SECTION 3 Flashcards
what can we observe from the elephant curve
there is a poverty trap out there emergence of the new global middle class Canadian middle class (dev. Country) no growth/decline High income growth for the top elites Are poorer countries catching up (i.e., international convergence)? Are the poorer countries able to catch up the wealthy country ? Yes coming from the new global middle class (the back of the elephant)
What are the causal factor of the financial crisis
-Easy credit conditions, sub-prime lending, sub prime market conditions, sub prime mortgage -Increased debt burden (credit lines and card maxed out, car debt) , diminished savings -Deregulation of banks, financial institutions (↑ risk taking) -Growing imbalances in world trade (precarious trade deficit because 2007) -Commodity bubble (oil: 50$/barrel 2007, 150$ 2008)
Freer trade in agricultural commodities would lead to ______ but _____
lower food prices at the cost of food security and sovereignty
What are the factors that determine history and geography of nature commodification
- technological and scientific knowledge ( example : new discoveries may allow us to exploit natural resource we couldn’t before , uranium as a mineral was not valued before nuclear activity development, solar panel allow to use different kinds of energy) 2. economic circumstances (example: tar sands- in early 1990s, we knew they were there but we knew it was feasible to extract it, up until the price rose (37 dollars), the tar sands remained in the ground) 3. location of raw materials (located in particular places) 4. post-extraction geographies (resource characteristics after they are extracted; is the material perishable ?what is the cost of shipping diamonds? ) 5. investment requirements, role of government (is government gonna provide tax substities to help build infrastructure?)
Describe the stock market post 1970, what did it reflect
Post-1970s: globalization of financial system (with post-fordism, end of Bretton woods era) -↑ deregulation of financial activities, ↑ competition between stock exchanges (stock exchange become corporation, they are business for profit) -↑ MNCs more cross-listings on foreign exchanges (to tap into new pools of capital and increase visibility/presence) -New financial instruments (you can invest a company or in larger vehicle), new technologies and ‘virtual trading floors’ (with creates a new speed) ; difficult for regulatory framework to keep-up (previously done by national regulation agencies but when the package themselves includes stocks implicated across boundaries, things get more complex) -Magnitude and Velocity of transaction have increased a lot -New context: hyper-mobility of capital flows! -24h circulation of capital and within various cities, investment houses themselves have different shifts of people watching those exchanges (24 hour around the clock)
Trading at commodity exchanges can be for _______ or _______ (explain them)
immediate purchases (i.e. ‘spot trades’) :cash trade, buyers and sellers agree there and then on the price futures: future deliveries at guaranteed price, buyers and sellers agree today on the price of something delivered 6 months from now (ex: Costco tangerines, airplane supply)
Define the Rain forest Peasant
Two groups : Amerindians and folk (Metis) peoples -Live along Amazon and its tributaries -Traditional agricultural and forest harvesting practices but sell products in markets -people could give some clues as to how to develop more sustainable paths -poor in income and assets -Guarding of the forest
Explain what happened in Brazil in 1990s-2000s
-Export-oriented deforestation: shift from national producer to international producer of cattle and soybean
in post-Fordism, “_______ are integral to recent restructuring of world economy”
innovations in corporate services and finance
Cities are ranked according to overall ________ , i.e. global connectedness in terms of _________
“world-cityness” different types of corporate services
What are the consequences of Income Volatility in resource curse
-Cycles of economic boom and bust -Government spending is cyclical -Borrowing money during boom times -Bust
The resource curse can be defined by ________, the symptoms are ________ (6)
super abundance of resource cause inflation and lack of investment in other sectors Symptoms: resources wealth, slow growth, high poverty, poor governance, weak states, revolution and conflict
Depict Glocalization and why does it relate to world cities
definition = describes dialectical movement of globalization and localization Tension between two opposing forces (local, global): Greater concentreation vs greater expansion With glocolization, we have this notion that rescaling has taken space, we should spend more time figuring out global scale and intra scale - this is where cities comes in as a focus (metro-level activity) World economy organized primarily around these nodes (citites) Connection betweenez cities more important than connection between countries Remember, NIS are not isolated! Rather, mosaic (archipelago) of large world cities which constitute principal structural networks (nodes) of new global economy
What is international inequality VS global inequality
International inequality: inequality between nations, i.e., differences BETWEEN mean incomes of nations (GDP/capita for eg and how it deviates from country to the next) Global (aka world) inequality: inequality between individuals in the world regardless of their nation (i.e., where they live); as if the entire world were one country (national boundaries does not matter and come up with one huge distribution of income) BETWEEN VS WITHIN
Why are big land acquisition frustrating for small farmers
*buying up the very best land, leaving the marginal land to everybody else) - poor follow through, put the fence and just sit there which is WRONG is the peasant ethos (land is life) so locked up land is so wrong
At the state level ________ in housing prices - geography is ____________
large variation playing out in terms of the distribution very significant difference at the city level (big cities, sunny cities)
Depict concept 1 of inequality through time
tracking fairly slow progression up until WW2- ( then boom increase ) since the 1950 (fordism) = fairly equals between countries, and declining in terms of GINI The great compression (1950-1970) : difference in inequality is stable and compressing But then after 1970 it picks up, due to globalization ?
______ just kept going but other countries have lived the arc of forest transition
Haiti
Depict the concept 1 of inequality
Concept 1: unweighted international inequality -Welfare concept: GDI (gross domestic income) per capita -Unit of observation: country level •Does not account for each country’s population (assuming all GDI are equal, no emphasis on the weight of single country (eg China) ) -Data: national accounts -Currency conversion: PPP (so not currency fluctuation) -Ignores within-country inequality
What is the GaWC
Globalization and World Cities Research Network (1990s, Loughborough University, UK) - produce very large scale comparative analysis of world cities Construction of very detailed inventory of world cities using unprecedented means to gather data and measure extent of networks linking different cities across the globe Able to do it because sources of informations - compelling from multiple forces (ads in economist for example)
Define the political economy of rent seeking
- want to tap into the stream of wealth generated by oil - regular market is stifle- political economy is centred only on rent capture, which creates corruption
What can we observe on a global level during the recession
a large amount of countries in recession , some of the verge and outliers that are still growing (China, India, South-East Asia countries- still growing but lower rate)
Describe the challenge of dietary change
-Livestock consume about 55% of grains and 75% of land -If shifted to direct consumption , we could feed an extra 4 billion people - but the world is going the other way -We would need to double the area of crop land in the world to feed 9 billion people having a western diet
Describe the first myth of the forest peasant (generalist)
-Backwood people :peasant -“Do a little bit of everything” -Livelihood : mix of agriculture, fishing, hunting, forest product extraction Reality BUT On average, there is specialization at the village level, we also find household specialties -households and communities specialize in distinct market products -Use of natural resources and economic reliance highly heterogeneous -Specialization is geographically contingent and reflection of high environmental diversity -Need for careful targeting of conservation & development -Problematic to think that they are generalist - would mean lack of targeting (workshop for example) -Specialization depends on geography and reflect environment diversity -Need for careful targeting of conversation and development
How do we place a value on environmental degradation?
How? 1. Markets for trading emission credits 2. Growth of certification programs in resources industries
explain trade diversion vs trade creation
Trade creation is an economic term related to international economics in which trade flows are redirected due to the formation of a free trade area or a customs union Trade diversion is an economic term related to international economics in which trade is diverted from a more efficient exporter towards a less efficient one by the formation of a free trade agreement or a customs union.
Foreign buys land from farmer and lends it to them - which is expected to __________
give a bigger income to farmer
The cattle ranching resulted in ________ +explain the interesting case
in massive deforestation despite the fact that cattle was a marginal economic activity- you don’t make money from dairy or meat- you make money by capturing all the rents provide than the land (tax break, mineral potential, road investment)- having cattle on land isn’t about cattle, its about the speculations on that land
Countries want to ______ their agricultural market
protect
Explain the rise Opening of the Amazon
1960s-80s -Before that- few cattle, fewer than all south America, no refine breed, deceased cattle, major importer not exporter of beef , very isolated unappealing cattle -military government come to power (after a coup) and realize they need establish legitimacy their governance while facing economic problems inflation - needing to promote growth and agro-industry so they turned to the amazon -“Land without people, for people without land” -providing a new space for Brazilian to thrive -Gave to massive road building program and cattle production policy *roads leads to deforestation regardless*
What is the inequality transition
The “Inequality Transition”: -19th century boom (industrial revolution that allows certain country to gather a lot of wealth while others don’t) led to increased inequality across nations (rich vs.poor countries) -Late 20th century, several emerging economies are industrializing faster than rich countries
What the classic drivers of issues according to environmental explanation perspective
The Classic Drivers (rose in the 80s, still seen today): -population (growing population cut down forest to fulfill their needs so more people = less forest) -inappropriate technologies (slash and burn agriculture as wasteful and destructive for eg) -Il-defined property rights (arises because open access forest, free for all) -Incomplete markets (market for good that comes to the rainforest are incomplete- costs bared not reflected in the value of the timber bought- many externalities) -Weak institutions (no sufficient structures to protect the forest)
Describe the GATT
- All together we agree to reduce trade barriers and tariffs on the export and imports of various gods, by acting collectively as a group, we are moving away from bilateral to multilateral (all the countries that sign agree that no one single country will be able to raise tariffs without the agreement of all the other GATT countries) -Not official agreement, the countries will negotiate together where review and reduce tariffs, they are binded, they also agree to administrative reforms General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT, 1947): -countries (i) reduce trade barriers through multilateral negotiations and (ii) agree not to raise them unilaterally -operates through rounds of negotiations, setting an agenda in terms of binding tariffs (towards trade liberalization) and administrative reforms -Pre-1960s, GATT focused on trade between developed countries. With development of UNCTAD (UN conference on trade and development) (1964), focus on developing country access. -This shift from developed to developing have also geopolitical considerations (i.e. most-favored nation status as a barrier to communism, certain developing countries are invited to join the GATT to block the red curtain)
Almost ___ of deforestation is happening in __ countries and ____ of loss is standing forest
80% 3 1/2
Define environmental and political economy explanations
-Environmental (perspective very popular in North-America and Europe- it looks at our relationship with nature, nature “out there” as something outside of us that we interact with, impact assessment, interactions between us and nature, flows of nutrient, cycles, systems and so on) -Political economy explanations ( our relationship with nature is not Interaction , its Inner-action, society is completely around nature, nature is socially contrasted and bounded, nature is socially appropriated , social and power influence how we think and use the environment)
What are the two latest trade agreements, discuss them
Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA): FTA between Canada and European Union (idea to diversity the client basis (europre) because dependence on USA is not great) -Negotiations: 2004-August 2014 (signed Oct. 2016) •Came into force Sept. 2017 -98% of tariffs between Canada and EU to be eliminated -Would surpass NAFTA -Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP): includes 12 Pacific Rim countries Negotiations: began in 2008, signed Feb. 2016 Lower trade and investment barriers, create dispute-settlement mechanism for member countries Would be world’s largest FTA (40% of world trade)(buffer for Chinese influence) Post-November 2016: Trump’s impact (US pulled-out)? -Ongoing TTP countries but without the US, it changes significantly
What are the causes of the resource curse
income volatility, rent seeking, patronage, and living off the land, Dutch disease
Depict the new sector in 1990s-2000s Brazil
( Soybean , usually grown in the south but moves northward, which pushed cattle further in the forest, why soybean ? benefited form a collapse of fishery in Peru and a shift to animal product to plant based food for animals in Europe because mad cow disease, so demand for soy increases- soy is everywhere often displacing corn in many farms -explosive growth supported by government investment, by 2005 Brazil is number 1 exporter, 25% of deforestation due to soy industry, displacing cattle which then increases deforestation)
What are the concerns with current global rush
-Rich Countries capture land from poor and vulnerable people (very small share of land owned by actual small farmers AND disposition of small farmers) -Food security in food-insecure regions (food security of these countries at risk) -Employment opportunities limited for the people pushed off the land (highly mechanized , no need for people unless very skilled ) -Loss of smallholder farming -Water “grabbing” with land ( getting land but also locking up water)
What is the great compression
The great compression (1950-1970) : difference in inequality is stable and compressing
Explain the commodity chain analysis approach
Supply side are natural resources and their extraction led to negative externalities, they are then manufactured with also lead to negative externalities, then they become goods which their consumption will eventually lead to negative externalities +GRAPH
Land scale can be seen as “good” for development because
maybe agriculture in development countries can be kickstarted by the land acquisition which would increase productivity and revenue
Explanations for Forest Transition
-depopulation due to disease -depopulation due to urban migration -worth/highest return of the land in tourism rather than in agriculture
Depict concept 3 of inequality
Concept 3: global (world) inequality Welfare concept: disposable income (after taxes and programs cost- what do these individuals have left in their pocket to spend ) Not looking at GDI Unit of observation: individual or household (micro-unit) Data: household survey (eg: in Canada, every 5 years, census of population- short form mandatory + 20% long form) *Issue = different in data quality from country to country Big advance = able to look at within country patterns of Inequality Eg in Canada= cities have higher levels of inequality vs rural areas Currency conversion: PPP Controls for within-country inequality
What are sub-prime mortgage
predatory lending practices adopted by financial institutions where consumer who would not normally meet loans standards are given easier access to capital in order to purchase their own , bolstered by teaser rates (first sign up with short term mortgage and get a preferential rate so you can get more mortgage than you would usually but when you renegotiate, these rates are going to quadruple, interest are high, people are hooked and are under pressure)
What is the boom dynamic
the non-boom sector is not doing well because people what to work in the oil sector
Define Stock Market
here stocks (i.e., shares) are sold and bought -function: “establish the value of corporate shares” -can be located , it can have a physical location, a trading floor is associated (example wall street) but also it doesn’t have to have a facade (example Toronto, since 1997 the Toronto stock exchange doesn’t have a trading floor, it moved to a virtual trading systems through computers) Stocks = certain kind of security, investors buying shares of companies , different types of stocks
What is different in the current land rush compares to the long colonial legacy of foreign crop production
-size and frequency (large and rapid rise in the number) -new players (china, Malaysia..) -Disillusionment with smallholder farming (hard to promote and work with smallholders because huge transition costs at small scale) -Rising enthusiasm for large scale agricultural -Vertical integration of agribusinessiness (farming) with the production and marketing, moving further up the supply chain to have secure supply of food + reliability + Land as Strategic asset -New crops (biofuels and carbon forest (forest of the carbon they contain and keep out of atmosphere, pay people to reforest land, not cutting down, leaving them standing or reforest) both good for economy of scale)
Was the GATT efficient?
significance impact, it achieved a reduction of the tariffs, from 40% to 5-6%
What are the concerns of climate change on agriculture
(adverse effect of food prod and availability temperatures (warmer will decrease prod of crops, rise will be bad for wheat and corn), crop damaging weather events, reduced H2O, shortened growing seasons)
What is an example of the downfall of a boom economy
Case of Amazon rubber boom (huge boom until the price of rubber falls, the economy around the sector - 3 decades of development vanish away)
Describe dietary transition
income increase, middle increase leads to shift from tubers (sweet potato) and coarse grains to cereals + shift from plant based to animal products
_________ in 1930s, nation-states respond with __________
Econ depression protectionist policies that worsen the slowdown
What are the consequences of food price spikes
-Undernourishment and impoverishment (angels law=spending is constant but in poorest community this spending represents maybe 40% of income spending) -Food riots and revolt (creates unrest, a politician nightmare- correlation between wheat prices are social unrest, Haiti, Madagascar, Bread in Arab Spring. ) -Greater policy attention (investing in agriculture)
When trying to help (in Amazonia for example) our ________
our understanding of how people make their living there matters much
For the past ____ years, the amazon is seeking for ______
25 years path for sustainable developpement
Understand the specialization of peasant is very important in terms of
targeting of conversation and development
What is the dow jones average
Dow Jones Industrial Average: average index which Reflex the value of the 30 largest companies traded in the new-work stock exchange , ways to pick up on the overall trend shaping the exchanges
Less than_____ of food flows through trade because ______
20% (bulky and hard to move around AND limited by tariffs by quotas and quality standards)
Who are the main actors in land acquisition
-nationals (urban elites+ diaspora): press tends to overlooked them but very important, they have citizenship (perhaps left the land might use remittences) in the country and participate in different ways to purchase land, very large share of the number of acquisition but not HUGE areas -Regional foreign investors (china purchasing in south-east Asia, Africa, gulf sates for example- primarily out of concern for food security as they are very reliant on food exports and have an expansing population, they know that food prices disrupt, they need to ensure cheap prices -Global foreign investors : reaching well beyond their territory -private companies, sovereign, wealth funds, pension funds, hedge funds ( top 10 buyers, USA, Malaysia, Arab Emirates, Uk, India, Singapore….) (top 10 bought in Africa, papua new , Indonesia, south sudan)
Describe the 4th myth (safety net)
Myth : Rain Forest as primary safety net “Protecting the rain forest protects forest peoples” Adversity and forest as safety net : - sustenance + income smoothing Case : Ucayali and Maranon rivers Peru -But not natural to turn to the forest, they turn to the river -Why: fish migration much larger during big floods, easier to catch fish than hunt Reality -type of shock important for coping strategy for coping strategy used -Along tropical forest rivers : rivers not forest as forest as safety net -two solitudes : forestry and fisheries research and policy -Link is very strong between the two solitudes (in terms of environment and livelihood)
How was the GaWc data gathered Describe the ranking system
Data gathered via trade directories, magazines, newspapers, WWW, etc. Prime or alpha (5 + firms, 3 points) Major or beta (3-4 firms, 2 points) Minor or gamma (1-2 firms, 1 points)
Rise in global acquisition of land (land oversea) took off at the same as ________ in ______
food price peak 2008
Classical drivers of environmental problems defined from the perspective so the _______ decides of the ______
diagnosis solution
What are the twin geographical forces
Local / regional processes Economic activities cluster to benefit from agglomeration economies (Marshall) Key clusters as localized industrial production complexes (i.e. New Industrial Spaces) (high concentration of firms in particular space) Global processes •TNCs, multinational trend financial flows, trade flows (much more expansive), new institutions
What are the sources of growth in terms of food supply
- New land (extensification) -Input intensification (more controlled example fertilizers) (example: Green Revolution) -Increased total factor productivity, more efficient farming (ratio of total commodity output to total inputs used production, example: precision farming, intimate knowledge of the land)
In terms of the financial crisis, In contrast to hyper-globalizers who think that _______, economic geographers argue that _______
the world is “flat” and friction-less we need to look at the geographical dimension of the crisis
Define Forest Transition
Shift from net deforestation to net reforestation- overtime you notice than forest cover falls, reaches a point and then reforestation is more important
larger mouth of land purchased where there is the ______________
weakest land government
Africa as focus for land acquisition for large scale acquisitions (describe each with %)
-Food prod (34%) -Non-food crop (cotton?) (26%) -flex crop (biofuels ?) (23%) -multiple uses (17%)
Define the second myth (egalitarian myth)
-view that while different inevitable , communities are generally egalitarian -Small communities, few local authorities, no obvious class or status distinction - peasant ethos (we’re all poor together) -Limited or no market for land, about or other inputs -Cases : Land, Labor, Crop seeds Reality LAND: -act of planting crop= act of claiming the land -Land can be highly unequally distributed -we expect market to create inequality BUT they are other mechanisms - such as land -Land can be highly unequally distributed in a village where land markets are absent -Land inequality driven by differences in initial endowments and access to labour for clearing -Land inequality decreased by land diversification and land transfers (gifting and inheritance) LABOR: -sources :household, wage labor, cooperative labour -wage labour: limited and very unequal -Cooperative labour (minga) : work groups, food and drink, reciprocity -labor access (key from claiming land) is very unequally distributed SEEDS: key to : agricultural productivity, substance security, market specialization, agrobiodiversity -A serious constrain in the tropical forest -Also creates unequality
Describe the 6th myth (vulnerability)
-Policy discourse over climate change and mitigation -Rain Forest poor are vulnerable: physically, economically and socially -Disasters impact the poorest most and recover reassert prior inequalities -Case: hurricane Mitch (1998), Tawahka Sumu, Honduras (following up on people after foreign relief aid) Reality -Poor’s land holdings increases 250% and land distribution more equal -Re-establishement of agricultural production and income diversification -Endogenous institutional change : - land tenor reform hybrid “blazing” system (in the discussion on redistributing land, the poor were able to negotiate more land, consensus developed for equal land)- bottom up/viral (system developed on their own, self organizing in spontaneous way) Outcome : -land inequality reduced -Deforestation rate lowered -Resilience to future hurricanes increased -All the assistance did not really get at (thankfully) land distribution -really bad obviously but also opportunity for change that might empower poor people -environment shocks windows of opportunity for the poor - provides a moment of requestionment for the society -ruptures in trajectory
Why shift to mega farms
-machinery use ( more efficient) -quick processing (more quickly) -demanding product standards (more easily) -farming is expensive when you become bigger, it is easier to meet standards have more market power -this is why bio struggles -easier to access credit and insurance (half the rate of local in Argentina) -New crops are expensive to get going (gmo eg) -Lack of local available labor (move to mechanization) -Public policy bias towards large farm (state prefers to deal with ONE large firm than a BUNCH of times) - political power is greater the more land you have, policies to provide cheap land and capital, r and d becomes substitute, whole systems turns to large farms
What are the different types (2) of food waste
Developing (post harvest losses- on farms or transport can be as much as 50% of the crop) vs industrialized countries (it is the consumers who waste food)
