between farm animals and infrastructures allowing the exploitation of oil and shale gas. We see degraded breeding conditions (little grass for the animals) in favour of industrial activity.
This photograph can be used to show the origins of growth (role of capital as a factor of production, the different sectors that contribute to the increase in GDP …) and its harmful effects on the environment.
Activité 2
Check your vocabulary
PDF: Economics vocabulary
Use of goods and services, either for processing of a good, or for the satisfaction of a need.
Production factor corresponding to the available labor.
Organizational unit for the production of goods and services.
A cost that is suffered by a third party as a consequence of an economic transaction.
Sum of added values achieved in a territory over a period.
Rival and non-excludable resources (like fish and timber).
Non-rival and non-excludable goods. (like a TV show, or a fireworks display).
Human-created assets that help to perform economically.
Increase in production in a country over a year or more.
Activité 3
Why is growth important?
PDF:Why do we need growth?
Growth is measured by GDP. To measure the growth rate, you have to calculate the rate of change in GDP between two dates.
Growth makes it possible to have wealth in order to solve economic and social problems and therefore to improve the lives of populations quantitatively and qualitatively (increase in income, decrease in unemployment, elimination of deficits, etc.).
With weak growth, economic and social problems risk worsening: business closures, rising unemployment, debt, inequalities …
Activité 4
The difference between extensive and intensive growth
PDF: Extensive and intensive growth
- Copy and complete the schema with the information in the text.
Activité 5
For each of the propositions, decide if it relates to an intensive or extensive growth. Then justify your response.
Call for immigration = increase in number of active workers = Extensive growth.
Purchase of new cars for the opening of a new factory = increase in the capital = Extensive growth
Worker training = Increase in the quality of labour (innovation) = Intensive growth
Arrival of women in the labor market = increase in number of active workers = Extensive growth
Replacement of typewriters by computers = increase in the quality of output (innovation) = intensive growth
Establishment of Fordism = mass production (innovation) = intensive growth
Activité 5
Answer questions about this lesson.
What are the sources and challenges of economic growth? – Séance 1