Business
Assignment #1
Complete the assignment and upload on Canvas. The assignment is worth 50 points and it is due October 4th by midnight. You need to review the textbook and the additional publications found in the folder for assignment 1 to answer the questions.
Complete and submit your word document including ONLY your numbered answers. Make sure the number matches the question you are answering.
Part 1: U.S. TRADE AND IMPACT (20 points)
TRADE PARTNERS. Look at the current Top U.S. Trade Partners tables (click on the following link to go to the URL address with the publication: Trading partners link) and answer the following questions:
1. Which three countries are the top Exporters into the U.S. from the December 2020 year to date figures? List them in order from high to low in terms of their value in U.S. Dollars (round to billions) as well as their percentage of total exports.
2. Which are the top three importers into the U.S.? List them in order from high to low in terms of their value in U.S. Dollars (round to billions) as well as their percentage of total imports.
3. How much (in percentage) of the total trade for 2020 correspond to the top three trading partners COMBINED? (Hint: you must calculate the percentage yourself by adding their individual percentages)
SUPPORTED JOBS. Print or download the following 4 publications from Canvas so you can look at them with ease: Jobs supported by state
Jobs supported by FDI
Jobs supported by export destination 2015
Exports FDI Texas
From the information in these publications, answer the following questions:
4. How many jobs in the U.S. were supported by 2015 export of total goods?
5. How many total jobs in the U.S. were supported by FDI in the U.S. (direct and indirect) in 2013?
6. Which state’s exports supported the highest number of jobs? How many? Which state was number 2?
7. Which are the top 2 industries in Texas for exports?
8. What is the dollar value of Texas exports going to Mexico (in billions)?
9. Many people in Texas are employed by foreign owned firms. Which countries are the top 5 foreign-employers in Texas?
10. What percentage of the exports from Texas are originated in the Dallas/Fort Worth/Arlington area? Which area is number one?
Part 2: CARBON FOOTPRINT (10 points)
The first part of the assignment relates to module 4 (sustainability and natural resources). Visit the following website and answer the questions to find out what is your "carbon footprint". This exercise is a good way of knowing how much of a carbon footprint you have and hopefully gets you thinking about what things you can do to do your share in saving energy and saving the planet! Go to this link to begin:
http://www3.epa.gov/carbon-footprint-calculator/
11. What is your carbon footprint score?
12. Do you think you can lower your carbon footprint? How? Or why not?
Part 3: ECONOMIC AND POLTICAL FORCES (10 points)
Part two of the assignment relates to module 5 (political forces). You will first learn about what is economic freedom and then you will select a country to analyze its score. The Index of Economic Freedom is published by the Heritage Foundation every year and it ranks most countries from mostly free to mostly unfree.
(See explanation of the index measures here: (https://www.heritage.org/index/about ).
· Select a country that starts with the first letter of your last name (i.e. Brazil for Barua). If there is no country with your letter, then use the first letter of your first name. Once you select a country, find that country in the Index of Economic Freedom list:
https://www.heritage.org/index/
13. Which country did you select?
14. Take a look at the entire information about your selected country and try to understand why it has that standing of economic freedom. Summarize in one paragraph this country’s standing in the economic freedom index.
15. Explain the highest/lowest individual items in this country’s score. What explains that high or low score?
16. How is your country doing compared to others in its region?
17. How is your country doing compared to the United States
Part 4: CONCLUSION(10 points)
18. What did you learn from this assignment? Summarize in your own words in one to two paragraphs (maximum) what is your take away from this assignment.