1.
Fiscal year
–
A fiscal year is the period used by governments for accounting and budget purposes, which vary between countries. It is also used for reporting by business and other organizations. Taxation laws generally require accounting records to be maintained and taxes calculated on an annual basis, the calculation of tax on an annual basis is especially relevant for direct taxation, such as income tax. Many annual government fees—such as Council rates, licence fees, etc. —are also levied on a year basis. The fiscal year end is the date marks the end of the fiscal year. Some companies—such as Cisco Systems—end their fiscal year on the day of the week each year. Under such a system, some years will have 52 weeks. Many universities have a year which ends during the summer. In the northern hemisphere this is July to the next June, in the southern hemisphere this is calendar year, January to December. Some media/communication-based organizations use a broadcast calendar as the basis for their fiscal year, the American football league NFL uses the term league year, which in effect forms the leagues fiscal year. In Afghanistan, the year was recently changed from 1 Hamal –29 Hoot to 1 Jadi –30 Qaus. The fiscal year runs with the Afghan calendar, thus resulting in difference of the Gregorian dates once in a four-year span, in Australia, a fiscal year is commonly called a financial year and starts on 1 July and ends on the next 30 June. Financial years are designated by the year of the second half of the period. For example, financial year 2017 is the 12-month period ending on 30 June 2017 and it is used for official purposes, by individual taxpayers and by the overwhelming majority of business enterprises. Business enterprises may opt to use a year that ends at the end of a week. All entities within the one group must use the financial year. The Commonwealth adopted the near-ubiquitous financial year standard since its inception in 1901, the reason given for the change was for convenience, as Parliament typically sits during May and June, while it was difficult for it to meet in November and December to pass a budget. In Austria the fiscal year is the year,1 January to 31 December
Fiscal year
–
Accounting
2.
Gross domestic product
–
Gross Domestic Product is a monetary measure of the market value of all final goods and services produced in a period. Nominal GDP estimates are used to determine the economic performance of a whole country or region. The OECD defines GDP as a measure of production equal to the sum of the gross values added of all resident and institutional units engaged in production. ”An IMF publication states that GDP measures the monetary value of final goods and services - that is. Total GDP can also be broken down into the contribution of industry or sector of the economy. The ratio of GDP to the population of the region is the per capita GDP. William Petty came up with a concept of GDP to defend landlords against unfair taxation during warfare between the Dutch and the English between 1652 and 1674. Charles Davenant developed the method further in 1695, the modern concept of GDP was first developed by Simon Kuznets for a US Congress report in 1934. In this report, Kuznets warned against its use as a measure of welfare, after the Bretton Woods conference in 1944, GDP became the main tool for measuring a countrys economy. The switch from GNP to GDP in the US was in 1991, the history of the concept of GDP should be distinguished from the history of changes in ways of estimating it. The value added by firms is relatively easy to calculate from their accounts, but the value added by the sector, by financial industries. GDP can be determined in three ways, all of which should, in principle, give the same result and they are the production approach, the income approach, or the expenditure approach. The most direct of the three is the approach, which sums the outputs of every class of enterprise to arrive at the total. The income approach works on the principle that the incomes of the factors must be equal to the value of their product. This approach mirrors the OECD definition given above, deduct intermediate consumption from gross value to obtain the gross value added. Gross value added = gross value of output – value of intermediate consumption, value of output = value of the total sales of goods and services plus value of changes in the inventories. The sum of the value added in the various economic activities is known as GDP at factor cost. GDP at factor cost plus indirect taxes less subsidies on products = GDP at producer price, for measuring output of domestic product, economic activities are classified into various sectors. Subtracting each sectors intermediate consumption from gross output gives the GDP at factor cost, adding indirect tax minus subsidies in GDP at factor cost gives the GDP at producer prices
Gross domestic product
–
Selection of GDP PPP data (top 10 countries and blocks) in no particular order
3.
Purchasing power parity
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Observed deviations of the exchange rate from purchasing power parity are measured by deviations of the real exchange rate from its PPP value of 1. PPP exchange rates help to minimize misleading international comparisons that can arise with the use of exchange rates. For example, suppose that two countries produce the same amounts of goods as each other in each of two different years. But if one countrys GDP is converted into the countrys currency using PPP exchange rates instead of observed market exchange rates. The idea originated with the School of Salamanca in the 16th century, the best-known purchasing power adjustment is the Geary–Khamis dollar. The real exchange rate is equal to the nominal exchange rate. If purchasing power parity held exactly, then the exchange rate would always equal one. However, in practice the exchange rates exhibit both short run and long run deviations from this value, for example due to reasons illuminated in the Balassa–Samuelson theorem. There can be marked differences between purchasing power adjusted incomes and those converted via market exchange rates. This discrepancy has large implications, for instance, when converted via the exchange rates GDP per capita in India is about US$1,965 while on a PPP basis it is about US$7,197. At the other extreme, Denmarks nominal GDP per capita is around US$62,100, the purchasing power parity exchange rate serves two main functions. PPP exchange rates can be useful for making comparisons between countries because they stay fairly constant from day to day or week to week and only change modestly, if at all, from year to year. The PPP exchange-rate calculation is controversial because of the difficulties of finding comparable baskets of goods to compare purchasing power across countries, people in different countries typically consume different baskets of goods. It is necessary to compare the cost of baskets of goods and this is a difficult task because purchasing patterns and even the goods available to purchase differ across countries. Thus, it is necessary to make adjustments for differences in the quality of goods, furthermore, the basket of goods representative of one economy will vary from that of another, Americans eat more bread, Chinese more rice. Hence a PPP calculated using the US consumption as a base will differ from that calculated using China as a base, additional statistical difficulties arise with multilateral comparisons when more than two countries are to be compared. Various ways of averaging bilateral PPPs can provide a stable multilateral comparison. These are all issues of indexing, as with other price indices there is no way to reduce complexity to a single number that is equally satisfying for all purposes
Purchasing power parity
–
Big Mac hamburgers, like this one from
Japan, are similar worldwide.
Purchasing power parity
–
GDP Per capita by
countries in 2014, calculated using PPP
exchange rates, based on
IMF data.
4.
PPP per capita
–
The gross domestic product per capita figures on this page are derived from PPP calculations. Such calculations are prepared by various organizations, including the International Monetary Fund and this is why GDP per capita is often considered one of the indicators of a countrys standard of living, although this can be problematic because GDP per capita is not a measure of personal income. Several economies which are not considered to be sovereign states are included in the list because they appear in the sources and these economies are not ranked in the following tables, but are listed in sequence for comparison. Non-sovereign entities, former countries or other groupings are marked in italics. All figures are in current Geary–Khamis dollars, more known as international dollars
PPP per capita
–
List of countries by GDP (PPP) per capita by 2014 International Monetary Fund.
5.
Nominal (GDP)
–
Gross Domestic Product is a monetary measure of the market value of all final goods and services produced in a period. Nominal GDP estimates are used to determine the economic performance of a whole country or region. The OECD defines GDP as a measure of production equal to the sum of the gross values added of all resident and institutional units engaged in production. ”An IMF publication states that GDP measures the monetary value of final goods and services - that is. Total GDP can also be broken down into the contribution of industry or sector of the economy. The ratio of GDP to the population of the region is the per capita GDP. William Petty came up with a concept of GDP to defend landlords against unfair taxation during warfare between the Dutch and the English between 1652 and 1674. Charles Davenant developed the method further in 1695, the modern concept of GDP was first developed by Simon Kuznets for a US Congress report in 1934. In this report, Kuznets warned against its use as a measure of welfare, after the Bretton Woods conference in 1944, GDP became the main tool for measuring a countrys economy. The switch from GNP to GDP in the US was in 1991, the history of the concept of GDP should be distinguished from the history of changes in ways of estimating it. The value added by firms is relatively easy to calculate from their accounts, but the value added by the sector, by financial industries. GDP can be determined in three ways, all of which should, in principle, give the same result and they are the production approach, the income approach, or the expenditure approach. The most direct of the three is the approach, which sums the outputs of every class of enterprise to arrive at the total. The income approach works on the principle that the incomes of the factors must be equal to the value of their product. This approach mirrors the OECD definition given above, deduct intermediate consumption from gross value to obtain the gross value added. Gross value added = gross value of output – value of intermediate consumption, value of output = value of the total sales of goods and services plus value of changes in the inventories. The sum of the value added in the various economic activities is known as GDP at factor cost. GDP at factor cost plus indirect taxes less subsidies on products = GDP at producer price, for measuring output of domestic product, economic activities are classified into various sectors. Subtracting each sectors intermediate consumption from gross output gives the GDP at factor cost, adding indirect tax minus subsidies in GDP at factor cost gives the GDP at producer prices
Nominal (GDP)
–
A map of world economies by size of GDP (nominal) in USD,
World Bank, 2014.
6.
Inflation
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In economics, inflation is a sustained increase in the general price level of goods and services in an economy over a period of time resulting in a loss of value of currency. When the price rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods. Consequently, inflation reflects a reduction in the power per unit of money – a loss of real value in the medium of exchange. A chief measure of inflation is the inflation rate, the annualized percentage change in a general price index, usually the consumer price index. The opposite of inflation is deflation, Inflation affects economies in various positive and negative ways. Economists generally believe that high rates of inflation and hyperinflation are caused by a growth of the money supply. However, money supply growth does not necessarily cause inflation, some economists maintain that under the conditions of a liquidity trap, large monetary injections are like pushing on a string. Views on which factors determine low to moderate rates of inflation are more varied, low or moderate inflation may be attributed to fluctuations in real demand for goods and services, or changes in available supplies such as during scarcities. However, the view is that a long sustained period of inflation is caused by money supply growing faster than the rate of economic growth. Today, most economists favor a low and steady rate of inflation, the task of keeping the rate of inflation low and stable is usually given to monetary authorities. Rapid increases in quantity of the money or in the money supply have occurred in many different societies throughout history. By diluting the gold with other metals, the government could issue more coins without also needing to increase the amount of used to make them. When the cost of each coin is lowered in this way and this practice would increase the money supply but at the same time the relative value of each coin would be lowered. As the relative value of the coins becomes lower, consumers would need to give more coins in exchange for the same goods and these goods and services would experience a price increase as the value of each coin is reduced. Song Dynasty China introduced the practice of printing paper money in order to create fiat currency, during the Mongol Yuan Dynasty, the government spent a great deal of money fighting costly wars, and reacted by printing more money, leading to inflation. Fearing the inflation that plagued the Yuan dynasty, the Ming Dynasty initially rejected the use of paper money, historically, large infusions of gold or silver into an economy also led to inflation. This was largely caused by the influx of gold and silver from the New World into Habsburg Spain. The silver spread throughout a previously cash-starved Europe and caused widespread inflation, demographic factors also contributed to upward pressure on prices, with European population growth after depopulation caused by the Black Death pandemic
Inflation
–
Two 20 kr gold coins from the
Scandinavian Monetary Union, a historical example of an international gold standard.
Inflation
–
Annual inflation rates in the United States from 1666 to 2004.
7.
Consumer price index
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A consumer price index measures changes in the price level of market basket of consumer goods and services purchased by households. The CPI is a statistical estimate constructed using the prices of a sample of items whose prices are collected periodically. It is one of several price indices calculated by most national statistical agencies, the annual percentage change in a CPI is used as a measure of inflation. A CPI can be used to index the real value of wages, salaries, pensions, for regulating prices, in most countries, the CPI is, along with the population census one of the most closely watched national economic statistics. Basic types of data that are needed to construct the CPI, price data, the price data are collected for a sample of goods and services from a sample of sales outlets in a sample of locations for a sample of times. The weighting data are estimates of the shares of the different types of expenditure in the total expenditure covered by the index, therefore, the sampling variance cannot be calculated. In any case, an estimate is required in most of the purposes for which the index is used. These indices compare prices each month with prices in the price-reference month and it takes time to assemble and process the information used for weighting which, in addition to household expenditure surveys, may include trade and tax data. Ideally, the weights would relate to the composition of expenditure during the time between the month and the current month. There is a large technical economics literature on index formulae which would approximate this, such an index would show how consumer expenditure would have to move to compensate for price changes so as to allow consumers to maintain a constant standard of living. Approximations can only be computed retrospectively, whereas the index has to appear monthly and, preferably, the coverage of the index may be limited. Saving and investment are always excluded, though the prices paid for services provided by financial intermediaries may be included along with insurance. The index reference period, usually called the year, often differs both from the weight-reference period and the price reference period. This is just a matter of rescaling the whole time-series to make the value for the index reference-period equal to 100. Current Item Price = Base Year Price × Current CPI Base Year CPI or CPI2 CPI1 = Price 2 Price 1 Where 1 is usually the comparison year, alternatively, the CPI can be performed as CPI = updated cost base period cost ×100. The updated cost is divided by that of the initial year, many but not all price indices are weighted averages using weights that sum to 1 or 100. Example, The prices of 85,000 items from 22,000 stores, and 35,000 rental units are added together and averaged. They are weighted this way, Housing,41. 4%, Food and Beverage,17. 4%, Transport,17. 0%, Medical Care,6. 9%, Other,6. 9%, Apparel,6. 0%, Entertainment,4. 4%
Consumer price index
–
A graph of the
US CPI from 1913 to 2014 (in blue), and its percentage annual change (in red)
8.
Poverty threshold
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The poverty threshold, poverty limit or poverty line is the minimum level of income deemed adequate in a particular country. In practice, like the definition of poverty, the official or common understanding of the poverty line is higher in developed countries than in developing countries. In 2008, the World Bank came out with a figure of $1.25 at 2005 purchasing-power parity, the new IPL replaces the $1.25 per day figure, which used 2005 data. Most scholars agree that it better reflects todays reality, particularly new price levels in developing countries, the common international poverty line has in the past been roughly $1 a day. At present the percentage of the population living under extreme poverty is likely to fall below 10% according to the World Bank projections released in 2015. Determining the poverty line is usually done by finding the total cost of all the resources that an average human adult consumes in one year. Individual factors are used to account for various circumstances, such as whether one is a parent, elderly. The poverty threshold may be adjusted annually, charles Booth, a pioneering investigator of poverty in London at the turn of the 20th century, popularised the idea of a poverty line, a concept originally conceived by the London School Board. Booth set the line at 10 to 20 shillings per week, to secure the necessaries of a healthy life, which included fuel and light, rent, food, clothing, and household and personal items. Based on data from leading nutritionists of the period, he calculated the cheapest price for the minimum calorific intake and nutritional balance necessary and he considered this amount to set his poverty line and concluded that 27. 84% of the total population of York lived below this poverty line. Rowntree distinguished between primary poverty, those lacking in income and secondary poverty, those who had enough income, Absolute poverty is the level of poverty as defined in terms of the minimal requirements necessary to afford minimal standards of food, clothing, health care and shelter. For the measure to be absolute, the line must be the same in different countries, cultures, such an absolute measure should look only at the individuals power to consume and it should be independent of any changes in income distribution. Notice that if real income in an economy increases. Measuring poverty by a threshold has the advantage of applying the same standard across different locations and time periods. For example, a living in far northern Scandinavia requires a source of heat during colder months. The term absolute poverty is sometimes used as a synonym for extreme poverty. Absolute poverty is the absence of resources to secure basic life necessities. It depends not only on income but also on access to services, safe drinking water, Water must not come solely from rivers and ponds, and must be available nearby
Poverty threshold
–
Percentage of population living on less than
$ 1.25 per day.
UN estimates 2000–2007.
9.
Gini coefficient
–
The Gini coefficient is a measure of statistical dispersion intended to represent the income or wealth distribution of a nations residents, and is the most commonly used measure of inequality. It was developed by the Italian statistician and sociologist Corrado Gini, the Gini coefficient measures the inequality among values of a frequency distribution. A Gini coefficient of zero expresses perfect equality, where all values are the same, a Gini coefficient of 1 expresses maximal inequality among values. However, a greater than one may occur if some persons represent negative contribution to the total. For larger groups, values close to or above 1 are very unlikely in practice, the exception to this is in the redistribution of wealth resulting in a minimum income for all people. When the population is sorted, if their distribution were to approximate a well known function. The Gini coefficient was proposed by Gini as a measure of inequality of income or wealth, the global income Gini coefficient in 2005 has been estimated to be between 0.61 and 0.68 by various sources. There are some issues in interpreting a Gini coefficient, the same value may result from many different distribution curves. The demographic structure should be taken into account, Countries with an aging population, or with a baby boom, experience an increasing pre-tax Gini coefficient even if real income distribution for working adults remains constant. Scholars have devised over a dozen variants of the Gini coefficient, the line at 45 degrees thus represents perfect equality of incomes. The Gini coefficient can then be thought of as the ratio of the area lies between the line of equality and the Lorenz curve over the total area under the line of equality. It is also equal to 2A and to 1 - 2B due to the fact that A + B =0.5. If all people have non-negative income, the Gini coefficient can theoretically range from 0 to 1, in practice, both extreme values are not quite reached. If negative values are possible, then the Gini coefficient could theoretically be more than 1, normally the mean is assumed positive, which rules out a Gini coefficient less than zero. An alternative approach would be to consider the Gini coefficient as half of the mean absolute difference. The effects of income policy due to redistribution can be seen in the linear relationships. An informative simplified case just distinguishes two levels of income, low and high, if the high income group is u % of the population and earns a fraction f % of all income, then the Gini coefficient is f − u. An actual more graded distribution with these same values u and f will always have a higher Gini coefficient than f − u, the proverbial case where the richest 20% have 80% of all income would lead to an income Gini coefficient of at least 60%
Gini coefficient
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Graphical representation of the Gini coefficient The graph shows that the Gini coefficient is equal to the area marked A divided by the sum of the areas marked A and B, that is, Gini = A / (A + B). It is also equal to 2* A due to the fact that A + B = 0.5 (since the axes scale from 0 to 1).
10.
List of countries by Gini index
–
This is a list of countries or dependencies by income inequality metrics, including Gini coefficients. The Gini coefficient is a number between 0 and 1, where 0 corresponds with perfect equality and 1 corresponds with perfect inequality, income distribution can vary greatly from wealth distribution in a country. Income from black market activity is not included and is the subject of current economic research. Click sorting buttons to sort alphabetically or numerically, can sort in ascending or descending order. The row number column on the left sorts independently from the columns to the right of it. CIA and this book released with two titles, depending on country of publication. However, the ISBN remains the same, global Peace Index Map of Gini data for 2007–2010 Shadow economies all over the world, new estimates for 162 countries from 1999 to 2007. Friedrich Schneider, Andreas Buehn, Claudio E. Montenegro
List of countries by Gini index
–
Countries' income inequality (2014) according to their Gini coefficients: red = high, green = low inequality
11.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
United States
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Native Americans meeting with Europeans, 1764
United States
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Flag
United States
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The signing of the
Mayflower Compact, 1620.
United States
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The
Declaration of Independence: the
Committee of Five presenting their draft to the
Second Continental Congress in 1776
12.
Guatemala
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With an estimated population of around 15.8 million, it is the most populated state in Central America. Guatemala is a democracy, its capital and largest city is Nueva Guatemala de la Asunción. The territory of modern Guatemala once formed the core of the Maya civilization, most of the country was conquered by the Spanish in the 16th century, becoming part of the viceroyalty of New Spain. Guatemala attained independence in 1821 as part of the Federal Republic of Central America, from the mid to late 19th century, Guatemala experienced chronic instability and civil strife. Beginning in the early 20th century, it was ruled by a series of dictators backed by the United Fruit Company, in 1944, authoritarian leader Jorge Ubico was overthrown by a pro-democratic military coup, initiating a decade-long revolution that led to sweeping social and economic reforms. A U. S. -backed military coup in 1954 ended the revolution, from 1960 to 1996, Guatemala endured a bloody civil war fought between the US-backed government and leftist rebels, including genocidal massacres of the Maya population perpetrated by the military. As of 2014, Guatemala ranks 31st of 33 Latin American and Caribbean countries in terms of the Human Development Index, Guatemalas abundance of biologically significant and unique ecosystems includes a large number of endemic species and contributes to Mesoamericas designation as a biodiversity hotspot. The country is known for its rich and distinct culture. The name Guatemala comes from the Nahuatl word Cuauhtēmallān, or place of many trees and this was the name the Tlaxcaltecan soldiers who accompanied Pedro de Alvarado during the Spanish Conquest gave to this territory. The first evidence of habitation in Guatemala dates back to 12,000 BC. Evidence, such as obsidian arrowheads found in parts of the country. There is archaeological proof that early Guatemalan settlers were hunters and gatherers, pollen samples from Petén and the Pacific coast indicate that maize cultivation had been developed by 3500 BC. Sites dating back to 6500 BC have been found in the Quiché region in the Highlands, archaeologists divide the pre-Columbian history of Mesoamerica into the Preclassic period, the Classic period, and the Postclassic period. Until recently, the Preclassic was regarded as a period, with small villages of farmers who lived in huts. This period is characterized by urbanisation, the emergence of independent city-states and this lasted until approximately 900 AD, when the Classic Maya civilization collapsed. The Maya abandoned many of the cities of the lowlands or were killed off by a drought-induced famine. The cause of the collapse is debated, but the Drought Theory is gaining currency, supported by such as lakebeds, ancient pollen. A series of prolonged droughts, among other such as overpopulation, in what is otherwise a seasonal desert is thought to have decimated the Maya
Guatemala
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Tikal Mayan ruins.
Guatemala
–
Flag
Guatemala
–
The Conquistador
Pedro de Alvarado led the initial Spanish efforts to conquer Guatemala.
Guatemala
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Criollos rejoice upon learning about the declaration of independence from Spain on September 15, 1821.
13.
Honduras
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Honduras, officially the Republic of Honduras, is a republic in Central America. It has at times referred to as Spanish Honduras to differentiate it from British Honduras. Honduras was home to several important Mesoamerican cultures, most notably the Maya, the Spanish introduced Roman Catholicism and the now predominant Spanish language, along with numerous customs that have blended with the indigenous culture. Honduras has the worlds highest murder rate, Honduras spans about 112,492 km2 and has a population exceeding 8 million. Its northern portions are part of the Western Caribbean Zone, as reflected in the areas demographics and culture. Honduras is known for its natural resources, including minerals, coffee, tropical fruit, and sugar cane, as well as for its growing textiles industry. Honduras literally means depths in Spanish, the name could either refer to the bay of Trujillo as an anchorage, fondura in the Leonese dialect of Spanish, or to Columbuss alleged quote that Gracias a Dios que hemos salido de esas Honduras. It was not until the end of the 16th century that Honduras was used for the whole province, prior to 1580, Honduras only referred to the eastern part of the province, and Higueras referred to the western part. Another early name is Guaymuras, revived as the name for the dialogue in 2009 that took place in Honduras as opposed to Costa Rica. In pre-Columbian times, modern Honduras was part of the Mesoamerican cultural area, in the west, the Maya civilization flourished for hundreds of years. The dominant state within Hondurass borders was in Copán, Copán fell with the other Lowland centres during the conflagrations of the Terminal Classic in the 9th century. The Maya of this civilization survive in western Honduras as the Chorti, remains of other Pre-Columbian cultures are found throughout the country. On 30 July 1502 Columbus sent his brother Bartholomew to explore the islands and Bartholomew encountered a Mayan trading vessel from Yucatán, carrying well-dressed Maya and a rich cargo. Bartholomews men stole whatever cargo they wanted and kidnapped the elderly captain to serve as an interpreter in what was the first recorded encounter between the Spanish and the Maya. In March 1524, Gil González Dávila became the first Spaniard to enter Honduras as a conquistador, followed by Hernán Cortés, bringing forces down from Mexico. Much of the conquest was done in the two decades, first by groups loyal to Cristóbal de Olid, and then by those loyal of Francisco Montejo. In addition to Spanish resources, the conquerors relied heavily on armed forces from Mexico—Tlaxcalans, resistance to conquest was led in particular by Lempira, and many regions in the north never fell to the Spanish, notably the Miskito Kingdom. After the Spanish conquest, Honduras became part of Spains vast empire in the New World within the Kingdom of Guatemala, Trujillo and Gracias were the first city-capitals
Honduras
–
A
Maya stela, an emblematic symbol of the Honduran Mayan civilization at Copan.
Honduras
–
Flag
Honduras
–
Gil González Dávila
Honduras
–
Hernán Cortés, fue uno de los conquistadores de Honduras.
14.
Nicaragua
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Nicaragua, officially the Republic of Nicaragua, is the largest country in the Central American isthmus. Nicaraguas capital, Managua, is the countrys largest city and the third-largest city in Central America, the multi-ethnic population of six million includes indigenous peoples, Europeans, Africans, and Asians. Native tribes on the eastern coast speak their own languages, the Spanish Empire conquered the region in the 16th century. Nicaragua gained independence from Spain in 1821, since its independence, Nicaragua has undergone periods of political unrest, dictatorship, and fiscal crisis—the most notable causes that led to the Nicaraguan Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s. Nicaragua is a democratic republic. The biological diversity, warm climate and active volcanoes make Nicaragua an increasingly popular tourist destination. The name Nicaragua was coined by Spanish colonists based on the name Nicarao, when Spaniard Gil González Dávila came to Nicaragua in 1521 he found in the areas between Rivas and San Jorge the first pre-Columbian natives of Nicaragua. At the time the city was called Quauhcapolca and the cacique leaders name was Macuilmiquiztli. The Pipil migrated to Nicaragua from central Mexico after 500 BC, meanwhile, the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua was inhabited by other peoples, mostly Chibcha language groups. They had coalesced in Central America and migrated also to present-day northern Colombia and they lived a life based primarily on hunting and gathering. In 1502, Christopher Columbus became the first European known to have reached what is now Nicaragua as he sailed southeast toward the Isthmus of Panama, on his fourth voyage, Columbus explored the Miskito Coast on the Atlantic side of Nicaragua. The Spanish attempted to convert all three tribes to Christianity, Nicaragua and Nicarao and their people converted, but Dirangen, however, did not, the first attempt to conquer what is now known as Nicaragua was by Gil González Dávila, who arrived in Panama in January 1520. The first Spanish permanent settlements were founded in 1524, conquistador Francisco Hernández de Córdoba founded two of Nicaraguas principal towns in 1524, Granada on Lake Nicaragua was the first settlement, followed by León at a location west of Lake Managua. Córdoba soon built defenses for the cities and fought against incursions by other conquistadors, Córdoba was later publicly beheaded following a power struggle with Pedro Arias Dávila. His tomb and remains were discovered in 2000 in the ruins of León Viejo, the clashes among Spanish forces did not impede their destruction of the indigenous people and their culture. The series of battles came to be known as the War of the Captains, Pedro Arias Dávila was a winner, although he had lost control of Panama, he moved to Nicaragua and successfully established his base in León. Through adroit diplomatic machinations, he became the first governor of the colony, many indigenous people died as a result of new infectious diseases, compounded by neglect by the Spaniards, who controlled their subsistence. In 1610, the Momotombo volcano erupted, destroying the capital and it was rebuilt northwest of what is now known as the ruins of Old León
Nicaragua
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2,100-year-old human footprints called "huellas de acahualinca" preserved in volcanic mud near
Lake Managua.
Nicaragua
–
Flag
Nicaragua
–
The Colonial
City of Granada near
Lake Nicaragua, is one of the most visited sites in
Central America.
Nicaragua
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The
Fortress of the Immaculate Conception was constructed in the late 17th century to protect locals in neighboring
Granada from
pirate attacks. Today, it is one of Nicaragua's main tourist attractions.
15.
Colombia
–
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a transcontinental country largely situated in the northwest of South America, with territories in Central America. Colombia shares a border to the northwest with Panama, to the east with Venezuela and Brazil and to the south with Ecuador and it shares its maritime limits with Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Jamaica, Haiti and the Dominican Republic. It is a unitary, constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments, the territory of what is now Colombia was originally inhabited by indigenous peoples including the Muisca, the Quimbaya and the Tairona. The Spanish arrived in 1499 and initiated a period of conquest and colonization ultimately creating the Viceroyalty of New Granada, independence from Spain was won in 1819, but by 1830 the Gran Colombia Federation was dissolved. What is now Colombia and Panama emerged as the Republic of New Granada, the new nation experimented with federalism as the Granadine Confederation, and then the United States of Colombia, before the Republic of Colombia was finally declared in 1886. Since the 1960s the country has suffered from an asymmetric low-intensity armed conflict, Colombia is one of the most ethnically and linguistically diverse countries in the world, and thereby possesses a rich cultural heritage. Cultural diversity has also influenced by Colombias varied geography. The urban centres are located in the highlands of the Andes mountains. Colombian territory also encompasses Amazon rainforest, tropical grassland and both Caribbean and Pacific coastlines, ecologically, it is one of the worlds 17 megadiverse countries, and the most densely biodiverse of these per square kilometer. Colombia is a power and a regional actor with the fourth-largest economy in Latin America, is part of the CIVETS group of six leading emerging markets and is an accessing member to the OECD. Colombia has an economy with macroeconomic stability and favorable growth prospects in the long run. The name Colombia is derived from the last name of Christopher Columbus and it was conceived by the Venezuelan revolutionary Francisco de Miranda as a reference to all the New World, but especially to those portions under Spanish and Portuguese rule. The name was adopted by the Republic of Colombia of 1819. When Venezuela, Ecuador and Cundinamarca came to exist as independent states, New Granada officially changed its name in 1858 to the Granadine Confederation. In 1863 the name was changed, this time to United States of Colombia. To refer to country, the Colombian government uses the terms Colombia. Owing to its location, the present territory of Colombia was a corridor of early human migration from Mesoamerica, the oldest archaeological finds are from the Pubenza and El Totumo sites in the Magdalena Valley 100 km southwest of Bogotá. These sites date from the Paleoindian period, at Puerto Hormiga and other sites, traces from the Archaic Period have been found
Colombia
–
San Agustín Archaeological Park
Colombia
Colombia
–
Lost City
Colombia
–
Muisca raft. The figure refers to the ceremony of the legend of
El Dorado. The legend and the gold would play a pivotal role in luring Europeans to New Granada during the 16th and 17th centuries.
16.
China
–
China, officially the Peoples Republic of China, is a unitary sovereign state in East Asia and the worlds most populous country, with a population of over 1.381 billion. The state is governed by the Communist Party of China and its capital is Beijing, the countrys major urban areas include Shanghai, Guangzhou, Beijing, Chongqing, Shenzhen, Tianjin and Hong Kong. China is a power and a major regional power within Asia. Chinas landscape is vast and diverse, ranging from forest steppes, the Himalaya, Karakoram, Pamir and Tian Shan mountain ranges separate China from much of South and Central Asia. The Yangtze and Yellow Rivers, the third and sixth longest in the world, respectively, Chinas coastline along the Pacific Ocean is 14,500 kilometers long and is bounded by the Bohai, Yellow, East China and South China seas. China emerged as one of the worlds earliest civilizations in the basin of the Yellow River in the North China Plain. For millennia, Chinas political system was based on hereditary monarchies known as dynasties, in 1912, the Republic of China replaced the last dynasty and ruled the Chinese mainland until 1949, when it was defeated by the communist Peoples Liberation Army in the Chinese Civil War. The Communist Party established the Peoples Republic of China in Beijing on 1 October 1949, both the ROC and PRC continue to claim to be the legitimate government of all China, though the latter has more recognition in the world and controls more territory. China had the largest economy in the world for much of the last two years, during which it has seen cycles of prosperity and decline. Since the introduction of reforms in 1978, China has become one of the worlds fastest-growing major economies. As of 2016, it is the worlds second-largest economy by nominal GDP, China is also the worlds largest exporter and second-largest importer of goods. China is a nuclear weapons state and has the worlds largest standing army. The PRC is a member of the United Nations, as it replaced the ROC as a permanent member of the U. N. Security Council in 1971. China is also a member of numerous formal and informal multilateral organizations, including the WTO, APEC, BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the BCIM, the English name China is first attested in Richard Edens 1555 translation of the 1516 journal of the Portuguese explorer Duarte Barbosa. The demonym, that is, the name for the people, Portuguese China is thought to derive from Persian Chīn, and perhaps ultimately from Sanskrit Cīna. Cīna was first used in early Hindu scripture, including the Mahābhārata, there are, however, other suggestions for the derivation of China. The official name of the state is the Peoples Republic of China. The shorter form is China Zhōngguó, from zhōng and guó and it was then applied to the area around Luoyi during the Eastern Zhou and then to Chinas Central Plain before being used as an occasional synonym for the state under the Qing
China
–
Yinxu, ruins of an ancient
palace dating from the
Shang Dynasty (14th century BCE)
China
–
Flag
China
–
Some of the thousands of life-size
Terracotta Warriors of the
Qin Dynasty, c. 210 BCE
China
–
The
Great Wall of China was built by several dynasties over two thousand years to protect the sedentary agricultural regions of the
Chinese interior from incursions by
nomadic pastoralists of the northern
steppes.
17.
Germany
–
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a federal parliamentary republic in central-western Europe. It includes 16 constituent states, covers an area of 357,021 square kilometres, with about 82 million inhabitants, Germany is the most populous member state of the European Union. After the United States, it is the second most popular destination in the world. Germanys capital and largest metropolis is Berlin, while its largest conurbation is the Ruhr, other major cities include Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Düsseldorf and Leipzig. Various Germanic tribes have inhabited the northern parts of modern Germany since classical antiquity, a region named Germania was documented before 100 AD. During the Migration Period the Germanic tribes expanded southward, beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire. During the 16th century, northern German regions became the centre of the Protestant Reformation, in 1871, Germany became a nation state when most of the German states unified into the Prussian-dominated German Empire. After World War I and the German Revolution of 1918–1919, the Empire was replaced by the parliamentary Weimar Republic, the establishment of the national socialist dictatorship in 1933 led to World War II and the Holocaust. After a period of Allied occupation, two German states were founded, the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic, in 1990, the country was reunified. In the 21st century, Germany is a power and has the worlds fourth-largest economy by nominal GDP. As a global leader in industrial and technological sectors, it is both the worlds third-largest exporter and importer of goods. Germany is a country with a very high standard of living sustained by a skilled. It upholds a social security and universal health system, environmental protection. Germany was a member of the European Economic Community in 1957. It is part of the Schengen Area, and became a co-founder of the Eurozone in 1999, Germany is a member of the United Nations, NATO, the G8, the G20, and the OECD. The national military expenditure is the 9th highest in the world, the English word Germany derives from the Latin Germania, which came into use after Julius Caesar adopted it for the peoples east of the Rhine. This in turn descends from Proto-Germanic *þiudiskaz popular, derived from *þeudō, descended from Proto-Indo-European *tewtéh₂- people, the discovery of the Mauer 1 mandible shows that ancient humans were present in Germany at least 600,000 years ago. The oldest complete hunting weapons found anywhere in the world were discovered in a mine in Schöningen where three 380, 000-year-old wooden javelins were unearthed
Germany
–
The
Nebra sky disk is dated to c. 1600 BC.
Germany
–
Flag
Germany
–
Martin Luther (1483–1546) initiated the
Protestant Reformation.
Germany
–
Foundation of the
German Empire in
Versailles, 1871.
Bismarck is at the center in a white uniform.
18.
External debt
–
External debt is the total debt a country owes to foreign creditors, complemented by internal debt owed to domestic lenders. The debtors can be the government, corporations or citizens of that country, the debt includes money owed to private commercial banks, other governments, or international financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. Note that the use of gross liability figures greatly distorts the ratio for countries which contain major money centers such as the United Kingdom due to Londons role as a financial capital, contrast with net international investment position. In this definition, the IMF defines the key elements as follows, Outstanding, principal and interest When the cost of borrowing is paid periodically, as commonly occurs, it is known as an interest payment. All other payments of economic value by the debtor to the creditor that reduce the amount outstanding are known as principal payments. However, the definition of external debt does not distinguish between principal payments or interest payments, or payments for both, also, the definition does not specify that the timing of the future payments of principal and/or interest need be known for a liability to be classified as debt. Residence To qualify as external debt, the debt liabilities must be owed by a resident to a nonresident, residence is determined by where the debtor and creditor have their centers of economic interest—typically, where they are ordinarily located—and not by their nationality. Current and not contingent Contingent liabilities are not included in the definition of external debt and these are defined as arrangements under which one or more conditions must be fulfilled before a financial transaction takes place. Generally, external debt is classified into four heads, public and publicly guaranteed debt, private non-guaranteed credits, central bank deposits, however, the exact treatment varies from country to country. External-debt-sustainability analysis is conducted in the context of medium-term scenarios. In these analysis, macroeconomic uncertainties, such as the outlook for the current account, high external debt is believed to be harmful for the economy. There are various indicators for determining a sustainable level of external debt, while each has its own advantage and peculiarity to deal with particular situations, there is no unanimous opinion amongst economists as to a sole indicator. These indicators are primarily in the nature of ratios—i. e, comparison between two heads and the relation thereon and thus facilitate the policy makers in their external debt management exercise. Examples of debt burden indicators include the Debt-to-GDP ratio, foreign debt to exports ratio and this set of indicators also covers the structure of the outstanding debt, including, Share of foreign debt, Short-term debt, and Concessional debt in the total debt stock. A second set of indicators focuses on the short-term liquidity requirements of the country with respect to its service obligations. These indicators are not only useful early-warning signs of service problems. The dynamic ratios show how the debt-burden ratios would change in the absence of repayments or new disbursements, an example of a dynamic ratio is the ratio of the average interest rate on outstanding debt to the growth rate of nominal GDP
External debt
19.
List of countries by credit rating
–
The ratings of DBRS, China Chengxin Credit Rating Group, Dagong and JCR are also included. The list also includes all country subdivisions issuing sovereign bonds, but it excludes regions, for S&P, a bond is considered investment grade if its credit rating is BBB- or higher. Bonds rated BB+ and below are considered to be speculative grade, for Fitch, a bond is considered investment grade if its credit rating is BBB- or higher. Bonds rated BB+ and below are considered to be speculative grade, for Moodys, a bond is considered investment grade if its credit rating is Baa3 or higher. Bonds rated Ba1 and below are considered to be speculative grade, for DBRS, a bond is considered investment grade if its credit rating is BBB or higher. Bonds rated BB and below are considered to be speculative grade, Japan Credit Rating Agency is a credit rating agency based in Japan. JCR is a Nationally Recognized Statistical Rating Organization by the U. S. Securities, Dagong is a credit rating agency based in China. Bond credit rating United States federal government credit-rating downgrades
List of countries by credit rating
–
Financial ratings of European States by Standard & Poor's (foreign currency) on 14 July 2015
20.
United States dollar
–
The United States dollar is the official currency of the United States and its insular territories per the United States Constitution. It is divided into 100 smaller cent units, the circulating paper money consists of Federal Reserve Notes that are denominated in United States dollars. The U. S. dollar was originally commodity money of silver as enacted by the Coinage Act of 1792 which determined the dollar to be 371 4/16 grain pure or 416 grain standard silver, the currency most used in international transactions, it is the worlds primary reserve currency. Several countries use it as their currency, and in many others it is the de facto currency. Besides the United States, it is used as the sole currency in two British Overseas Territories in the Caribbean, the British Virgin Islands and Turks and Caicos Islands. A few countries use the Federal Reserve Notes for paper money, while the country mints its own coins, or also accepts U. S. coins that can be used as payment in U. S. dollars. After Nixon shock of 1971, USD became fiat currency, Article I, Section 8 of the U. S. Constitution provides that the Congress has the power To coin money, laws implementing this power are currently codified at 31 U. S. C. Section 5112 prescribes the forms in which the United States dollars should be issued and these coins are both designated in Section 5112 as legal tender in payment of debts. The Sacagawea dollar is one example of the copper alloy dollar, the pure silver dollar is known as the American Silver Eagle. Section 5112 also provides for the minting and issuance of other coins and these other coins are more fully described in Coins of the United States dollar. The Constitution provides that a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and that provision of the Constitution is made specific by Section 331 of Title 31 of the United States Code. The sums of money reported in the Statements are currently being expressed in U. S. dollars, the U. S. dollar may therefore be described as the unit of account of the United States. The word dollar is one of the words in the first paragraph of Section 9 of Article I of the Constitution, there, dollars is a reference to the Spanish milled dollar, a coin that had a monetary value of 8 Spanish units of currency, or reales. In 1792 the U. S. Congress passed a Coinage Act, Section 20 of the act provided, That the money of account of the United States shall be expressed in dollars, or units. And that all accounts in the offices and all proceedings in the courts of the United States shall be kept and had in conformity to this regulation. In other words, this act designated the United States dollar as the unit of currency of the United States, unlike the Spanish milled dollar the U. S. dollar is based upon a decimal system of values. Both one-dollar coins and notes are produced today, although the form is significantly more common
United States dollar
–
Series of 1917
$1 United States bill
United States dollar
–
Federal Reserve Notes
United States dollar
–
Spanish silver real or
peso of 1768
United States dollar
–
Obverse of rare 1934 $500 Federal Reserve Note, featuring a portrait of President
William McKinley.
21.
Macroeconomic
–
Macroeconomics is a branch of economics dealing with the performance, structure, behavior, and decision-making of an economy as a whole. This includes national, regional, and global economies, Macroeconomics and microeconomics, a pair of terms coined by Ragnar Frisch, are the two most general fields in economics. Macroeconomic models and their forecasts are used by governments to assist in the development, Macroeconomics encompasses a variety of concepts and variables, but there are three central topics for macroeconomic research. Macroeconomic theories usually relate the phenomena of output, unemployment, outside of macroeconomic theory, these topics are also important to all economic agents including workers, consumers, and producers. National output is the amount of everything a country produces in a given period of time. Everything that is produced and sold generates an equal amount of income, therefore, output and income are usually considered equivalent and the two terms are often used interchangeably. Output can be measured as total income, or it can be viewed from the side and measured as the total value of final goods. Macroeconomic output is measured by gross domestic product or one of the other national accounts. Economists interest in long-run increases in output study economic growth, advances in technology, accumulation of machinery and other capital, and better education and human capital all lead to increased economic output over time. However, output does not always increase consistently, business cycles can cause short-term drops in output called recessions. Economists look for macroeconomic policies that prevent economies from slipping into recessions, the amount of unemployment in an economy is measured by the unemployment rate, i. e. the percentage of workers without jobs in the labor force. The unemployment rate in the force only includes workers actively looking for jobs. People who are retired, pursuing education, or discouraged from seeking work by a lack of job prospects are excluded, unemployment can be generally broken down into several types that are related to different causes. Classical unemployment theory suggests that unemployment occurs when wages are too high for employers to be willing to hire more workers, other more modern economic theories suggest that increased wages actually decrease unemployment by creating more consumer demand. Structural unemployment covers a variety of causes of unemployment including a mismatch between workers skills and the skills required for open jobs. Large amounts of unemployment can occur when an economy is transitioning industries. While some types of unemployment may occur regardless of the condition of the economy, Okuns law represents the empirical relationship between unemployment and economic growth. The original version of Okuns law states that a 3% increase in output would lead to a 1% decrease in unemployment, a general price increase across the entire economy is called inflation
Macroeconomic
–
World GDP (PPP) per capita by country (2014)
22.
Gini Coefficient
–
The Gini coefficient is a measure of statistical dispersion intended to represent the income or wealth distribution of a nations residents, and is the most commonly used measure of inequality. It was developed by the Italian statistician and sociologist Corrado Gini, the Gini coefficient measures the inequality among values of a frequency distribution. A Gini coefficient of zero expresses perfect equality, where all values are the same, a Gini coefficient of 1 expresses maximal inequality among values. However, a greater than one may occur if some persons represent negative contribution to the total. For larger groups, values close to or above 1 are very unlikely in practice, the exception to this is in the redistribution of wealth resulting in a minimum income for all people. When the population is sorted, if their distribution were to approximate a well known function. The Gini coefficient was proposed by Gini as a measure of inequality of income or wealth, the global income Gini coefficient in 2005 has been estimated to be between 0.61 and 0.68 by various sources. There are some issues in interpreting a Gini coefficient, the same value may result from many different distribution curves. The demographic structure should be taken into account, Countries with an aging population, or with a baby boom, experience an increasing pre-tax Gini coefficient even if real income distribution for working adults remains constant. Scholars have devised over a dozen variants of the Gini coefficient, the line at 45 degrees thus represents perfect equality of incomes. The Gini coefficient can then be thought of as the ratio of the area lies between the line of equality and the Lorenz curve over the total area under the line of equality. It is also equal to 2A and to 1 - 2B due to the fact that A + B =0.5. If all people have non-negative income, the Gini coefficient can theoretically range from 0 to 1, in practice, both extreme values are not quite reached. If negative values are possible, then the Gini coefficient could theoretically be more than 1, normally the mean is assumed positive, which rules out a Gini coefficient less than zero. An alternative approach would be to consider the Gini coefficient as half of the mean absolute difference. The effects of income policy due to redistribution can be seen in the linear relationships. An informative simplified case just distinguishes two levels of income, low and high, if the high income group is u % of the population and earns a fraction f % of all income, then the Gini coefficient is f − u. An actual more graded distribution with these same values u and f will always have a higher Gini coefficient than f − u, the proverbial case where the richest 20% have 80% of all income would lead to an income Gini coefficient of at least 60%
Gini Coefficient
–
Graphical representation of the Gini coefficient The graph shows that the Gini coefficient is equal to the area marked A divided by the sum of the areas marked A and B, that is, Gini = A / (A + B). It is also equal to 2* A due to the fact that A + B = 0.5 (since the axes scale from 0 to 1).
23.
IMF
–
The International Monetary Fund is an international organisation headquartered in Washington, D. C. It now plays a role in the management of balance of payments difficulties. Countries contribute funds to a pool through a system from which countries experiencing balance of payments problems can borrow money. As of 2016, the fund had SDR477 billion, the rationale for this is that private international capital markets function imperfectly and many countries have limited access to financial markets. The IMF provides alternate sources of financing and this assistance was meant to prevent the spread of international economic crises. The IMF was also intended to help mend the pieces of the economy after the Great Depression. As well, to provide investments for economic growth and projects such as infrastructure. The IMFs role was altered by the floating exchange rates post-1971. It shifted to examining the economic policies of countries with IMF loan agreements to determine if a shortage of capital was due to economic fluctuations or economic policy, the IMF also researched what types of government policy would ensure economic recovery. Rather than maintaining a position of oversight of only exchange rates and their role became a lot more active because the IMF now manages economic policy rather than just exchange rates. In addition, the IMF negotiates conditions on lending and loans under their policy of conditionality, nonconcessional loans, which include interest rates, are provided mainly through Stand-By Arrangements, the Flexible Credit Line, the Precautionary and Liquidity Line, and the Extended Fund Facility. The IMF provides emergency assistance via the Rapid Financing Instrument to members facing urgent balance-of-payments needs, the IMF is mandated to oversee the international monetary and financial system and monitor the economic and financial policies of its member countries. This activity is known as surveillance and facilitates international co-operation, the responsibilities changed from those of guardian to those of overseer of members’ policies. In 1995 the International Monetary Fund began work on data dissemination standards with the view of guiding IMF member countries to disseminate their economic and financial data to the public. The executive board approved the SDDS and GDDS in 1996 and 1997 respectively, the system is aimed primarily at statisticians and aims to improve many aspects of statistical systems in a country. It is also part of the World Bank Millennium Development Goals, some countries initially used the GDDS, but later upgraded to SDDS. The IMF does require collateral from countries for loans but also requires the government seeking assistance to correct its macroeconomic imbalances in the form of policy reform, if the conditions are not met, the funds are withheld. The concept of conditionality was introduced in a 1952 Executive Board decision, conditionality is associated with economic theory as well as an enforcement mechanism for repayment
IMF
–
IMF "Headquarters 1" in Washington, D.C.
IMF
–
Coat of arms
IMF
–
The Gold Room within the
Mount Washington Hotel where the
Bretton Woods Conference attendees signed the agreements creating the IMF and
World Bank
IMF
–
First page of the Articles of Agreement of the International Monetary Fund, 1 March 1946. Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs archives
24.
Fiscal policy
–
In economics and political science, fiscal policy is the use of government revenue collection and expenditure to influence the economy. According to Keynesian economics, when the government changes the levels of taxation and government spending, it influences aggregate demand, Fiscal policy often attempts to stabilize the economy over the course of the business cycle. Government spending is fully funded by tax revenue and overall the budget outcome has an effect on the level of economic activity. Expansionary fiscal policy involves government spending exceeding tax revenue, and is undertaken during recessions. It is also known as fiscal policy. Contractionary fiscal policy occurs when government spending is lower than tax revenue, therefore, for purposes of the above definitions, government spending and tax revenue are normally replaced by cyclically adjusted government spending and cyclically adjusted tax revenue. Thus, for example, a government budget that is balanced over the course of the cycle is considered to represent a neutral fiscal policy stance. Governments spend money on a variety of things, from the military and police to services like education and healthcare. These pay interest, either for a period or indefinitely. If the interest and capital requirements are too large, a nation may default on its debts, public debt or borrowing refers to the government borrowing from the public. For this to happen, the propensity to save needs to be strictly positive. Another possibility is that the government might decide to increase its own spending – say, the idea is that the additional government spending creates jobs and lowers the unemployment rate. Governments use fiscal policy to influence the level of demand in the economy, in an effort to achieve economic objectives of price stability, full employment. Keynesians argue this method be used in times of recession or low economic activity as an tool for building the framework for strong economic growth. In theory, the deficits would be paid for by an expanded economy during the boom that would follow. Governments can use a surplus to do two things, to slow the pace of strong economic growth, and to stabilize prices when inflation is too high. Keynesian theory posits that removing spending from the economy will reduce levels of demand and contract the economy. But economists still debate the effectiveness of fiscal stimulus, the argument mostly centers on crowding out, whether government borrowing leads to higher interest rates that may offset the stimulative impact of spending
Fiscal policy
–
Public finance
25.
Revenue
–
In accounting, revenue is the income that a business has from its normal business activities, usually from the sale of goods and services to customers. Revenue is also referred to as sales or turnover, some companies receive revenue from interest, royalties, or other fees. Revenue may refer to income in general, or it may refer to the amount, in a monetary unit, received during a period of time, as in Last year. Profits or net income generally imply total revenue minus total expenses in a given period, in accounting, revenue is often referred to as the top line due to its position on the income statement at the very top. This is to be contrasted with the line which denotes net income. For non-profit organizations, annual revenue may be referred to as gross receipts, in general usage, revenue is income received by an organization in the form of cash or cash equivalents. Sales revenue or revenues is income received from selling goods or services over a period of time, tax revenue is income that a government receives from taxpayers. In more formal usage, revenue is a calculation or estimation of periodic income based on a standard accounting practice or the rules established by a government or government agency. Two common accounting methods, cash basis accounting and accrual basis accounting, corporations that offer shares for sale to the public are usually required by law to report revenue based on generally accepted accounting principles or International Financial Reporting Standards. In a double-entry bookkeeping system, revenue accounts are general ledger accounts that are summarized periodically under the heading Revenue or Revenues on an income statement, Revenue account names describe the type of revenue, such as Repair service revenue, Rent revenue earned or Sales. Money income from activities that are ordinary for a corporation, company, partnership. For some businesses, such as manufacturing and/or grocery, most revenue is from the sale of goods, service businesses such as law firms and barber shops receive most of their revenue from rendering services. Lending businesses such as car rentals and banks receive most of their revenue from fees, Revenues from a businesss primary activities are reported as sales, sales revenue or net sales. This includes product returns and discounts for early payment of invoices, most businesses also have revenue that is incidental to the businesss primary activities, such as interest earned on deposits in a demand account. This is included in revenue but not included in net sales, Sales revenue does not include sales tax collected by the business. Other revenue is revenue from peripheral operations, for example, a company that manufactures and sells automobiles would record the revenue from the sale of an automobile as regular revenue. The combination of all the revenue generating systems of a business is called its revenue model, Revenue is a crucial part of financial statement analysis. The company’s performance is measured to the extent to which its asset inflows compare with its asset outflows, net income is the result of this equation, but revenue typically enjoys equal attention during a standard earnings call
Revenue
–
Accounting
26.
Value-added tax
–
VATs raise about a fifth of total tax revenues both worldwide and among the members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. As of 2014,160 of the worlds approximately 193 countries employ a VAT, there are two main methods of calculating VAT, the credit-invoice or invoice-based method and the subtraction or accounts-based method. The credit-invoice method is the most widely employed method, used by all national VATs except for Japan. The subtraction method VAT is currently used by Japan, although subtraction method VATs. With both methods, there are exceptions in the method for certain goods and transactions, created for either pragmatic collection reasons or to counter tax fraud. Initially directed at businesses, it was extended over time to include all business sectors. In France, it is the most important source of state finance, in this way, the total tax levied at each stage in the economic chain of supply is a constant fraction of the value added by a business. The standard way to implement a value-added tax involves assuming a business owes some fraction on the price of the product minus all taxes paid on the good. By the method of collection, VAT can be accounts-based or invoice-based, under the invoice method of collection, each seller charges VAT rate on his output and passes the buyer a special invoice that indicates the amount of tax charged. Buyers who are subject to VAT on their own sales, consider the tax on the purchase invoices as input tax, the difference between output tax and input tax is paid to the government. Under the accounts based method, no such specific invoices are used, instead, the tax is calculated on the value added, measured as a difference between revenues and allowable purchases. Most countries today use the method, the only exception being Japan. By the timing of collection, VAT can be either accrual or cash based, cash basis accounting is a very simple form of accounting. When a payment is received for the sale of goods or services, a deposit is made, cheques are written when funds are available to pay bills, and the expense is recorded as of the cheque date—regardless of when the expense had been incurred. The primary focus is on the amount of cash in the bank, little effort is made to match revenues to the time period in which they are earned, or to match expenses to the time period in which they are incurred. Accrual basis accounting matches revenues to the period in which they are earned. While it is more complex than cash basis accounting, it provides more information about your business. The accrual basis allows you to track receivables and payables, the accrual basis allows you to match revenues to the expenses incurred in earning them, giving you more meaningful financial reports
Value-added tax
–
4 May 2010 "Campaña no más IVA" in Spain
Value-added tax
–
A Belgian VAT receipt.
27.
Trade deficit
–
The balance of trade, commercial balance, or net exports, is the difference between the monetary value of a nations exports and imports over a certain period. Sometimes a distinction is made between a balance of trade for goods versus one for services, generally trade surplus is seen as positive economic indicator, however in exceptional circumstances a trade deficit is due to government forex policy to achieve other macroeconomic goals. The balance of trade part of the current account, which includes other transactions such as income from the net international investment position as well as international aid. If the current account is in surplus, the net international asset position increases correspondingly. Equally, a deficit decreases the net asset position. The trade balance is identical to the difference between a countrys output and its domestic demand, measuring the balance of trade can be problematic because of problems with recording and collecting data. This cannot be true, because all transactions involve an equal credit or debit in the account of each nation, the discrepancy is widely believed to be explained by transactions intended to launder money or evade taxes, smuggling and other visibility problems. Especially for developing countries, the statistics are likely to be inaccurate. In export-led growth, the balance of trade will shift towards exports during an economic expansion, however, with domestic demand led growth the trade balance will shift towards imports at the same stage in the business cycle. Monetary balance of trade is different from physical balance of trade, developed countries usually import a lot of raw materials from developing countries. Typically, these materials are transformed into finished products. Financial trade balance statistics conceal material flow, most developed countries have a large physical trade deficit, because they consume more raw materials than they produce. Many civil society organisations claim this imbalance is predatory and campaign for ecological debt repayment. S debt that has funded the consumption, the U. S. has a trade surplus with nations such as Australia. The issue of trade deficits can be complex, Trade deficits generated in tradeable goods such as manufactured goods or software may impact domestic employment to different degrees than trade deficits in raw materials. Economies such as Japan and Germany which have savings surpluses, typically run trade surpluses, china, a high-growth economy, has tended to run trade surpluses. A higher savings rate generally corresponds to a trade surplus, correspondingly, the U. S. with its lower savings rate has tended to run high trade deficits, especially with Asian nations. The economist Paul Craig Roberts notes that the comparative advantage principles developed by David Ricardo do not hold where the factors of production are internationally mobile. In 2010, economist Ian Fletcher wrote Free Trade Doesnt Work, What Should Replace It and Why, small trade deficits are generally not considered to be harmful to either the importing or exporting economy
Trade deficit
–
Terminology
Trade deficit
–
Cumulative current account balance 1980–2008 based on
International Monetary Fund data.
28.
International reserve system
–
Reserves are held in one or more reserve currency, mostly the United States dollar and to a lesser extent the Japanese yen. In a strict sense, foreign-exchange reserves should only include foreign banknotes, foreign bank deposits, foreign treasury bills, however, the term in popular usage commonly also adds gold reserves, special drawing rights, and International Monetary Fund reserve positions. This broader figure is readily available, but it is more accurately termed official international reserves or international reserves. Foreign-exchange reserves are called reserve assets in the balance of payments and are located in the capital account, hence, they are usually an important part of the international investment position of a country. The reserves are labeled as reserve assets under assets by functional category, there is no counterpart for reserve assets in liabilities of the International Investment Position. Usually, when the authority of a country has some kind of liability. In the Central Bank’s Balance Sheet, foreign reserves are assets. Official international reserves assets allow a bank to purchase the domestic currency. This is known as Trilemma or Impossible trinity, hence, in a world of perfect capital mobility, a country with fixed exchange rate would not be able to execute an independent monetary policy. Under perfect capital mobility, the change in reserves is a temporary measure, hence, in the long term, the monetary policy has to be adjusted in order to be compatible with that of the country of the base currency. Without that, the country will experience outflows or inflows of capital, fixed pegs were usually used as a form of monetary policy, since attaching the domestic currency to a currency of a country with lower levels of inflation should usually assure convergence of prices. In a pure flexible exchange rate regime or floating exchange rate regime, theoretically, in this case reserves are not necessary. Other instruments of policy are generally used, such as interest rates in the context of an inflation targeting regime. Also, he valued the role of exchange rate as a price, mixed exchange rate regimes may require the use of foreign exchange operations to maintain the targeted exchange rate within the prescribed limits, such as fixed exchange rate regimes. As seen above, there is a relation between exchange rate policy and monetary policy. Foreign exchange operations can be sterilized or unsterilized, non-sterilization will cause an expansion or contraction in the amount of domestic currency in circulation, and hence directly affect inflation and monetary policy. Since the domestic money supply is increasing, this may provoke domestic inflation, also, some central banks may let the exchange rate appreciate to control inflation, usually by the channel of cheapening tradable goods. Since the amount of reserves available to defend a weak currency is limited
International reserve system
–
Terminology
International reserve system
–
Reserves of SDRs, forex and
gold in 2006
29.
FMLN
–
The Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front is one of the two major political parties in El Salvador. The FMLN was one of the participants in the Salvadoran Civil War. After peace accords were signed in 1992, all armed FMLN units were demobilized, on March 15,2009, the FMLN won the presidential elections with former journalist Mauricio Funes as its candidate. Two months earlier in municipal and legislative elections, the FMLN won the majority of the mayoralties in the country, on December 17,1979, in period of national crisis, the three dominant organizations of the Salvadoran left formed the Coordinadora Político-Militar. The CPMs first manifesto was released on January 10,1980, and the day after, CRM later merged with the Frente Democrático Salvadoreño to form the Frente Democrático Revolucionario. However, neither the Cuban nor Soviet government were responsible for forming FMLN, although it received some of its arms and supplies from the Soviet Union. On May 22,1980, the success of negotiations led to the union of the guerrilla forces under one flag. The Unified Revolutionary Directorate was created by the FPL, RN, ERP, DRU consisted of three Political Commission members from each of these four organizations. The DRU manifesto declared, There will be only one leadership, only one military plan and only one command, despite continued infighting DRU succeeded in coordinating the groups efforts and equipped forces. In December 1980, the Salvadoran branch of the Partido Revolucionario de los Trabajadores Centroamericanos broke away from its central organization and affiliated itself to FMLN. Insurgents ranged from children to the elderly, both male and female, and most were trained in FMLN camps in the mountains and jungles of El Salvador to learn military techniques, another large FMLN offensive was in November 1989. In that offensive, the FMLN caught Salvadoran government and military off guard by taking control of sections of the country and entering the capital. In San Salvador, the FMLN quickly took control of many of the poor neighborhoods until the military bombed their positions—including residential neighborhoods to drive the FMLN out. One of the most famous battles in San Salvador took place in the Sheraton Hotel, the FMLNs November 1989 offensive did not succeed in overthrowing the government. Many analysts pointed to the FMLNs show of strength in the 1989 offensive as the point in the war. Soon after the November 1989 offensive, the U. S. government started to support negotiations to end the civil war, since the U. S. government was the major funder of the Salvadoran government and military, it exercised considerable influence over the course of events. After the ceasefire established by the 1992 Chapultepec Peace Accords, the FMLN became a political party. The FMLN has now participated in elections since 1994, the FMLN and the right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance are the two dominant political parties in El Salvador
FMLN
–
Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front
FMLN
–
Banner used until 1992. Clarification: the official FMLN banner was red and white; the red and yellow version shown above was used by the FPL. Photos of the celebration of the peace accords on January 16, 1992 by the whole FMLN show the red and white flag, which, slightly adapted, became the banner of the legal political party.
FMLN
–
Schafik Handal hands over a declaration of solidarity to the Ambassador of Venezuela
FMLN
–
An FMLN rally with Handal in
Jiquilisco, prior to the presidential election in 2004
30.
Maquiladora
–
They are an example of special economic zones as seen in many countries. In 1964, the Bracero Program, which allowed Mexican agricultural workers to work legally in the U. S. on a seasonal basis, came to an end. The maquiladoras became attractive to US firms due to the availability of labor, devaluations of the peso. In 1985, maquiladoras overtook tourism as the largest source of foreign exchange, following the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement, the growth of maquila plants skyrocketed. During the five years before NAFTA, the employment had grown at a rate of 47%. The number of factories also increased dramatically, in the five years preceding NAFTA,564 new plants opened, in the five years following,1460 plants opened. However, the growth is largely attributable to growth in US demand. In the 1970s, most maquiladoras were located around the Mexico–United States border, by 1994, these were spread in the interior parts of the country, although the majority of the plants were still near the border. Recent research indicates that the maquiladora industry affects U. S. border city employment in service sectors, the industry had become an important source of foreign direct investment and foreign exchange for Mexico. In the 2000s, the industry faced competition due to rise of other countries with availability of cheap labor, including Malaysia, India. The biggest threat came from Chinas Special Economic Areas, since 1973, maquiladoras have also accounted for nearly half of Mexico’s export assembly. Between 1995 and 2000, exports of assembled products in Mexico tripled, Research indicates that maquiladoras post-NAFTA growth is connected to changes in Mexican wages relative to those in Asia and in the United States, and to fluctuations in U. S. industrial production. As of 2006, maquiladoras still accounted for 45 percent of Mexico’s exports, Maquiladoras, in general, are best represented among operations that are particularly assembly intensive. One of the goals of the Border Industrialization Program was to attract foreign investment. Mexican blue-collar labor is cheap and competitive with other major export countries by devaluations in the peso. Mexicans work for approximately one-sixth of the U. S. hourly rate, young women are often preferred over older women, as younger women are capable of working longer hours. Although Mexican labor law is more stringent than American labor laws, women are sometimes subjected to unsafe. Poverty is a key factor that motivates women, in particular, the minimum wage set by the Mexican government is barely enough to help sustain a family
Maquiladora
–
A maquila in Mexico
31.
Call center
–
A call centre or call center is a centralised office used for receiving or transmitting a large volume of requests by telephone. An inbound call centre is operated by a company to administer incoming product support or information enquiries from consumers, outbound call centres are operated for telemarketing, solicitation of charitable or political donations, debt collection and market research. A contact centre is a location for centralised handling of individual communications, including letters, faxes, live support software, social media, instant message, and e-mail. It can be operated or networked with additional centres, often linked to a corporate computer network, including mainframes, microcomputers. Increasingly, the voice and data pathways into the centre are linked through a set of new technologies called computer telephony integration, the contact centre is a central point from which all customer contacts are managed. Through contact centres, valuable information about company are routed to people, contacts to be tracked. It is generally a part of customer relationship management. The majority of companies use contact centres as a means of managing their customer interaction. These centres can be operated by either an in house department responsible or outsourcing customer interaction to a third party agency, during the late 1970s, call centre technology expanded to include telephone sales, airline reservations and banking systems. The term call centre was first published and recognized by the Oxford English Dictionary in 1983, the 1980s experienced the development of toll-free telephone numbers to increase the efficiency of agents and overall call volume. Call centres increased with the deregulation of long distance calling and growth in information dependent industries, as call centres expanded, unionisation occurred in North America to gain members including the Communications Workers of America and the United Steelworkers. In Australia, the National Union of Workers represents unionised workers, in Europe, Uni Global Union of Switzerland is involved in assisting unionisation in this realm and in Germany Vereinte Dienstleistungsgewerkschaft represents call centre workers. During the 1990s, call centres expanded internationally and developed two additional subsets of communication, contact centres and outsourced bureau centres. In contrast to in-house management, outsourced bureau contact centres are a model of contact centre that provide services on a pay per use model. The overheads of the centre are shared by many clients, thereby supporting a very cost effective model. Automatic lead selection or lead steering is also intended to improve efficiencies and this allows inbound calls to be directly routed to the appropriate agent for the task, whilst minimising wait times and long lists of irrelevant options for people calling in. The universal queue standardises the processing of communications across multiple technologies such as fax, phone, the virtual queue provides callers with an alternative to waiting on hold when no agents are available to handle inbound call demand. Historically, call centres have been built on Private branch exchange equipment that is owned, hosted, the PBX can provide functions such as automatic call distribution, interactive voice response, and skills-based routing
Call center
–
A 1970 police call centre in
Brierley Hill, England
Call center
–
Call centre desk environment in
Lakeland, Florida, United States (2005)
Call center
–
A typical call centre telephone. Note: no handset, phone is for headset use only (2005)
Call center
–
A very large call centre in Lakeland, Florida (2006)
32.
Indigo
–
Indigo is a deep and rich color close to the color wheel blue, as well as to some variants of ultramarine. The color indigo is named after the indigo dye derived from the plant Indigofera tinctoria, the first known recorded use of indigo as a color name in English was in 1289. Species of Indigofera were cultivated in Peru, India, East Asia, the earliest direct evidence for the use of indigo dates to around 4000 BCE and comes from Huaca Prieta, in contemporary Peru. Pliny mentions India as the source of the dye, imported in small quantities via the Silk Road, the Greek term for the dye was Ἰνδικὸν φάρμακον, which, adopted to Latin as indicum and via Portuguese gave rise to the modern word indigo. El Salvador has lately been the biggest producer of indigo, Indigo was actually a plant that got its name because it came from the Indus Valley, discovered some 5,000 years ago, where it was called nila, meaning dark blue. And by the 7th Century BC, people starting using the plant as a dye — the Mesopotamians were even carving out recipes for making indigo dye onto clay tablets for record-keeping. By 1289, knowledge of the dye made its way to Europe, but it wasn’t until 1640 when demand started to pick up for indigo. Spanish explorers discovered an American species of Indigo and began to cultivate the product in Guatemala, the English and French subsequently began to encourage indigo cultivation in their colonies in the West Indies. Indigo dye could be made from two different types of plants — the indigo plant, which produced the best results, the British were producing indigo with woad, a plant that yielded a lesser quality dye, but a plant they could grow. They even tried to hold their monopoly on indigo dye by managing to ban the indigo plant for years, but eventually the British began to focus on tea and other crops — and meanwhile, the French started to get their fair share of the market. The French had gone to war with Britain, so the British could hardly rely on the French for this precious blue dye, consequently, the British had to turn to their colonies in America. It was Eliza Lucas from South Carolina who figured out how to grow the indigo plant, the same indigo dye is contained in the woad plant, Isatis tinctoria, for a long time the main source of blue dye in Europe. Woad was replaced by true indigo as trade routes opened up, the Early Modern English word indigo referred to the dye, and not to the color itself, and indigo is not traditionally part of the basic color-naming system. Modern sources place indigo in the spectrum between 420 and 450 nanometers, which lies on the side of color wheel blue. However, the correspondence of this definition with colors of actual indigo dyes is disputed, isaac Newton introduced indigo as one of the seven base colors of his work. In a pivotal experiment in the history of optics, the young Newton shone a narrow beam of sunlight through a prism to produce a band of colors on the wall. He linked the seven prismatic colors to the seven notes of a major scale, as shown in his color wheel, with orange. Indigo is therefore counted as one of the colors of the rainbow
Indigo
–
A piece of indigo plant dye from India, about 2.5 inches (6 cm) square
Indigo
–
Extract of natural indigo applied to paper
Indigo
–
Newton's observation of prismatic colors. Comparing this to a color image of the visible light spectrum will show that "Indigo" corresponds to
blue, while "Blue" corresponds to
cyan.
Indigo
–
Indigo is created in potholes carved in pumice "tufgrond" in Karoland,
Sumatra
33.
Gulf of Fonseca
–
The Gulf of Fonseca, part of the Pacific Ocean, is a gulf on Central America, bordering El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua. Fonseca Bay was discovered for Europeans in 1522 by Gil González de Ávila, and named by him after his patron, Archbishop Juan Fonseca, the implacable enemy of Columbus. In 1849, E. G. Squier negotiated a treaty for the United States to build a canal across Honduras from the Caribbean Sea to the Gulf. Shortly thereafter however, Squier demanded the British leave, since he had anticipated the occupation, all three countries—Honduras, El Salvador, and Nicaragua—with coastline along the Gulf have been involved in a lengthy dispute over the rights to the Gulf and the islands located within. In 1992, a chamber of the International Court of Justice decided the Land, Island and Maritime Frontier Dispute, the ICJ determined that El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua were to share control of the Gulf of Fonseca. El Salvador was awarded the islands of Meanguera and Meanguerita, while Honduras was awarded El Tigre Island. The Gulf of Fonseca covers an area of about 3,200 km2, with a coastline that extends for 261 km, of which 185 km are in Honduras,40 km in Nicaragua, and 29 km in El Salvador. The climate in the Gulf is typical of tropical and subtropical regions, the Gulf receives nearly 80% of its total yearly rainfall of 1, 400–1,600 mm during the rainy season from May to November. The dry season occurs between December and May and contributes to an annual rate of 2,800 mm. As a result of water flowing into the Gulf, the currents tend to flow inward from the Pacific Ocean, and levels of salinity in the estuaries increase. Temperatures in the Gulf average between 25 and 30 °C, March and April are the warmest months and November and December the coolest, relative humidity varies between 65 and 86% depending on location. In contrast, the interior of the country is semitropical and cooler with a temperature of 26 °C. The vegetation of the ecosystem is dominated by species of mangroves. Of the six species of mangrove identified in the Gulf, red mangrove is the most common, black mangrove is the second-most pervasive species and is generally found around the rivers where sediments are deposited along the shoreline. White mangrove is the third-most dominant, followed by botoncillo, both are found further inland and are inundated by the tide less frequently. The dominance of different species over others correlates with the frequency of floods, water quality, the cycle of tides is 2.3 m on average per day in the Gulf. During low tides, the soils are inhabited by crabs, conch, during the high tide, the mangrove forests serve as a feeding ground and habitat for fish, shrimp, and other species, as the root structure of mangroves provides a refuge from larger predators. A number of volcanoes lie within and around the gulf
Gulf of Fonseca
–
Gulf of Fonseca Satellite Image, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 2001
Gulf of Fonseca
–
Map showing position of the Gulf (bottom left) with respect to Honduras, El Salvador, and Nicaragua
34.
Free trade zone
–
A free-trade zone is a specific class of special economic zone. It is an area where goods may be landed, stored, handled, manufactured, or reconfigured. Free trade zones are generally organized around major seaports, international airports, the World Bank defines free trade zones as small, fenced-in, duty-free areas, offering warehousing, storage, and distribution facilities for trade, transshipment, and re-export operations. Free-trade zones are referred to as zones in the United States. In the United States, FTZs provide Customs-related advantages as well as exemptions from state, some were previously called free ports. Free zones range from specific-purpose manufacturing facilities to areas where legal systems, Free zones may reduce taxes, customs duties, and regulatory requirements for registration of business. Zones around the world often provide special exemptions from normal immigration procedures, Free zones are intended to foster economic activity and employment that could occur elsewhere. An export-processing zone is a type of FTZ, set up generally in developing countries by their governments to promote industrial and commercial exports. According to the World Bank, an export processing zone is an estate, usually a fenced-in area of 10 to 300 hectares. It offers firms free trade conditions and a regulatory environment. In 1997,93 countries had set up export processing zones employing 22.5 million people, China has specific rules differentiating an EPZ from a FTZ. For example, 70% of goods in EPZs must be exported, the worlds first document free-trade zone was established on the Greek Island of Delos in 166 BCE. It lasted until about 69 BCE when the island was overrun by pirates, the Romans had many civitas libera, or free cities, some of which could coin money, establish their own laws, and not pay an annual tribute to the Roman Emperor. These continued through at least the first millennium CE, in the 12th century the Hanseatic League began operating in Northern Europe, and established trading colonies throughout Europe. These Free Trade Zones included Hamburg, and the Steelyard in London, the Steelyard, like other Hansa stations, was a separate walled community with its own warehouses on the river, its own weighing house, chapel, counting houses and residential quarters. In 1988 remains of the former Hanseatic trading house, once the largest medieval trading complex in Britain, were uncovered by archaeologists during work on Cannon Street Station. The Shannon Zone was started to help the city airport adjust to a change in aircraft technology that permitted longer range aircraft to skip a required refueling stops at Shannon. It was an attempt by the Irish Government to maintain employment around the airport and it was hugely successful, and is still in operation today
Free trade zone
–
Terminology
35.
Maquila
–
They are an example of special economic zones as seen in many countries. In 1964, the Bracero Program, which allowed Mexican agricultural workers to work legally in the U. S. on a seasonal basis, came to an end. The maquiladoras became attractive to US firms due to the availability of labor, devaluations of the peso. In 1985, maquiladoras overtook tourism as the largest source of foreign exchange, following the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement, the growth of maquila plants skyrocketed. During the five years before NAFTA, the employment had grown at a rate of 47%. The number of factories also increased dramatically, in the five years preceding NAFTA,564 new plants opened, in the five years following,1460 plants opened. However, the growth is largely attributable to growth in US demand. In the 1970s, most maquiladoras were located around the Mexico–United States border, by 1994, these were spread in the interior parts of the country, although the majority of the plants were still near the border. Recent research indicates that the maquiladora industry affects U. S. border city employment in service sectors, the industry had become an important source of foreign direct investment and foreign exchange for Mexico. In the 2000s, the industry faced competition due to rise of other countries with availability of cheap labor, including Malaysia, India. The biggest threat came from Chinas Special Economic Areas, since 1973, maquiladoras have also accounted for nearly half of Mexico’s export assembly. Between 1995 and 2000, exports of assembled products in Mexico tripled, Research indicates that maquiladoras post-NAFTA growth is connected to changes in Mexican wages relative to those in Asia and in the United States, and to fluctuations in U. S. industrial production. As of 2006, maquiladoras still accounted for 45 percent of Mexico’s exports, Maquiladoras, in general, are best represented among operations that are particularly assembly intensive. One of the goals of the Border Industrialization Program was to attract foreign investment. Mexican blue-collar labor is cheap and competitive with other major export countries by devaluations in the peso. Mexicans work for approximately one-sixth of the U. S. hourly rate, young women are often preferred over older women, as younger women are capable of working longer hours. Although Mexican labor law is more stringent than American labor laws, women are sometimes subjected to unsafe. Poverty is a key factor that motivates women, in particular, the minimum wage set by the Mexican government is barely enough to help sustain a family
Maquila
–
A maquila in Mexico
36.
Central American Free Trade Agreement
–
Note, Within this article, CAFTA refers to the agreement as it stood before January 2004, and CAFTA-DR is used after that. The Dominican Republic–Central America Free Trade Agreement is a trade agreement. Originally, the agreement encompassed the United States and the Central American countries of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua, in 2004, the Dominican Republic joined the negotiations, and the agreement was renamed CAFTA-DR. Panama has completed negotiations with the United States for a free trade agreement known as the Panama–U. S. Trade Promotion Agreement, and has been in effect since October 2012, the CAFTA-DR constitutes the first free trade agreement between the United States and a small group of developing countries. It was created with the purpose of creating new and better economic opportunities by opening markets, eliminating tariffs, reducing barriers to services, in 2015, it was estimated that the total two-way trade resulted in $53 billion. Nearly all Central American exports to the United States had already been tariff-free thanks to the 1984 Caribbean Basin Initiative, the agreement is a treaty under international law, but not under the U. S. Constitution because in the United States laws require majority approval in both houses, while treaties require two-thirds approval in the Senate only, under U. S. law, CAFTA-DR is a congressional-executive agreement. Controversy arose over this vote because it was held open 1 hour and 45 minutes longer than the normal 15 minutes in order to get some members to change their votes. For procedural reasons, the Senate took a vote on CAFTA on July 28. The implementing legislation became Public Law 109-053 when it was signed by President George W. Bush on August 2,2005, the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Honduras have also approved the agreement. They are all the current members of CAFTA-DR, El Salvador became the first country to formally implement CAFTA, which went into effect on March 1,2006, when the Organization of American States received signed copies of the treaty. On April 1,2006, Honduras and Nicaragua fully implemented the agreement, on May 18,2006, the Congress of Guatemala ratified CAFTA-DR, which went into effect on July 1,2006. The Dominican Republic implemented the agreement on March 1,2007, in a referendum on October 7,2007, Costa Rica narrowly backed the free trade agreement, with 51. 6% voting Yes, the agreement took effect on January 1,2009. The goal of the agreement is the creation of a trade area similar to NAFTA, which currently encompasses the United States, Canada. Canada is negotiating a treaty called the Canada–Central American Free Trade Agreement. Once passed by the countries involved, tariffs on about 80% of U. S. exports to the countries were eliminated immediately. Two-way trade amounted to about $50 billion in the same year, while not necessarily a part of Plan Puebla Panama, CAFTA is a necessary precursor to the execution of Plan Puebla Panama by the Inter-American Development Bank
Central American Free Trade Agreement
–
Presidents
Francisco Flores Pérez,
Ricardo Maduro,
George W. Bush,
Abel Pacheco,
Enrique Bolaños and
Alfonso Portillo
Central American Free Trade Agreement
–
Anti-CAFTA graffiti in
San José, Costa Rica
37.
Balance of payments
–
These transactions are made by individuals, firms and government bodies. Thus the balance of payments includes all external visible and non-visible transactions of a country and it is an important issue to be studied, especially in international financial management field, for a few reasons. First, the balance of payments provides detailed information concerning the demand, for example, if the United States imports more than it exports, then this means that the supply of dollars is likely to exceed the demand in the foreign exchanging market, ceteris paribus. One can thus infer that the U. S. dollar would be pressure to depreciate against other currencies. On the other hand, if the United States exports more than it imports, second, a countrys balance-of-payment data may signal its potential as a business partner for the rest of the world. If a country is grappling with a major balance-of-payment difficulty, it may not be able to expand imports from the outside world, instead, the country may be tempted to impose measures to restrict imports and discourage capital outflows in order to improve the balance-of-payment situation. Third, balance-of-payments data can be used to evaluate the performance of the country in international economic competition, suppose a country is experiencing trade deficits year after year. This trade data may signal that the countrys domestic industries lack international competitiveness. To interpret balance-of-payments data properly, it is necessary to understand how the balance of payments account is constructed and these transactions include payments for the countrys exports and imports of goods, services, financial capital, and financial transfers. It is prepared in a currency, typically the domestic currency for the country concerned. Sources of funds for a nation, such as exports or the receipts of loans, uses of funds, such as for imports or to invest in foreign countries, are recorded as negative or deficit items. When all components of the BoP accounts are included they must sum to zero with no overall surplus or deficit, imbalances in the latter sum can result in surplus countries accumulating wealth, while deficit nations become increasingly indebted. The term balance of payments often refers to sum, a countrys balance of payments is said to be in surplus by a specific amount if sources of funds exceed uses of funds by that amount. There is said to be a balance of payments deficit if the former are less than the latter, a BoP surplus is accompanied by an accumulation of foreign exchange reserves by the central bank. Then the net change per year in the banks foreign exchange reserves is sometimes called the balance of payments surplus or deficit. Alternatives to an exchange rate system include a managed float where some changes of exchange rates are allowed. The current account shows the net amount a country is earning if it is in surplus and it is the sum of the balance of trade, factor income and cash transfers. It is called the current account as it covers transactions in the here, the capital account records the net change in ownership of foreign assets
Balance of payments
–
The US dollar has been the leading reserve asset since the end of the gold standard.
Balance of payments
–
Gold was the primary reserve asset during the gold standard era.
Balance of payments
–
Manmohan Singh, Former PM of India, showed that the challenges caused by imbalances can be an opportunity when he led his country's successful economic reform programme after the
1991 crisis.
Balance of payments
–
Terminology
38.
Hurricane Mitch
–
Hurricane Mitch was the most powerful and destructive hurricane of the 1998 Atlantic hurricane season, with maximum sustained winds of 180 mph. The storm was the tropical storm, ninth hurricane. Along with Hurricane Georges, Mitch was the most notable hurricane in the season, at the time, Hurricane Mitch was the strongest Atlantic hurricane observed in the month of October, though it has since been surpassed by Hurricane Wilma of the 2005 season. The hurricane matched the fourth most intense Atlantic hurricane on record, after drifting southwestward and weakening, the hurricane hit Honduras as a minimal hurricane. It drifted through Central America, reformed in the Bay of Campeche, due to its slow motion from October 29 to November 3, Hurricane Mitch dropped historic amounts of rainfall in Honduras, Guatemala, and Nicaragua, with unofficial reports of up to 75 inches. Additionally, roughly 2.7 million were homeless as a result of the hurricane. The flooding caused damage, estimated at over $6 billion. Tropical Depression Thirteen formed on October 22 over the southwestern Caribbean Sea and it executed a small loop, and while doing so intensified into Tropical Storm Mitch. A weakness in a ridge allowed the storm to track slowly to the north, after becoming disorganized due to wind shear from an upper-level low, Mitch quickly intensified in response to favorable conditions, including warm waters and good outflow. It became a hurricane on October 24 and developed an eye, after turning to the west, Mitch rapidly intensified, first into a major hurricane on October 25 and then into a Category 5 on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale the next day. At peak intensity, Mitch maintained maximum sustained winds of 180 mph while off the northern coast of Honduras. Hurricane Hunters reported a barometric pressure of 905 mbar, which at the time was the lowest in the month of October. Initially, the National Hurricane Center and various tropical cyclone forecast models anticipated a turn to the north, instead, Mitch turned to the south due to a ridge that was not observed while the storm was active. Land interaction imparted weakening, and the hurricane made landfall on Honduras on October 29 with winds of 80 mph, Mitch slowly weakened while turning to the west over land, maintaining deep convection over waters. After moving across mountainous terrain in Central America, the circulation of Mitch dissipated on November 1. The next day, the reached the Gulf of Mexico. Mitch accelerated to the northeast ahead of a front, moving across the Yucatán peninsula before striking southwestern Florida on November 5. Shortly thereafter, the became an extratropical cyclone, which was tracked by the NHC until November 9
Hurricane Mitch
–
Hurricane Mitch at peak intensity
Hurricane Mitch
–
Damage in
Tegucigalpa
Hurricane Mitch
–
Mudslide in
San Juancito, Honduras
Hurricane Mitch
–
Flooding in
Lake Managua after the hurricane
39.
Cereal
–
A cereal is any grass cultivated for the edible components of its grain, composed of the endosperm, germ, and bran. Cereal grains are grown in quantities and provide more food energy worldwide than any other type of crop and are therefore staple crops. Edible grains from plant families, such as buckwheat, quinoa. In their natural form, cereals are a source of vitamins, minerals, carbohydrates, fats, oils. When refined by the removal of the bran and germ, the endosperm is mostly carbohydrate. In some developing nations, grain in the form of rice, wheat, millet, in developed nations, cereal consumption is moderate and varied but still substantial. The word cereal is derived from Ceres, the Roman goddess of harvest, agriculture allowed for the support of an increased population, leading to larger societies and eventually the development of cities. It also created the need for organization of political power, as decisions had to be made regarding labor and harvest allocation and access rights to water. Agriculture bred immobility, as populations settled down for long periods of time, early Neolithic villages show evidence of the development of processing grain. The Levant is the ancient home of the ancestors of wheat, barley and peas, there is evidence of the cultivation of figs in the Jordan Valley as long as 11,300 years ago, and cereal production in Syria approximately 9,000 years ago. During the same period, farmers in China began to farm rice and millet, using man-made floods, fiber crops were domesticated as early as food crops, with China domesticating hemp, cotton being developed independently in Africa and South America, and Western Asia domesticating flax. The first cereal grains were domesticated by early primitive humans, about 8,000 years ago, they were domesticated by ancient farming communities in the Fertile Crescent region. Emmer wheat, einkorn wheat, and barley were three of the so-called Neolithic founder crops in the development of agriculture, around the same time, millets and rices were starting to become domesticated in East Asia. Sorghum and millets were also being domesticated in sub-Saharan West Africa, while each individual species has its own peculiarities, the cultivation of all cereal crops is similar. Most are annual plants, consequently one planting yields one harvest, wheat, rye, triticale, oats, barley, and spelt are the cool-season cereals. These are hardy plants grow well in moderate weather and cease to grow in hot weather. The warm-season cereals are tender and prefer hot weather, barley and rye are the hardiest cereals, able to overwinter in the subarctic and Siberia. Many cool-season cereals are grown in the tropics, however, some are only grown in cooler highlands, where it may be possible to grow multiple crops per year
Cereal
–
Cereal
Cereal
–
A wheat field in
Dorset, England
Cereal
–
Cereal
grain seeds from left to right:
wheat,
spelt,
barley,
oat.
Cereal
–
Threshing; Tacuinum Sanitatis, 14th century
40.
San Salvador, El Salvador
–
San Salvador is the capital and largest city of El Salvador and its eponymous department. It is the political, cultural, educational and financial center. As a gamma global city, San Salvador is also an important financial hub of Central America, San Salvador is located in the Salvadoran highlands, surrounded by volcanoes and prone to earthquakes. The city is home to the Catholic Archdiocese, as well as many Protestant branches of Christianity, including Evangelicals, Latter-day Saints, Baptists. San Salvador has the second largest Jewish community in Central America, San Salvador has been the host city for various regional and international sporting, political, and social events. It hosted the Central American and Caribbean Games in 1935 and 2002, San Salvador was also the host city of the 18th Ibero-American Summit, held October 29–31,2008, the most important sociopolitical event in the Spanish and Portuguese sphere. The Central American Integration System has its headquarters in San Salvador, the Central American Bank for Economic Integration also has its headquarters in San Salvador. Before the Spanish conquest, the Pipil people established their capital, Cuzcatlan, not much is known about Cuzcatlan, as it was abandoned by its inhabitants in an effort to avoid Spanish rule. Under the orders of conquistador Pedro de Alvarado, his associates Gonzalo de Alvarado and Diego de Holguín occupied the empty settlement, Diego de Holguín became the first mayor of San Salvador after the town was founded on April 1,1525. The town changed location twice, in 1528 and 1545, the new site was chosen because it had more space and more fertile land, thanks to the Acelhuate River. The population of the city remained relatively small until the early 20th century, in January 1885, during the presidency of Dr. Rafael Zaldivar, a group of businessmen and the presidents family contributed funds for building the Sara Zaldivar Asylum for Indigents and the Elderly. In 1902, the Hospital Rosales was built, named after its benefactor, Dr. Jose Rosales, the hospitals construction was begun by president Carlos Ezeta and finished during the presidency of Tomás Regalado. In 1905 president Pedro José Escalón initiated construction of the National Palace, the Monumento a los Próceres de 1811, located in the Plaza Libertad, and the Teatro Nacional were built in 1911 during Dr. Manuel Enrique Araujos presidency. In 1917, an earthquake during an eruption of the nearby San Salvador volcano damaged the city, on December 2,1931, president Arturo Araujo was ousted by a military coup détat and replaced by a military directorate. The directorate named vice-president Maximiliano Hernández Martínez as president and Araujo went into exile, the Martínez regime lasted from December 4,1931 to May 6,1944. In 1964, the Christian Democratic Party candidate, José Napoleon Duarte, during his term he ordered construction of the Pancho Lara park in the Vista Hermosa neighborhood, renewed the electrical grid, and set up a system of schools for adult education. The 1960s to the 1980s were the age of San Salvador in all aspects of security, quality of life. Today the tallest building in the country has 28 floors and is 110 meters high, with the commencement of the Salvadoran Civil War in the 1980s, many modernization projects were halted
San Salvador, El Salvador
–
Collage of pictures of the San Salvador Metro Area, mostly recent buildings. From top: Alisios 115 (left) panorama (right), Capillas 515 and 525 (left),
World Trade Center Torre Futura (right), National Palace (left), Diego de Holguin Expressway (right), Centro Financiero Telefonica (left), Hilton Princess San Salvador (right)
San Salvador, El Salvador
–
Seal
San Salvador, El Salvador
–
San Salvador 1868 Flag
San Salvador, El Salvador
–
Liberty Plaza during the early 1950s
41.
USAID
–
The United States Agency for International Development is the United States Government agency which is primarily responsible for administering civilian foreign aid. President John F. Kennedy created USAID from its predecessor agencies in 1961 by executive order, USAIDs programs are authorized by the Congress in the Foreign Assistance Act, which the Congress supplements through directions in annual funding appropriation acts and other legislation. Although it is technically an independent agency, USAID operates subject to the policy guidance of the President, Secretary of State. USAID operates in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, USAIDs decentralized network of resident field missions is drawn on to manage U. S. Government programs in low-income countries for a range of purposes. Disaster relief Poverty relief Technical cooperation on issues, including the environment U. S. bilateral interests Socioeconomic development Some of the U. S. Governments earliest foreign aid programs provided relief in crises created by war, in 1915, USG assistance through the Commission for Relief of Belgium headed by Herbert Hoover prevented starvation in Belgium after the German invasion. After 1945, the European Recovery Program championed by Secretary of State George Marshall helped rebuild war-torn Western Europe, USAID manages relief efforts after wars and natural disasters through its Office of U. S Foreign Disaster Assistance in Washington D. C. Privately funded U. S. NGOs and the U. S. military also play roles in disaster relief overseas. After 1945, many newly independent countries needed assistance to relieve the chronic deprivation afflicting their low-income populations, USAID and its predecessor agencies have continuously provided poverty relief in many forms, including assistance to public health and education services targeted at the poorest. USAID has also helped manage food aid provided by the U. S. Department of Agriculture, in addition, USAID provides funding to NGOs to supplement private donations in relieving chronic poverty. The USG has specialized agencies dealing with such areas, such as the Centers for Disease Control, USAIDs special ability to administer programs in low-income countries supports these and other USG agencies international work on global concerns. Among these global interests, environmental issues attract high attention, USAID assists projects that conserve and protect threatened land, water, forests, and wildlife. USAID also assists projects to reduce emissions and to build resilience to the risks associated with global climate change. U. S. environmental regulation laws require that programs sponsored by USAID should be economically and environmentally sustainable. To support U. S. geopolitical interests, USAID is often called upon to administer exceptional financial grants to allies. Also, when U. S. troops are in the field, in these circumstances, USAID may be directed by specially appointed diplomatic officials of the State Department, as has been done in Afghanistan and Pakistan during operations against al-Qaeda. U. S. commercial interests are served by U. S. laws requirement that most goods, USAID is also sometimes called upon to support projects of U. S. constituents that have exceptional interest. To help low-income nations achieve self-sustaining socioeconomic development, USAID assists them in improving management of their own resources, USAIDs assistance for socioeconomic development mainly provides technical advice, training, scholarships, commodities, and financial assistance
USAID
–
USAID Packages are delivered by
United States Coast Guard personnel
USAID
–
United States Agency for International Development
USAID
–
Early reading and literacy programs contribute to long-term development, USAID
Nigeria
USAID
–
USAID Acting Administrator Amb. Alfonso E. Lenhardt
42.
Coffee production in El Salvador
–
Coffee production in El Salvador has fueled the Salvadoran economy and shaped its history for more than a century. Rapidly growing in the 19th century, coffee in El Salvador has traditionally provided more than 50% of the export revenues. With the political and economic turmoil resulting from a war in the 1980s, the coffee industry has struggled to recover entirely. Since 2000, the industry has greatly affected by increased competition from other countries on the world market. Coffee was first cultivated in El Salvador for domestic use early in the 19th century, by 1880 coffee had become virtually the sole export crop. Compared with Indigofera, previously the dominant export commodity, coffee was a more demanding crop, since coffee bushes required several years to produce a usable harvest, its production required a greater commitment of capital, labor, and land than did indigo. Coffee also grew best at an altitude, whereas indigo flourished almost anywhere. Unlike those of Guatemala and Costa Rica, the Salvadoran coffee industry developed largely without the benefit of technical and financial help. El Salvador nonetheless became one of the most efficient coffee producers in the world and this was especially true on the large coffee fincas, where the yield per hectare increased in proportion to the size of the finca, a rare occurrence in plantation agriculture. After 1979, however, government policies, guerrilla attacks, and natural disasters reduced investment, to make matters worse, after a price jump in 1986 world coffee prices fell by 35 percent in 1987, causing coffee exports to decline in value from US$539 million to US$347 million. Government control of marketing and export was regarded as one of the strongest deterrents to investment in the industry. In the first year of Incafes existence, coffee yields dropped by over 20 percent, during each of the ensuing four years, yields were about 30 percent lower than those registered during the 1978-80 period. Coffee growers also suffered from attacks, extortion, and the imposition of so-called war taxes during the 1980s. These difficulties, in addition to their impact on production. Under normal conditions, coffee growers replaced at least 5 percent of their coffee plants each year because the most productive coffee plants are between five and fifteen years old, many coffee growers in El Salvador, in an effort to avoid further losses, neglected to replant. During the 1984-85 harvest, for example, the added to their war tax demand a threat to attack any plantation they thought underpaid workers. They demanded that workers receive the equivalent of US$4.00 per 100 pounds picked, the fact that growers negotiated with the guerrillas—while the government looked the other way—demonstrated the continuing importance of coffee export revenue to both the growers and the government. Coffee would become the last of the great monoculture export commodities in El Salvador and its widespread cultivation began in the mid-19th century as the world demand for indigo dye dried up
Coffee production in El Salvador
–
Green Coffee processing in
Ahuachapán
Coffee production in El Salvador
–
Dark roasted espresso blend coffee beans from El Salvador.
Coffee production in El Salvador
–
A Salvadoran coffee farmer.
Coffee production in El Salvador
–
Fair trade coffee growers in
Tacuba in western El Salvador.
43.
CIA World Factbook
–
The World Factbook is a reference resource produced by the Central Intelligence Agency with almanac-style information about the countries of the world. The official print version is available from the National Technical Information Service, Other companies—such as Skyhorse Publishing—also print a paper edition. The Factbook is available in the form of a website that is updated every week. It is also available for download for use off-line, the World Factbook is prepared by the CIA for the use of U. S. Government officials, and its style, format, coverage, and content are primarily designed to meet their requirements. However, it is used as a resource for academic research papers. As a work of the U. S. Government, it is in the domain in the United States. In researching the Factbook, the CIA uses the sources listed below, Other public and private sources are also consulted. However, the CIA requests that it be cited when the Factbook is used, copying the official seal of the CIA without permission is prohibited by U. S. federal law—specifically, the Central Intelligence Agency Act of 1949. Before November 2001 The World Factbook website was updated yearly, from 2004 to 2010 it was updated every two weeks, since 2010 it has been updated weekly, generally, information currently available as of January 1 of the current year is used in preparing the Factbook. The first, classified, edition of Factbook was published in August 1962, the World Factbook was first available to the public in print in 1975. In 2008 the CIA discontinued printing the Factbook themselves, instead turning printing responsibilities over to the Government Printing Office and this happened due to a CIA decision to focus Factbook resources on the online edition. The Factbook has been on the World Wide Web since October 1994, the web version gets an average of 6 million visits per month, it can also be downloaded. The official printed version is sold by the Government Printing Office, in past years, the Factbook was available on CD-ROM, microfiche, magnetic tape, and floppy disk. Many Internet sites use information and images from the CIA World Factbook, several publishers, including Grand River Books, Potomac Books, and Skyhorse Publishing have re-published the Factbook in recent years. As of July 2011, The World Factbook consists of 267 entities and these entities can be divided into categories. They are, Independent countries This category has independent countries, which the CIA defines as people politically organized into a state with a definite territory. In this category, there are 195 entities, others The Other category is a list of other places set apart from the list of independent countries. Currently there are two, Taiwan and the European Union, dependencies and Areas of Special Sovereignty This category is a list of places affiliated with another country
CIA World Factbook
–
Cover of the latest government print edition of The World Factbook (2013–14 edition)
CIA World Factbook
–
A map of
Serbia and Montenegro from the 2000 edition of The World Factbook. Notice how the disclaimer is printed in the upper right hand corner. One can see how the capital cities of both republics are individually labeled on the map.
44.
El Salvador
–
El Salvador, officially the Republic of El Salvador, is the smallest and the most densely populated country in Central America. El Salvadors capital and largest city is San Salvador, as of 2015, the country had a population of approximately 6.38 million, consisting largely of Mestizos of European and Indigenous American descent. El Salvador was for centuries inhabited by several Mesoamerican nations, especially the Cuzcatlecs, as well as the Lenca, in the early 16th century, the Spanish Empire conquered the territory, incorporating it into the Viceroyalty of New Spain ruled from Mexico City. In 1821, the country achieved independence from Spain as part of the First Mexican Empire, from the late 19th to the mid-20th century, El Salvador endured chronic political and economic instability characterized by coups, revolts, and a succession of authoritarian rulers. The conflict ended with a settlement that established a multiparty constitutional republic. El Salvador has since reduced its dependence on coffee and embarked on diversifying the economy by opening up trade and financial links, the colón, the official currency of El Salvador since 1892, was replaced by the U. S. dollar in 2001. As of 2010, El Salvador ranks 12th among Latin American countries in terms of the Human Development Index, however, the country continues to struggle with high rates of poverty, inequality, and crime. Conquistador Pedro de Alvarado named the new province for Jesus Christ – El Salvador, the full name was Provincia De Nuestro Señor Jesus Cristo, El Salvador Del Mundo, which was subsequently abbreviated to El Salvador. Tomayate is a site located on the banks of the river of the same name in the municipality of Apopa. The site has produced abundant Salvadoran megafauna fossils belonging to the Pleistocene epoch, at the same time, it is considered the richest vertebrate paleontological site in Central America and one of the largest accumulations of proboscideans in the Americas. Sophisticated civilization in El Salvador dates to its settlement by the indigenous Lenca people, theirs was the first, the Lenca were succeeded by the Olmecs, who eventually also disappeared, leaving their monumental architecture in the form of the pyramids still extant in western El Salvador. The Maya arrived and settled in place of the Olmecs, the Pipil were the last indigenous people to arrive in El Salvador. They called their territory Kuskatan, a Pipil word meaning The Place of Precious Jewels, backformed into Classical Nahuatl Cōzcatlān, the people of El Salvador today are referred to as Salvadoran, while the term Cuzcatleco is commonly used to identify someone of Salvadoran heritage. In pre-Columbian times, the country was inhabited by various other indigenous peoples, including the Lenca. Cuzcatlan was the domain until the Spanish conquest. Since El Salvador resided on the edge of the Maya Civilization. However, it is agreed that Mayas likely occupied the areas around Lago de Guija. Other ruins such as Tazumal, Joya de Cerén and San Andrés may have built by the Pipil or the Maya or possibly both
El Salvador
–
Temazcal in Joya de Ceren.
El Salvador
–
Flag
El Salvador
–
Spanish Conquistador
Pedro de Alvarado.
El Salvador
–
Tazumal ruins in Santa Ana, El Salvador.
45.
History of El Salvador
–
The history of El Salvador has been a struggle against many conquistadors, empires, dictatorships and world powers. After gaining independence, several Spanish Creoles took control of the government, anastacio Aquino, king of the Nonoualquenos, led a rebellion against what was referred to as an abuse of power and corruption, but it was repressed by the government. This repression would have repercussions for the future of El Salvador, La matanza, and all the liberation movements from the 1930s to 1980s, would emerge from the injustices committed by Spanish rule, Creoles, and other foreign power interventions. Before the Spanish conquest, the area that is known as El Salvador was composed of three states and several principalities. In central El Salvador were the inhabitants, the Pipils, or the Pipiles. The Pipil were a people who stoutly resisted Spanish efforts to extend their dominion southward. The region of the east was populated and then governed by the Lencas, the North zone of the Lempa High River was populated and governed by the Chortis, a Mayan people. Their culture was similar to that of their Aztec and Maya neighbors, several notable archaeological sites contain dwellings and other evidence of daily life 1400 years ago, these were found preserved beneath 6 m of volcanic ash. In 1525, he returned and succeeded in bringing the district under control of the Audiencia of Mexico, pedro de Alvarado named the area for Jesus Christ - El Salvador. He was appointed its first governor, a position he held until his death in 1541, the area was under the authority of a short-lived Audiencia of Panama from 1538 to 1543, when most of Central America was placed under a new Audiencia of Guatemala. In the early 19th century, Napoleons occupation of Spain led to the outbreak of revolts all across Spanish America, in New Spain, all of the fighting by those seeking independence was done in the center of that area from 1810 to 1821, what today is central Mexico. Accepting this as a fact, El Salvador joined the other Central American Intendencies in a joint declaration of independence from Spain, the public proclamation was done through the Act of Independence in 1821. Should the king refuse the position, the law provided for a member of the House of Bourbon to accede to the New Spain throne. Ferdinand VII, however, did not recognize the independence and said that Spain would not allow any other European prince to take the throne of New Spain. By request of Parliament, the president of the regency Agustín de Iturbide was proclaimed emperor of New Spain, the Mexican Empire was the official name given to this monarchical regime from 1821 to 1823. The territory of the Mexican Empire included the continental intendencies and provinces of New Spain proper, El Salvador, fearing incorporation into Mexico, petitioned the United States government for statehood. But in 1823, a revolution in Mexico ousted Emperor Agustín de Iturbide, and that year, the United Provinces of Central America was formed of the five Central American Intendencies under General Manuel José Arce. The Intendencies took the new name of States, in 1832, Anastasio Aquino led an indigenous revolt against Criollos and Mestizos in Santiago Nonualco, a small town in the province of La Paz
History of El Salvador
–
The eruption of the
Ilopango volcano, 1891.
46.
Viceroyalty of New Spain
–
New Spain was a colonial territory of the Spanish Empire, in the New World north of the Isthmus of Panama. It was established following the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire in 1521, after 1535 the colony was governed by the Viceroy of New Spain, an appointed minister of the King of Spain, who ruled as monarch over the colony. The capital of New Spain was Mexico City and it developed highly regional divisions, which reflect the impact of climate, topography, the presence or absence of dense indigenous populations, and the presence or absence of mineral resources. The areas of central and southern Mexico had dense indigenous populations with complex social, political, silver mining not only became the engine of the economy of New Spain, but vastly enriched Spain, and transformed the global economy. New Spain was the New World terminus of the Philippine trade, although New Spain was a dependency of Spain, it was a kingdom not a colony, subject to the presiding monarch on the Iberian Peninsula. Every privilege and position, economic political, or religious came from him and it was on this basis that the conquest, occupation, and government of the New World was achieved. The Viceroyalty of New Spain was established in 1535 in the Kingdom of New Spain and it was the first New World viceroyalty and one of only two in the Spanish empire until the 18th century Bourbon Reforms. The Spanish Empire comprised the territories in the north overseas Septentrion, from North America, to the west of the continent, New Spain also included the Spanish East Indies. To the east of the continent, it included the Spanish West Indies and this was not occupied by many Spanish settlers and were considered more marginal to Spanish interests than the most densely populated and lucrative areas of central Mexico. To shore up its claims in North America starting in the late 18th century, Spanish expeditions to the Pacific Northwest explored and claimed the coast of what is now British Columbia and Alaska. The indigenous societies of Mesoamerica brought under Spanish control were of unprecedented complexity, the societies could provide the conquistadors, especially Hernán Cortés, a base from which the conquerors could become autonomous, or even independent, of the Crown. As a result, the Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain, since the time of the Catholic Monarchs, central Iberia was governed through councils appointed by the monarch with particular jurisdictions. Thus, the creation of the Council of the Indies became another, the crown had set up the Casa de Contratación in 1503 to regulate contacts between Spain and its overseas possessions. A key function was to gather information about navigation to make trips less risky and they were accompanied by maps of the area discussed, many of which were drawn by indigenous artists. The Francisco Hernández Expedition, the first scientific expedition to the New World, was sent to gather information medicinal plants, an earlier Audiencia had been established in Santo Domingo in 1526 to deal with the Caribbean settlements. That Audiencia, housed in the Casa Reales in Santo Domingo, was charged with encouraging further exploration, management by the Audiencia, which was expected to make executive decisions as a body, proved unwieldy. Therefore, in 1535, King Charles V named Don Antonio de Mendoza as the first Viceroy of New Spain. After the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire in 1532 opened up the vast territories of South America to further conquests, the Crown established an independent Viceroyalty of Peru there in 1540
Viceroyalty of New Spain
–
"Vázquez de Coronado Sets Out to the North" (1540) by
Frederic Remington, oil on canvas, 1905
Viceroyalty of New Spain
–
Flag
Viceroyalty of New Spain
–
Indian Wedding and Flying Pole, circa 1690
Viceroyalty of New Spain
–
Route from Philippines to Acapulco, México
47.
Captaincy General of Guatemala
–
The governor-captain general was also president of the Royal Audiencia of Guatemala. The colonization of the area became the future Captaincy General began in 1524. In the north, the brothers Gonzalo and Pedro de Alvarado, Hernán Cortés and others headed various expeditions into Guatemala, in the south Francisco Hernández de Córdoba, acting under the auspices of Pedrarias Dávila in Panama, moved into what is today Nicaragua. The capital of Guatemala has moved many times over the centuries, on 27 July 1524, Pedro de Alvarado declared the Kaqchikel city, Iximche, as the first regional capital, styled Santiago de los Caballeros de Guatemala. However, hostilities between the Spaniards and the Kaqchikel soon made the city uninhabitable, in 1526, the Spanish founded a new capital settlement at Tecpán Guatemala, Tecpán being the Nahuatl word for palace. Tecpán is sometimes called the first capital because of its status as the first permanent Spanish military center, the Spaniards soon abandoned Tecpán due to continuous Kaqchikel attacks that made defense of the city untenable. In 1527, the capital was moved yet again to the Almolonga Valley to the east, being refounded on the site of todays San Miguel Escobar district of Ciudad Vieja, near Antigua Guatemala. This settlement was destroyed by a lahar from Volcan de Agua in 1541. In 1543, the capital was again refounded several miles away at Antigua Guatemala, over the next two centuries, this city would become one of the richest of the New World capitals. However, it too was destroyed, this time by a series of earthquakes. The final and current capital is the modern-day Guatemala City, the Church played an important role in the administration of the overseas possessions of the Spanish crown. The first dioceses were established in León, Nicaragua and Guatemala in 1534, another diocese was created in Chiapas in 1539. The dioceses of Guatemala and Chiapas were suffragan to the Archdiocese of Seville, the Diocese of León was made suffragan to Archdiocese of Lima in 1546. Another short-lived diocese was set up in Verapaz, Guatemala in 1559, in 1543 the territory of the kingdom was defined with the establishment of the Audiencia of Guatemala, which took most of Central America as its jurisdiction. This audiencia, along with the one in Lima, took over the territory of the first Audiencia of Panama and it was the first institution to define Central America as a region within the Spanish Empire. Around the same time Habsburg Spain created other captaincies general in Puerto Rico, Cuba, in the 17th century a process of uniting the church hierarchy of Central America also began. The dioceses of Comayagua and León were made suffragan to the Archdiocese of Mexico in 1620 and 1647, as part of the Bourbon Reforms in 1786 the crown established a series of intendancies in the area, which replaced most of the older corregimientos. The intendants were granted broad powers and were charged with promoting the local economy
Captaincy General of Guatemala
–
The Fort of San Fernando
Omoa. Built by the Spaniards to defend against pirates.
Captaincy General of Guatemala
–
The Kingdom of Guatemala within the wider Spanish Americas, c.1600.
48.
1811 Independence Movement
–
At the beginning of the 19th century, agitation grew in the American territories dominated by the Spanish crown. The previous century was dominated by the support of ideas of individual freedom, which characterized the Enlightenment that took place in Europe. In the Intendancy of San Salvador, many Creoles and other settlers wanted to control of the colony from the Guatemalan Captaincy General. This was largely due to economic and political reasons, greater administrative autonomy or outright independence for San Salvador would reduce the high level of taxes paid to Spain and Guatemala and would raise finances for the colony. Napoleón Bonapartes invasion of Spain in 1808 and the removal of Ferdinand VII from the Spanish throne created an atmosphere of unrest in San Salvador, the insurrectionists organized themselves along with prominent middle-class supporters of the cause of independence such as doctors and priests who took part in the event. These included doctors such as Santiago José Celis, the brothers, others included Manuel José Arce, Juan Manuel Rodríguez and Pedro Pablo Castillo. On November 5 the revolt began in San Salvador, according to tradition, the rebels waited for a signal from the bell tower of the Church of La Merced, but this did not occur on the scheduled time. The rebels later assembled on the square outside the church where Manuel José Arce proclaimed in front of the public, There is no King, nor Intendant. We only must obey our alcaldes, meaning that since Ferdinand VII had been deposed, a tumult in the square grew to the point that the intendant, Antonio Gutierrez y Ulloa, asked that the gathered name somebody to formally receive their demands. Manuel José Arce himself was chosen and selected as the leader by the crowd, despite this, the insurrectionists took arms and proclaimed the total independence of San Salvador from the Spanish crown, but were later subdued. In the following days, the movement extended to the cities of Santiago Nonualco, Usulután, Chalatenango, Santa Ana, Tejutla. The two other notable revolts occurred on November 24 in the city of Metapán and on December 20 in Sensuntepeque, despite the efforts of the insurrectionists, the cause of independence was not shared by the city councils of the Intendancy. Neither San Miguel, nor San Vicente nor Santa Ana joined them, unable to amass support, the rebels decided to negotiate with a delegation sent in from the Guatemalan capital to take control. The new Intendant Colonel Jose de Aycinena, arrived on December 8 with Guatemalan troops and priests to them to swear obedience to the crown. The new government was well received by the majority of the due to Aycinenas policy of understanding. However, several days later, unrest broke out in the neighboring Intendancy of Nicaragua, many of those involved in the events in El Salvador and Nicaragua were incarcerated, but José Matías Delgado was taken back with the delegation to Guatemala City. Despite his past activities, or perhaps because of them, Delgado was elected in 1813 as a representative on the Provincial Deputation of Guatemala created by the Spanish Constitution of 1812. He also became director of the Tridentino Seminary in the city, therefore, he was not in El Salvador at the time of the second insurrection in 1814
1811 Independence Movement
–
Manuel José Arce, leader of the revolt in San Salvador
1811 Independence Movement
–
The rebels assembled in this town square by the then
St. Dominic Church.
1.5% (2012 est.)
2.4% (2012 est.)
United States 45.8%
Guatemala 14.9%
Honduras 9.6%
Nicaragua 5.8% (2012 est.)[2]
Mexico 6.8%
Colombia 5.7%
China 5.5%
Germany 4.0% (2012 est.)[3]
