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1. HSC Task 1 - TOPIC 1 HSC
Course: Year 12 Economics (ECO12)
102 Documents
Students shared 102 documents in this course
University: University of New South Wales
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Government Economic Forums
Organisations which exist as forums for world leaders play an important role in coordinating
policies between major economies especially during times of economic or financial crisis
The aim of these forums is to enable heads of state along with their treasurers and central
bank governors to discuss global economic issues with particular attention to economic
stability and growth
Group of Seven Nations (G7)
In recent decades the most important government economic forum has been the group of the
7 largest industrialised nations including the US, UK, France, Germany, Canada, Japan and
Italy.
The inclusion of Russia in the group between 1997-2014 meant that it was known as the G8,
until its membership was suspended
The G6 has effectively operated as the economic council of the wold’s wealthiest nations,
meeting annually to discuss conditions in the global economy
The G7 has been the unofficial forum coordinating global macroeconomic policy because of
its influence over the fiscal and monetary policies of the world’s largest economies
Because of G7’s status as the forum for the world’s most powerful economies, its agenda has
often included general political issues and current priorities such as climate change, global
poverty and security
The significance of the G7 is not declining, reflecting the shift in the global balance of power
towards emerging economies in particular China (which on some measures is now the world’s
largest economy).
The membership of the G7 is no longer representative of the most important forces int eh
global economy (nations like China and India are more important to future global economic
growth than economies like Canada and Italy)
The G7’s share of global GDP shrunk from 68% in 1992 to 46% in 2016, and G7 nations
cover only 10% of the world’s population.
For this reason, there have been recent attempts to expand the group to include 5 developing
countries referred to as the Outreach Five (O5): Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa
Group of Twenty Nations (G20)
G20 emerged as the leading forum for coordinating the global response to avert a depression
after the GFC
THE G20 agreed to coordinate fiscal stimulus around the world, as well as improve
supervision of the global financial system and international financial institutions
The G20 includes 19 of the world’s largest national economies plus the EU, covering 80% of
the world GDP and two thirds of the world’s population. Importantly, the G20 membership
includes several emerging economies who have become the driving force behind world
economic growth
The extent to which the G20 or the G7 plus O5 becomes the forum for international economic
cooperation in future years is unclear, but at the moment the G20’s main activity is its annual
summit and it does not have any permanent leadership or headquarters.
The limited effectiveness of the G20 was highlighted in the annual summit in 2014 held in
Brisbane. Although G20 members agreed to a goal of increasing economic growth by 2%,
many of policy changes pledged in support of the goal were not implemented and so global
growth was even weaker 2 years after the summit
Chapter summary
Free trade is a situation where there are no artificial barriers to trade imposed by
governments that restrict the free exchange of goods and services between economies
Protection is any type of government action that has the effect of giving domestic producers
an artificial advantage over foreign competitors.
Arguments in favour of protection: it can help "infant industries" to establish themselves,
protect local jobs being lost because of cheaper imports, allow a country to remain self-
sufficient in important areas such as defence and can help to prevent foreign companies
dumping goods on domestic markets at unrealistically low prices.