5 Counterarguments
Model answers:
It has been claimed that employees may waste time at home, but in practice there seems little
evidence for this.
Although homeworking may save companies money by reducing the need for office space,
employees need to have a well-equipped workspace in their home.
6 Providing evidence
1 Drawbacks of imports – Inglehart
2 Benefits of imports – Indian case study (Goldberg et al.)
3 Writer’s viewpoint
7 Practice B
Model answer:
It is widely thought that inflation is undesirable. Patterson (1998) points out that it can lead
to industrial disputes as employees frequently demand pay rises to compensate for its effects,
while excessive inflation results in lack of trust in money and uncertainty about the future. In
contrast, Costa et al.(2012) demonstrate the advantages of moderate inflation in terms
of stimulating spending and effectively reducing the value of debt. Clearly, the issue must be
the level of inflation, and in practice most governments seem to encourage inflation levels of
about 2%.
2.2 Cause and Effect
2 Practice A
Possible answers:
(a) Owing to the cold winter of 2013, there was increased demand for electricity.
(b) Tax cuts often lead to higher levels of spending.
(c) More people shopping on the internet may result in stores closing on the high street.
(d) The introduction of digital cameras resulted in reduced demand for photographic film.
(e) As a result of interest rates being increased last spring, there have been higher levels of
saving.
(f) Falling sales of a firm’s products can result in redundancies.
(g) Her aggressive managerial style caused an increase in labour disputes.