International Competitiveness (Online Lesson)

In this online lesson, we look at the meaning and nature of international competitiveness, as well as its implications for economies.

WHAT YOU'LL STUDY IN THIS ONLINE LESSON

• the meaning of international competitiveness and the ways of measuring it
• price and non-price competitiveness
• the impact of competitiveness on the economy

Additional teacher guidance is available at the end of this lesson. Thank you to Peter McGinn, Cathy Williams and Jon Clark for their contributions to this lesson.

HOW TO USE THIS ONLINE LESSON

Follow along in order of the activities shown below. Some are based on short videos, including activities for you to think about and try at home, as well as some extra worksheet-based activities.

If you would like to download a simple PDF worksheet to accompany the video activities, you can find it here. You can print it off and annotate it for your own notes, or make your own notes on a separate piece of paper to add to your school/college file.

ACTIVITY 1: GAME - UK GLOBAL BRANDS

Let's get started by playing this Trapdoor activity, focusing on UK-based global brands.

ACTIVITY 2: VIDEO - OVERVIEW

In this video, we take a look at the meaning of international competitiveness, and how it is measured by the World Economic Forum. You could follow up this video by taking a look at the latest Global Competitiveness Report from the WEF here.

ACTIVITY 3: VIDEO - INFLUENCES ON COMPETITIVENESS

Find out more about the factors that influence competitiveness, from exchange rates to commodity prices and beyond.

ACTIVITY 4: READING - ASIAN TIGERS

The Asian Tiger Economies are Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan. You can read a little more about their development and status as "tiger economies" here. News reports in the last 6-12 months have suggested that these economies have started to become less internationally competitive, leading to slowing growth. There is a good report on this topic from The Economist here. Follow up this reading by finding your own sources of information on this topic - can you reach your own conclusion?

ACTIVITY 5: VIDEO - BENEFITS OF BEING COMPETITIVE

This video explores some of the broader benefits for an economy that is internationally competitive.

ACTIVITY 6: VIDEO - POLICIES FOR COMPETITIVENESS

This final video considers the effectiveness of a range of policies that governments could use to promote greater competitiveness in their economies.

ACTIVITY 7: GAME - GLOBAL EXPORTS

Develop your knowledge of real-world applications of competitiveness by having a go at this tug-of-war game!

EXTENSION READING

If you're looking for a bit of a challenge on this topic, then why not take a look at this academic journal article on international competitiveness from researchers at the University of Kiev. You will need to click the button saying "download full-text PDF" towards the top right-hand corner of the screen after following the link.

ADDITIONAL TEACHER GUIDANCE

This lesson builds on a number of other topics such as protectionism and exchange rates and globalisation. It comprises:

• around 50 minutes of guided video spread across 4 videos
• around 20-30 minutes of student thinking and activity time throughout the videos
• 2 reading tasks
• 2 interactive games, designed to improve knowledge of real-world examples