Trade Basics & Exchange Rates
The general term describing the relationship between a nation's total imports and its total exports.
Trade Balance
The economic principle where a nation produces a good or service most efficiently at the lowest opportunity cost.
What is comparative advantage?
A direct tax placed on imported goods designed to make foreign items more expensive and protect domestic businesses.
What is a tariff?
Calculated by dividing a nation's total gross domestic product by its population, this serves as the primary metric for economic development.
Answer: What is per capita GDP
This North Carolina city is the second-largest banking and financial center in the entire United States, trailing only New York City.
Charlotte
This economic condition occurs when a country imports a greater dollar value of goods and services than it exports.
Whatt is a trade deficit (or unfavorable balance of trade)?
This modern trade agreement replaced NAFTA to reduce or eliminate tariffs between Canada, Mexico, and the United States.
What is the USMCA?
A complete restriction or ban on all export trade with a specific country, such as the US trade restriction against Cuba.
Answer: What is an embargo?
The acronym representing the group of newly industrialized emerging economies comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa.
Answer: What are the BRICS countries?
Anchored by UNC Chapel Hill, NC State, and Duke, this is the largest research park in the United States.
Answer: What is Research Triangle Park (RTP)?
When the US Dollar is in this state, it has a high exchange value compared to foreign currencies, allowing American consumers to buy imported goods more cheaply.
What is a strong dollar?
Established in 1995, this international body works to reduce tariffs, expand global trade, and resolve trade disputes among member nations.
What is the World Trade Organization (WTO)?
A trade barrier that sets a strict limit on the exact quantity of a specific product that can be imported.
Answer: What is an import quota?
Measuring the percentage of adults who can read and write, high levels in this metric strongly correlate with a Most Developed Country (MDC) status.
Answer: What is literacy rate?
Accounting for industries like healthcare, finance, and tourism, this general economic sector is North Carolina's #1 employer.
What is the service industry?
Although the United States runs an overall deficit in physical goods, it consistently maintains a trade surplus in this economic sector.
What are services?
The ability of a nation to produce a greater overall quantity of a good than another country, such as the US producing more total cars than Japan.
What is absolute advantage?
The practice of shielding domestic industries from foreign competition through tariffs or quotas to protect infant or essential industries.
Answer: What is protectionism?
The basic physical systems and services a country needs to function—including roads, power grids, sewage systems, ports, and hospitals.
Answer: What is infrastructure?
North Carolina ranks #1 nationwide in the agricultural production of these two major crops.
Answer: What are tobacco and sweet potatoes?
This nation is the single largest buyer of US exports, accounting for 19% of all exported American goods.
Answer: What is Canada?
The development of an increasingly integrated global economy marked by free trade, capital flow, and foreign labor markets.
What is globalization?
The tactic of refusing to invest in a nation or company, famously used as an economic pressure tactic to end apartheid in South Africa.
Answer: What is divestment?
Modern economists use this term to classify the world's wealthiest, highly industrialized nations like the US, Japan, and Australia.
What are Most Developed Countries (MDCs)?
Hosted in North Carolina, this event is globally recognized as the largest home furnishings exposition in the world.
Answer: What is the High Point Market?