CONTEMPORARY WORLD

Learning Objectives:

At the end of this lesson, the student must be able to:

1. Understand adequately the role of international financial institution in the

creation of a global economy;
2. Narrate a short history of the global economic integration; and
3. Identify and describe the attributes of a global corporations.

Vocabulary List

a. Market – the area of economic activity in which buyers and sellers come together
and the forces of supply and demand affect prices.
b. Global marketplace – a key factor for success that refers to the international
production and exchange of goods, services and money.
c. Socialism – political and economic theory of social organization which advocates
that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or
regulated by the community as a whole.
d. Capitalism – is an economic system in which private individuals or businesses
own capital goods. The production of goods and services is based on supply and
demand in the general market—known as a market economy—rather than
through central planning—known as a planned economy or command economy.
e. Global governance – is a movement towards political cooperation among
transnational actors, aimed at negotiating responses to problems that affect more
than one state or region.
f. Corporations – is a legal entity that is separate and distinct from its owners.
Corporations enjoy most of the rights and responsibilities that individuals possess:
 they can enter contracts, loan and borrow money, sue and be sued, hire employees,
own assets and pay taxes.
g. Shareholder – also referred to as a stockholder, is a person, company, or
institution that owns at least one share of a company’s stock, which is known as
equity. Because shareholders are essentially owners in a company, they reap the
benefits of a business’ success.
h. Commodity– is a basic good used in commerce that is interchangeable with other
goods of the same type. Commodities are most often used as inputs in the
production of other goods or services. The quality of a given commodity may
differ slightly, but it is essentially uniform across producers.