Ethics, Gross National Products Ethics

Gross National Product

Tariff barriers

Ethics

Ethics is a branch of Philosophy and deals with the basics questions about right and wrong, virtue and vice, as well as good or bad nature of things human beings do in their daily lives. Thus, ethics is essentially related to the moral aspect of things. A thing, act, or idea of practice might be legally correct but may not be morally sound in given conditions. For instance, the pursuit of profit by firms is legally correct but ignorance to the well being of society in which that firm operates is morally incorrect. Essentials of ethics: The essential elements of ethics are related to the character of actions being taken by the human beings. The topic essentially deals with the behavior and its outcomes with respect to the impact created on fellow human beings and society as a collective social unit. Following are some of the main branches of ethics that are essential to be studied for framing the ethics related problems in appropriate context. Normative ethics: This essential branch of ethics deals with the theory of moral positions to be taken ideally, irrespective of the environmental factors prevalent at the time of action. The normative ethics questions the basic foundations of an action based on idea of right and wrong. Descriptive and meta-ethics: The former is related to the study of moral beliefs of population under study whereas meta-ethics explores the meanings held by each moral action. Business ethics is the term that is related to set of principles that apply in business environment and in the pursuit of economic activity.

Major article summary:

The article written by Hofstede and Bond (1988) related to ethics that is the main article analyzed in this paper. The article is regarding the ethical aspect of economic progress made by the East Asian and South East Asian economies during the last two decades. The authors have traced back this progress to the teachings of Confucius. Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan have displayed tremendous growth in Gross national product (GNP) of their countries through superior economic progress. The authors have associated this exceptional economic progress to the culture of Asian region. Confucian ethics are embedded in the East Asian societies that strive collectively to progress themselves. Thus, an ethical aspect of collective behavior in economic domain of life is investigated. The authors have concluded that IBM's cultural survey regarding firm's performance in each country can help identify that East Asian cultures are based on ethics-based business philosophy of Confucius.

Easterlin (1995) investigated that whether or not rising incomes are associated to rising happiness in absolute terms. The author found that rising incomes of all does not guarantee of more happiness as ethical principles and beliefs held by individuals vary regarding the aspects of well being. Benatar (1998) investigated a rather different but interrelated subject of ethics in research and global health. The author observed that unless ethical principles of research are not followed by corporations and powerful researchers, global health issues could not be solved on sustainable basis. Low and Davenport (2005) investigated the important subject of marketing fair-trade products through mainstream and commercial marketing channels unlike traditionally used alternate means of marketing. The authors have raised morality related questions regarding this practice. All these articles are related to the primary article being reviewed on the subject of ethics. All cited works on ethics are related to each other in the context of ethical principles of engaging in economic activity. Thus, it is found through this research that ethical principles of economic and business activity are embedded in the culture of people and although the culture is somewhat constant part of the lives of people, it is vulnerable to change through outside influences of materialism.

Gross National Product

Definition:

Gross National product (GNP) is termed as the given market value of products as well as services produced during one fiscal year by the population of a country and the assets these people hold, whether locally or aboard.

Main elements:

The main elements of GNP that are important for understanding the real difference between Gross domestic product (GDP) and GNP are:

In GDP only domestically produced goods and services are accounted in calculating GDP. In GNP calculation, all goods and services produced by the citizens of a country, domestically and abroad, is included in the calculation of GNP. GNP was essentially used as an indicator of...

The author has tried to link the level of GNP and its association with the nutrition levels of its citizens. Income and fat intakes have been shown as correlated in this article and the broader relationship between this is assumed as being GNP. Since an increased economic activity taken places as more goods and services and produced by the citizens of a nation, there are multiple benefits and advantages that this activity generates.
Other articles:

Other studies have also been researched in the context of impact of GNP on the population segments that have medium purchasing power. Campello (2003) argued that there was much need to carrying out an investigation regarding impact of capital structure of organizations on the GNP of the country in which the company operates. Firms that heavily rely on the external financing source cut down on the investments when there is an imminent threat of failure of economy. Thus, the impact of such panic is in the form of yet no progress in reforming existing system. Guenther and Young (2000) carried out the research that what is the real economic impact of financial accounting standards on the real economic activity in the countries. The author found out that U.K and U.S.A were found to have addressed the age long social benefit and that is to increase public investment in the commercial sectors. Stimpert & Duhaime (1997) carried out the research regarding what is the impact of industry context on the overall performance of the firm. Lau & Wright (2000) observed that strategy of the firm has also an important role in emerging economies. The emerging economies have recently reported higher GNP and that is linked to the firm level strategy abroad and in the domestic market where the firm operates. Marmot (2005) observed that there was a direct and positive relationship between GNP per person of a country and life expectancy rate of that country. This implies that higher GNP increases the life expectancy of citizens of a country. The first article is linked to the other four articles cited in the context of GNP and it is observed that the private sector of a country plays the most vital part in GNP of a country. The firm's strategy, it is observed, has also a significant impact on the emerging economies.

Tariff barriers

Definition:

These are essentially the duties imposed on trade of goods and services. These duties create hurdle in the smooth trade function of goods and services between countries. These tariff barriers are also imposed as 'import' or 'export' restraints by the countries in order to regulate the amount of specific goods that the governments intend to import or export and beyond the limit of that restraint, import or export is levied with heavy duties. Ad valorem is one of the popular forms of tariff barrier as it is the duty that is imposed on import of goods based on their market value of that good/service.

Essential elements:

The most essential elements of understanding tariff barrier are its differentiation from non-tariff barrier. The non-tariff barriers are duties that are not imposed as import duties directly imposed on the importing firm but in form of anti-dumping duties and is aimed to encourage non-discriminatory trade environment for host countries' firms.

Summary of main article:

Milner, Morrissey and Rudaheranwa (2000) have researched the policy and non-policy trade barriers to the conduct of free trade. The trade barriers are usually the tariff barriers enforced by the governments of respective countries in order to gain influence over the import market of a country. The author has written this article in context of trade policy of Uganda and observed that the country has reduced all the export bans and import restrictions that were imposed in the country in form of tariff barriers. The authors have also observed that these tariff barriers are just one additional over all barriers to the conduct of free trade in a country. Other's was observed as being the poor infrastructure cost, and transaction costs in such countries like Uganda. The article is concluded by stating that transport cost (tax) is one of the main costs of exporting in certain countries. This implies that tariff barriers are not the only barriers to trade that governments may use to gain control of trade.

Other articles:

Yue, Beghin and Jensen (2006) have researched the topic of technical barrier to trade (TBT). The authors have observed…