The Global Economy

$globalization:$ the trend of the world economy toward becoming a more interdependent system

the “shrinking” of time and space as air travel and the electronic media have made it much easier for the people of the globe to communicate with one another
30 years ago, cell phones, pagers, fax, and voice-mail links barely existed
- by 2021, there are nearly 8.6 billion mobile-cellular subscriptions
today, of the 7.9 billion people in the world, 62% are internet users

$e-commerce:$ the buying and selling of products and services through computer networks
US retail e-commerce sales are estimated at $905 billion for 2022, up 14% over the previous year
- Amazon accounts for about 29% of that growth
China alone accounted for 33% of the world’s mobile online shopping in 2022, spending more than $2.11 trillion annually (in US dollars)

$global economy:$ the increasing tendency of the economies of the world to interact with one another as one market, instead of many national markets
- positive effects: the world will be far more interconnected to leading better and more affordable products, and better communication among nations
- negative effects: the movement, or outsourcing, of formerly well-paying jobs overseas as companies seek cheaper labor costs, mostly in manufacturing
megafirms and mergers are on the rise
- industries are becoming bigger and cross-global, especially automobiles, telecommunications, and healthcare
mini-firms are operating worldwide
- the internet allows almost anyone to be global
- small companies can get started more easily
- small companies can manuever faster

trade agreement among 11 Pacific Rim countries
signed on February 4, 2016
on January 23, 2017, the US withdrew from the agreement
countries include:
- Australia, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, New Zealand, Singapore, Vietnam, and Brunei Darusallam