HL Economics: Shopping Mall Analysis

 

 

 

 

For this assignment, I visited Nishinomiya Gardens, a shopping mall that newly opened in 2008. Whats so special about this mall is that it doesn’t have an grand entrance, except its directly connected with the Hankyu Nishinomiya Garden through an bridge.

Entrance
Outside the entrance of the mall, there are many movie advertisements that are currently on show in their theatre. The purpose of having movie advertisements is that if they succeed on having their customers watch an movie, it will result with them having to stay at the mall for a very long time, having them spend money (i.e. waiting before the movie, buying popcorn etc, eating dinner).

For their entrance, it has a really gorgeous mood with yellow light and shady walls, creating an rich atmosphere.

Inside the mall

As soon as you enter the mall, you see an navigation panel. This is probably meant for people who are just stopping by to visit specific stores. Its also for people who are finding stores of certain types. For example theres an panel just for restraunts, which is probably for people who desire on having a meal or so. The panel also advertises campaigns that are currently happening.

First Floor

First thing you see when entering the mall is an shoe shop.

Shoes are cheap and desired by everyone. Therefor it is the perfect item for having customers buy it impulsively.

The first floor is mainly compromised of fast fashion and accessory/daily shops. Shops that mostly sell cheap goods. This is so that customers wouldn’t use too much money, having them want to proceed to the upper floors.

They also had a tree inside the mall. This is to advertise their “eco-friendly” ness which is an very popular ideology amongst Japan.

One side of the first floor was filled with supermarkets, grocery stores, and snack stores. Set so that house wives can also finish shopping preparation for their dinner without leaving the mall.

Second Floor

The second floor is filled with expensive luxury goods, mostly brands that branch stores throughout Japan. This is the floor in which most money is spend on shopping. Mall owners want their customers to spend majority of their time shopping on this floor. After they pass their floor, they would be mostly finished with their shopping, getting mentally prepared to leave the mall.

Third Floor

The third floor is mostly compromised with beauty therapies and restraunts. This floor  mainly targets customers that have finished most of their shopping and are ready to leave the mall. The beauty therapies are for women that might stop by during their open time.

Open tenants are filled with stores with private management of individuals.

Exceptions

On the edge of the mall, was an large department store called “Izumiya” thats up 3 stories high. Izumiya’s structure followed the patterns of each floor also.

First Floor: Grocery Store

Second Store: Clothing

 

 

HL Economics: Chapter 4

1a. With the use of examples, explain why some products have a low price elasticity while others have a high elasticity.

Elasticity is the ratio between how much one factor changes in response to the differentiation of a different factor. So in price elasticity, it is determined to be how sensitive customers are due to the change of price of a product.

An good or service with low elasticity will have consumers that aren’t very sensitive to price change. Non-elastic goods tend to lack substitute goods. For example diamond and gold. No matter how high the price goes, people will still decide to buy them due to the lack of substitue goods.

On the other hand, an good or service with high elasticity will have consumers to be very sensitive on price change. Elastic godos tend to have many substitute goods. For example oranges. If the price of oranges increase, customers will buy tangerines instead.

1b. If you were employed as an economist by a business, discuss why a knowledge of the price elasticity of demand of your product would be useful.

Having knowledge of the price elasticity of your product will help exclusively when setting/changing your price. If my product has low-elasticity, I would feel free to increase its price inorder to maximize profit. An low-elastic product has customers that are relatively low sensitive to price due to its lack of substitute goods. On the other hand if my product has high elasticity, I would have to be careful to set my product price so that my customers wouldn’t discharge to substitute goods. Products with high elasticity have customers that are very sensitive to price changes.

HL Economics: Chapter 3

1. Identify three reasons why the supply of oranges, for example, might increase and explain how this change will result in a new equilibrium.

3 Reasons why the supply of oranges might increase

– Production technology for oranges advance. For instance if an certain technology advances and helps reduce the production cost of oranges, the producer will be able to produce more, thus causing the supply of oranges to increase.

– Decrease in prices of substitute goods. For example lets say that the price of tangerines decrease. Due to the decrease in price, suppliers would invest more on the production of  oranges as they don’t want to lose profit. There for the supply of oranges will increase.

– Increase in suppliers. For example Japan decides to give subsidies to those who contribute in agricultural farming. This would motivate people to start farming, which some of might be interested in producing oranges. Since there would be more suppliers, the supply of oranges will increase.

New equilibrium when supply increases

 

As the supply of oranges increase, the supply curve will shift to the right (demonstrated with S2). This will cause the equilibrium price to drop.

2. Describe the concept of allocative efficiency and explain why it is achieved at the competitive market equilibrium. 

Allocative efficiency is achieved when society is getting the goods and services they want the most. In other words, it is when marginal benefit is equal to marginal cost.

Marginal cost is the cost it takes to produce one additional product.

Marginal benefit is the utility we obtain from consuming one additional quantity of the good or service. Marginal benefit tends to decrease as consumption increases

 

HL Economics: System Report

Capitalism: Market Economy (United States)

United States is one of the greatest capitalistic nation in the world. Capitalism is an economic system in which the market is mostly assembled of private properties and ownerships. Since the market is based on private firms, government intervention is very limited. However, throughout the past years the US economy has been on a recession, causing major firms to go bankrupt. Inorder to prevent this from proceeding, the US government nationalized the prominent banks and leading car companies . Although this is a contrary action for an capitalistic nation would take, the US government states that the nationalized firms will be returned to an private state once the economy recovers. Making an socialistic move makes the US an mixed-economy, which they might have given an try looking into its potential.

This article focuses on United States real economic growth recovering to an 2.5 percent increase throughout July to September 2011. Although 2.5 percent isn’t an great number, at least the nations heading in the right direction, showing an preliminary to recover from the recession. However this is only if the real economic growth rate is still on an upward trend. According to Kathy Bostjancic, even the current 2.5 percent is hard to sustain for the current US. Even if they did sustain an 2.5 percent, it isn’t solid enough to positively affect the high unemployment rate. The article also considers about how majority of the consumers in the US market spend  on health care and utilities, although businesses are investing on software and vehicles. This is because of the consumers having an perspective of the current economy as an “recessing” state, thus wavering their confidence on holding loans and debts from their spendings.

Communism: Command Economy (Cuba)

Cuba is one of the few communist nations around the world aside with, China, Laos and Vietnam. In an communist state, the market firms are under public ownership meaning that the government has control over the means of production and labor force. The strengths of an command economy is that poverty will be reduced since wealth and resource is distributed equally amongst the citizens. However this causes lack in incentives for the labor force to work hard, thus causing the nations economy to weaken. After the resignation of the former Cuban prime minister Fidel Castro, the nation has been making effort to rebuild the economy by shifting towards an free market.

This article talks about Raul Castro’s inauguration as the Cuban prime minister. It focuses on how and what Raul plans to change Cuba from its former state. Raul plans to make the government much more smaller and compact, as it has many needless sectors. By minimizing the government, they will be able to govern the nation much more efficient and effectively. The article reports that Raul will chart a different course for the communist state in contrast to Fidel. Possibility is that Cuba will be shifted to more of an mixed-economy, or even an market economy. If it does take place, it might be an strong key to recover Cuba’s devastated economy.

Mixed Economy: European Socialism (United Kingdom)

Mixed economies are very common in European nations (therefor it is also referred as European socialism). Mixed economy is an system which is comprised with properties of both capitalism and communism. In United Kingdom’s mixed economy, the government doesn’t conduct any intervention, however provides subsidy or temporary nationalizes companies that are in crisis so that they wouldn’t collapse. For example, the UK has an system called the “Bank rescue package”, in which banks at crisis are able to ask for help from the government. The government uses tax inorder to buy shares of the bank, making them partially nationalized.

Northern Rock was the first bank to be nationalized during this decade. Nationalizing the Northern Rock triggered the formalization of the “Bank rescue package”. The UK government made their decision to nationalize the bank, after rejecting two rescue proposals from struggling banks, which later went bankrupt. If the Northern Rock hadn’t been nationalized and secured, it would’ve caused great damage to the UK economy.

	Capitalism	Communism	Socialism
Economic System	Market-economy	Command-economy	Mixed-economy
Government type	Democratic	Dictatorship	Democratic
Government’s Role in the Economy	Government doesn’t have control or ownership over the nations economy.	Communist countries have almost complete control and ownership of the nation’s economy.	Government has partial control and ownership over the nations economy. At times the government provides subsidy or assist for firms.
Distribution of Wealth	Very unbalanced distribution. Great gap between the higher and lower class.	Said to be “equally” balanced”.	Unbalanced but not as much gap between the wealthy and poor compared to capitalist nations.
Free Trade	Economy is assembled based on free trade.	No free trade	Part of the economy runs on free trade.
Strengths	Efficient/Effective use of marketing	Rapid growth/Reduce poverty	Efficient/Effective use of marketing/Slightly reduce poverty

Highlighted parts determine the similarities between the three systems.

HL Economics: Chapter 1, 2

Chapter One – The Foundation of Economics

1a. + 2b. Economics is the study of how scarce resources are or should be used. Scarce meaning that the resource is desired however limited in quantity. The allocation of an scarce resource can be crucial for an nations success in their economy. For example, steel can be an scarce resource due to its various methods of usage, and also for its limited supply. Economics is used to determine what form of allocation would be the most effective when using the scarce resource. One of the most common method is to use an PPC curve.

This graph determines the PPC curve for steel spoons and guns in two different countries. Nation A (Example: Japan) produces a much more larger amount of steel spoons, instead of making guns. Nation B (Example: North Korea) produces a much more larger amount of guns, instead of making guns. Opportunity costs always occur while making choices. Opportunity cost is the value of the best alternative forgone by making an economic decision. In this example Nation A’s opportunity cost was the value of producing guns. Nation B’s opportunity cost was the value of steel spoons. Although each individual nation can distribute in any sort of way, however opportunity costs will always occur aslong as steel remains as an scarce resource.

Chapter Two – Competitive Markets: Demands and Supply

Movement of an demand curve: is when the point on a demand curve moves its position along the curve. This happens when an price of goods/service changes, therefor the demand is influenced.

Shift in the demand curve: is when there is change in the non-price determinants of demand. In this case the curve it self is shifted parallel to the x axis either to the left or right depending on its fluctuation.

Mathematics 10+: Logarithms

Logarithms before calculators

Physics 10: Water use in Canadian Academy

Through out the past few years, the devastation of nature and its environment has been an upcoming problem. One of the many goals Canadian Academy hopes to achieve is to save the environment. As an part of saving the environment, Canadian Academy aims to economize the consumption of usable water, as it is very vital and important to humans. Water is essential for our daily lives. We use it in our daily lives, from when we wash our hands to times when we eat and drink. Despite its demand from humans, there is only a limited amount of usable water that is available for us. The distribution of Earth’s water is based on 99 percent of unusable water (oceans, saline-ground water, glaciers and ice caps) and the remaining 1 percent of usable water which consists of ground water, lakes, and rivers. Even with our dependency and reliability towards water, we always tend to waste water, not knowing on its scarcity and importance.In order to delay usable water from running out, we always have to keep in mind to stop wasting and to find new ways to save water. Recently, Canadian Academy opened the ELAC buildin, which utilizes of more developed facilities compared to the Main building. While one of the aims of Canadian Academy is to save the environment and consume less water, the ELAC building has few factors in which works towards that  goal.

Using a sensored faucet for the toilet sinks is an exemplary model. Normal faucets persistently releases water as long as the tap is un-winded. On the other hand, sensored faucets only releases water when an hand is covered over the sensor. By avoiding the water to be persistently released, water is saved when the individual is taking soap or drying their hands. The amount of water released can be controlled for normal faucets, however not for censored faucets. Censored faucets releases an certain amount of water, for a short amount of time. Inorder to compare the difference, my personal research team gathered data regarding the amount of water released from the different types of faucets.

Main building: 132/per second (approximately 60 degree turn of the lever)

ELAC building: 60/per second

The normal faucets in the Main building releases about approximately twice as much water compared to the censored faucets in the Main building. Although this may seem like faucets in the Main building allows individuals to wash their hands twice as quicker compared to the censored faucets in the ELAC building, it is certainly so. Not only does censored faucets allow water from being persistently released, it also releases an mixture of water and foam. By doing so, it also

work in progress still.

Social Studies 10: Land use

1. You own a ______ restaurant, and you are interested in moving to Rokko Island. Where would you locate your business? Why?

*Map of Rokko Island                                                                                                                                                                Yellow – Industrial | Green – Residential | Pink – Commercial | Blue – Educational | Red – Recreational

As the first step to expanding our business on Rokko Island, I’ve decided to locate our new convenience store in the Marine Park area. We plan to have it in Marine Court, a vacant area thats located right below Marine Park station. I chose to expand our business in the Marine Park area based on its land use. The area around Marine Park is mainly used for educational and recreational use.

For educational use, schools such as Canadian Academy, Rokko Island Highschool, Kobe International University, and Yumenohoshi Kindergarden locates there. Konan University also has several sports grounds and infrastructure around the area. Therefor students usually commute using the Rokko Liner and Marine Park station. Although there are many convenience stores at Island Center, there are no stores between Marine Park and the schools itself, therefor it will be very convenient for students if there is a convenience store around the area, which they will be able to access easily during their commute. I chose to expand our business in Marine Park because we will have a large group of students as our target consumers. There for we will have many customers and our sales would be very high.

Marine Park is also very popular for its recreational areas. Just few minutes by walk, you are able to access Dekapatosu (water park), Skate Park, Rokko Island Futsal Stadium, and the public grass field + dog run. Due to these facilities, there are many families that visit Marine Park during the weekends. Even though there are many recreational facilities, there are no convenience stores (closest one is 2 and a half block away).

If we locate our new convenience store in the Marine Park area, it will be very convenient for the target consumer (families who came to visit the recreational area), therefor we will have many customers.

2. You work for the Urban Development Office of Rokko Island. You are trying to identify areas of improvement for land use on Rokko Island. Make two recommendations to the Mayor of Kobe that you think Rokko Island should do over the next 5 years related to land use.

Rokko Island has an very diverse form of land use. Despite the fact that I haven’t mapped out Rokko Liner/transportation, Rokko Island has every type of land use. Although Rokko Island has every type of land use, it is very biased in terms of scale. For example, the industrial land use takes up majority of the area outside of green belt, while the commercial use of Rokko Island only takes a small portion of the island. Rokko Island could be used much more effectively through having a better balance of land use.

Inorder to make the Rokko Island an better place, I would recommend the Mayor of Kobe to invest more on recreational and commercial land use. The current Rokko Island isn’t very lively. Most people come to the island for work and education, not for the recreational areas. Although there are few recreational areas such as the Skatepark,  waterpark, futsal field, and the river mall, these only attract a specific range of young people. Since Rokko Island already has a good population of students, the island should focus on building recreational areas that attracts a wide range of people. These would be things such as a shopping mall, amusement parks, bowling center, karaoke, game center, etc. By having these facilities the island will be much more appealing to young people, especially the students that commute there. Since there are many vacant areas on Rokko Island, it wouldn’t be a vital problem to find a large mass of open land.

Another recommendation I will make to the Mayor of Kobe will be to invest more on commercial areas. Recreational areas go most effective when placed near commercial areas. In most places where young people focus, there are often combinations of recreational and commercial areas together. For example in Sannomiya they have multiple shopping streets and food chains. Inorder to effectively sell out these commercial areas, they also have facilities such as game centers, karaoke, bowling centers, movie theatres, and such recreational spots where young people tend to visit. Commercial areas can be located in Rink, where it is empty from the third floor and above. By conducting both recommendations, Rokko Island will be a much more lively place where young people will visit often.

3. You are the Project Manager for the Coastal Management Task Force for Rokko Island. You need to make three recommendations for future coastal management for Rokko Island. List out your three recommendations, explain why you are recommending them, list any disadvantages they may have. Finally, explain how the stakeholders related to the changes would feel.

There are many improvements that can be made for Rokko Island’s coastal management. Rokko Island’s coastal management can shift basis on tourism. The current coast of Rokko Island is mainly used for transportation of cargo. Despite the great view (during the night especially, i.e. Osaka and Harborland), Rokko Island isn’t taking any advantage of it. Although there are few benches by the sea side, nothing beyond. There are two restraunts, they both don’t seem to be having many customers at all times. More commercial areas should be opened next to the seaside, along with a lot of advertisement so that people would actually visit there. By having more tourism along the sea side, Rokko Island will have more visitors, which is directly proportional to the islands income. Although there may be great benefits, there are great disadvantages to conduct this coastal management. It is hard to find shops that are willing to open their business on the island. More of all, they wouldn’t be more willing to open in the Island Center area where all the commercial areas focus. Due to this it is close to an bet to open business by the seaside. If they fail to get a good amount of customers, they will have no choice to shut their store, causing a lot of economic loss.

Another recommendation is to expand the ferry system. The current ferry system on Rokko Island has three routes, all of them goes to different parts of Kyushu. The ferry system will be even more attractive if they had routes that go to Osaka. An possible route will be from Rokko Island to Universal City. Universal City has Universal Walk, which is an recreational and commercial area made based upon Universal Studios Japan. The current transportation methods from Kobe to USJ is only by train, which requires a lot of exchange of lines. This may be very complicated and time consuming, therefor it will be very convenient if there is an ferry that takes you straight to Universal City. Also ferry’s can be accessed very cheaply and is also very enjoyable. Although this may sound like an good recommendation, there are also some disadvantages that follow along. Rokko Island will have to invest money on labor costs, ferry fees, and the current facilities. The current ferry station is located on the edge of Rokko Island, which is very hard to access by walk. There are busses that connect from Island Kitaguchi to the ferry station, however there are only about 3-4 that run everyday. Conducting this coastal management will affect many people. The ferry company of Rokko Island will have much more work to do, regarding organizing the facilities and running the ferries.

Another recommendation that can be made to the current coastal management is the improvement of wild life habitats. The current image of Rokko Island’s coast seems to be that it is very polluted and dirty. There for not many people visit the seaside, due to their low expectations. However, in fact there are many fishers amongst the coastline, meaning that their are many fishes. If we can improve the current conditions for the wild life habitats and increase their population, people will have much better impressions on the seaside. Although this may sound like an good idea, there can be many disadvantages. The current coast of Rokko Island is mainly used for transportation of cargo. Inorder to make the water less polluted, Rokko Island will have to balance out the amount of transportation, compared to other factors such as tourism and wild life habitats. Conducting this coastal management may greatly affect the commercial areas by the seaside. The two restraunts that reside by the seaside may have an increase in their amount of customers.

Social Studies 10: Why was the Haitian Earthquake so Deadly

On January 12, 2010, Haiti was struck by an earthquake with the magnitude of 7.0. With an estimate death toll of 316000 people, the Haitian Earthquake is known to be one of the most devastating earthquake. Compared to Japan’s Tohoku Earthquake with an magnitude of 8.8, the Haitian Earthquake with the magnitude of 7.0 is 100 times weaker. Despite the large difference between magnitude, the Haitian Earthquake turned out to be much more destructive compared to the Tohoku Earthquake with an death toll of 15854 people. The reason to Haiti’s overwhelming destruction was due to its environment and not being able to prepare for risk-mitigation.

Haiti is located on top of the Carribean plate, which is in between the North American and South American plate. Tectonic plates are always moving, causing friction between one another. The plate boundaries are classified in three different types; divergent, convergent, and transform. Divergent is when the plates are moving apart from each other. Convergent is when the plates are pushing against each other. Transform is when the plates rub and grind against each other. In this incident both the North and South American plates were moving towards the Carribean Plate, causing tension. As the tension built up during the past few years, it finally set off causing the earthquake. Since Haiti is located right on top of the plate boundary close to the fault line, the epicenter of the earthquake was right below the city, which was one of the major reasons why the Haitian Earthquake was so deadly.

Geographic location of Haiti and its surrounding fault lines, plate boundaries, and tectonic plates. (*Wordpress isn’t letting me insert pictures)

The epicenter of the Haitian Earthquake was located right under Port-au-prince, the capital city of Haiti. The earthquake happened in the most populated areas of Haiti, which also was the reason to the Haitian Earthquakes overwhelming death toll.

Haiti’s GDP is 12.44billion dollars, ranking 145th in the world. On the other hand Japan’s GDP is 4.389trillion dollars, ranking 5th in the world. Haiti is an LEDC country. This means that compared to Japan, they have much less money to spend for their country. Having one of the lowest GDP around the world, they wouldn’t be able to invest money on health care, infrastructure, and education. Which all three relates to risk mitigation. Without good health care, they wouldn’t be able to treat the wounded from the earthquake, causing them to die. Without good infrastructure like Japan, most of their buildings have collapsed causing the people within to die. Also without good education, they aren’t able to teach individuals way to survive after the earthquake.

In these ways, the Haitian Earthquake happened to be very destructive, causing a huge damage through out Haiti despite its level of magnitude

Social Studies 10: Why is Coastal Management Important?

Majority of the mega cities around the world happen to be located close to the coast lines. This is because of the multiple benefits that coasts provide when it is being well managed. There are six factors that coastal management consists of, transportation, tourism, industry, resource extraction, settlements, and wildlife habitats. All six are beneficial and detrimental to the coastal city, and also to each other, therefor they all cannot coexist together. Therefor coastal cities each have different types of coastal management, depending on their geographical location and purpose.

Having a port is one of the most effective ways of using a coast. Having ports that provide transportation along the coastline, cities are able to import and export between other cultures at a very cheap price. Although transportation over water costs a lot of time, it can be very cheap to transport a mass amount of items. Therefor it is very popular to have factories and industrial settlements around ports. Resource extraction also goes well with transportation. Resource extraction can be things such as, natural gas, fishing, and oil extraction. When these are extracted along the coastline, it can be distributed and transported very effectively using the port and its  transportation. Even though having a port and industrial settlements can boost the coastal cities economy, it creates a lot of waste and pollution killing the wildlife.

Tourism is also one of the most effective ways of using a coast. Coasts can be arranged for drawing in tourists through leisure and recreational spots. In most tourism spots, the number of settlements also start to increase the surrounding area. This is because the amount of jobs increase, due to the demand of the tourists and visitors. It also is amusing to be living besides a beautiful coast thats flourished with recreational and leisure spots.

Although being located on a coast can be beneficial, it can also be detrimental. When coastal cities develop their city, it is inevitable for not having pollution. Pollution can lead to erosion of sea level. Although this may not be a major threat for most cities, it can be critical for some places. Miami for example has potential of suffering from coastal erosion. In order to avoid this, they will have to conduct some sort of engineering to their coasts.

In these ways, coastal management is important to those who live close to the coast. Although it is quite impossible to have all six factors at once, it is still up to the coastal city in what way they choose to invest on the coast.