Economic Geography

Who is this guy?

Economy: consists of the production and exchange of goods and services among a group of people

Types of Economic Systems:1. Traditional Economy: trades without money --

“barter” system2. Command Economy: production of goods and

services determined by government (aka planned economy)

3. Market Economy: production of goods and services determined by demand from consumers (aka capitalism)

4. Mixed Economy: a combination of command and market economies

Question: is there any perfect economic system? What works best in urban areas? Rural areas? In Senegal? Why?

Four Levels of Economic Activity1. Primary Activities - gathering raw materials such as

timber for immediate use or to use in the making of a final product - examples?

2. Seconday Activities - adding valued to materials by changing their form - manufacturing automobiles, ex…

3. Tertiary Activities - providing business or professional services - salespeople, teachers, doctors

4. Quaternary Activities - provide information, management, research services by highly-trained persons

Where do the following fields fit in: insurance sales, pencil manufacturing

Natural Resources: materials on or in the earth that have economic value (give examples)

TYPES Renewable - resources can be replaced through

natural processes (trees, seafood, what else?) Non-renewable - cannon be replaced once removed

from the ground (gold, silver, iron, gemstone, limestone, petroleum, natural gas, coal)

Inexhaustible energy sources - used for producing power - sunlight, geothermal heat, winds, tides

Questions: 1)Why would geographers be concerned about the availability of renewable resources? 2) If resources such as sunlight and wind are inexhaustible, why aren’t they used more? 3) How does high use of natural resources by some countries affect the environment of other countries?

Infrastructure - basic support systems needed to keep an economy going --power, communications, transportation, water, sanitation, education systems

Why is infrastructure so important?

What standards do we use to make comparisons among economies?

-per capita income: average amount of money earned by each person

-GNP: (gross national product) - total value of all good and services produced by a country over a year (or some specified time)GNP can be misleading because of overseas manufacturing

-GDP: (gross domestic product) - total value of all goods and services produced within a country over period of time

Developed nations - high per capita income, varied economy: US, Japan, European nations

Developing nations - low GDP, limited development on all levels• Is Senegal developed or developing?

• Does a country have elements of “developing” and “developed” within it?