Globalization (or globalisation) is the process of international integration

arising from the interchange of world views, products, ideas and other
aspects of culture.[1][2] Advances in transportation and
telecommunications infrastructure, including the rise of the telegraph and
its posterity the Internet, are major factors in globalization, generating
furtherinterdependence of economic and cultural activities.[3]
Though scholars place the origins of globalization in modern times, others
trace its history long before the European age of discovery and voyages to
the New World. Some even trace the origins to the third millennium BCE.[4]
[5] In the late 19th century and early 20th century, the connectedness of the
world's economies and cultures grew very quickly.
The term globalization has been increasingly used since the mid-1980s and
especially since the mid-1990s.[6] In 2000, the International Monetary Fund
(IMF) identified four basic aspects of globalization: trade and transactions,
capital andinvestment movements, migration and movement of people, and
the dissemination of knowledge.[7] Further, environmental challenges such
as climate change, cross-boundary water and air pollution, and over-fishing
of the ocean are linked with globalization.[8] Globalizing processes affect
and are affected by business and work organization,economics, sociocultural resources, and the natural environment.
Contents
[hide]

1 Overview

1.1 Etymology and usage

2 History

2.1 Archaic

2.2 Early modern

2.3 Modern

3 Global business organization

3.1 International trade

3.1.1 Trade agreements, economic blocs and special trade zones

3.2 Tax havens

3.3 International tourism

3.4 International sports

3.5 Illicit international trade

4 Economic globalization

4.1 Global financial system

4.2 Inequality

4.3 Capital flight

4.4 Measuring globalization

4.4.1 Indices

4.4.2 Free trade policies

5 Sociocultural globalization

5.1 Culture

5.1.1 Multilingualism and the emergence of lingua francas

5.2 Politics

5.2.1 Media and public opinion

5.3 Internet

5.4 Population growth

5.4.1 Urbanization

5.5 Health

6 Global natural environment

7 Global workforce

7.1 International migration

7.2 Remittances

8 Support and criticism

8.1 Economic liberalism and free trade

8.2 Global democracy

8.3 Global civics

8.4 International cooperation

8.5 Anti-globalization movement

8.5.1 Movement tactics

8.6 Opposition to capital market integration

8.7 Anti-corporatism and anti-consumerism

8.8 Global justice and inequality

8.8.1 Global justice

8.8.2 Social Inequality

8.9 Anti-global governance

8.10 Environmentalist opposition

9 Key journals

10 See also

11 References

12 Further reading

13 External links

Overview[edit]
Extent of the Silk Road and Spice traderoutes owned by the Ottoman
Empire in 1453 spurring exploration
Humans have interacted over long distances for thousands of years. The
overland Silk Road that connectedAsia, Africa, and Europe is a good
example of the transformative power of translocal exchange that existed in
the "Old World". Philosophy, religion, language, the arts, and other aspects
of culture spread and mixed as nations exchanged products and ideas. In

both the 15th and 16th centuries, Europeans made important discoveries in
their exploration of the oceans, including the start of transatlantic travel to
the "New World" of the Americas. Global movement of people, goods, and
ideas expanded significantly in the following centuries. Early on in the 19th
century, the development of new forms of transportation (such as the
steamship and railroads) andtelecommunications that "compressed" time
and space allowed for increasingly rapid rates of global interchange.[9] In
the 20th century, road vehicles, intermodal transport, and airlines made
transportation even faster. The advent of electronic communications, most
notably mobile phones and the Internet, connected billions of people in new
ways by the year 2010.
Eastern Telegraph Company 1901 chart of undersea telegraph cabling, an
example of modern globalizing technology in the beginning of the 20th
century.
Airline personnel from the "Jet set" age, circa 1960.
Etymology and usage[edit]
The term globalization is derived from the word globalize, which refers to
the emergence of an international network of economic systems.[10] One
of the earliest known usages of the term as a noun was in a 1930
publication entitled, Towards New Education, where it denoted a holistic
view of human experience in education.[11] A related term, corporate
giants, was coined by Charles Taze Russell in 1897[12] to refer to the
largely national trusts and other large enterprises of the time. By the 1960s,
both terms began to be used as synonyms by economists and other social
scientists. Economist Theodore Levitt is widely credited with coining the
term in an article entitled "Globalization of Markets", which appeared in the
MayJune 1983 issue ofHarvard Business Review. However, the term
'globalization' was in use well before (at least as early as 1944) and had
been used by other scholars as early as 1981.[13] Levitt can be credited
with popularizing the term and bringing it into the mainstream business
audience in the later half of the 1980s. Since its inception, the concept of
globalization has inspired competing definitions and interpretations, with
antecedents dating back to the great movements of trade and empire

across Asia and the Indian Ocean from the 15th century onwards.[14][15]
Due to the complexity of the concept, research projects, articles, and
discussions often remain focused on a single aspect of globalization.[1]
Roland Robertson, professor of sociology at University of Aberdeen, an
early writer in the field, defined globalization in 1992 as:
...the compression of the world and the intensification of the consciousness
of the world as a whole.[16]
Sociologists Martin Albrow and Elizabeth King define globalization as:
...all those processes by which the peoples of the world are incorporated
into a single world society.[2]
In The Consequences of Modernity, Anthony Giddens uses the following
definition:
Globalization can thus be defined as the intensification of worldwide social
relations which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings
are shaped by events occurring many miles away and vice versa.[17]
In Global Transformations David Held, et al., study the definition of
globalization:
Although in its simplistic sense globalization refers to the widening,
deepening and speeding up of global interconnection, such a definition
begs further elaboration. ... Globalization can be located on a continuum
with the local, national and regional. At one end of the continuum lie social
and economic relations and networks which are organized on a local and/or
national basis; at the other end lie social and economic relations and
networks which crystallize on the wider scale of regional and global
interactions. Globalization can refer to those spatial-temporal processes of
change which underpin a transformation in the organization of human
affairs by linking together and expanding human activity across regions and
continents. Without reference to such expansive spatial connections, there
can be no clear or coherent formulation of this term. ... A satisfactory
definition of globalization must capture each of these elements: extensity
(stretching), intensity, velocity and impact.[18]
Swedish journalist Thomas Larsson, in his book The Race to the Top: The
Real Story of Globalization, states that globalization:

is the process of world shrinkage, of distances getting shorter, things

moving closer. It pertains to the increasing ease with which somebody on
one side of the world can interact, to mutual benefit, with somebody on the
other side of the world.[19]
Responding to the many problems with existing definitions of globalization,
including the tendencies to give the impression that spatial distance is
being overcome, the world is getting smaller or globalization has always
been the same kind of process across human history, Paul James defines
globalization with a more direct and historically contextualized emphasis:
Globalization is the extension of social relations across world-space,
defining that world-space in terms of the historically variable ways that it
has been practised and socially understood through changing world-time.
[20]
The journalist Thomas L. Friedman popularized the term "flat world",
arguing that globalized trade, outsourcing, supply-chaining, and political
forces had permanently changed the world, for better and worse. He
asserted that the pace of globalization was quickening and that its impact
on business organization and practice would continue to grow.[21]
Economist Takis Fotopoulos defined "economic globalization" as the
opening and deregulation of commodity, capital and labor markets that led
toward presentneoliberal globalization. He used "political globalization" to
refer to the emergence of a transnational elite and a phasing out of the
nation-state. "Cultural globalization", he used to reference the worldwide
homogenization of culture. Other of his usages included "ideological
globalization", "technologicalglobalization" and "social globalization".[22]
Manfred Steger, professor of Global Studies and research leader in the
Global Cities Institute at RMIT University, identifies four main empirical
dimensions of globalization: economic, political, cultural, and ecological,
with a fifth dimension - the ideological - cutting across the other four. The
ideological dimension, according to Steger, is filled with a range of norms,
claims, beliefs, and narratives about the phenomenon itself.[23]
In 2000, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) identified four basic aspects
of globalization: trade and transactions, capital and investment
movements,migration and movement of people and the dissemination of

knowledge.[7] With regards to trade and transactions, developing countries

increased their share of world trade, from 19 percent in 1971 to 29 percent
in 1999. However, there is great variation among the major regions. For
instance, the newly industrialized economies (NIEs) of Asia prospered,
while African countries as a whole performed poorly. The makeup of a
country's exports is an important indicator for success. Manufactured goods
exports soared, dominated by developed countries and NIEs. Commodity
exports, such as food and raw materials were often produced by
developing countries: commodities' share of total exports declined over the
period.
Paul James argues that four different forms of globalization can also be
distinguished that complement and cut across the solely empirical
dimensions.[24]According to James, the oldest dominant form of
globalization is embodied globalization, the movement of people. A second
form is agency-extended globalization, the circulation of agents of different
institutions, organizations, and polities, including imperial agents. Objectextended globalization, a third form, is the movement of commodities and
other objects of exchange. The transmission of ideas, images, knowledge
and information across world-space he calls disembodied globalization,
maintaining that it is currently the dominant form of globalization. James
holds that this series of distinctions allows for an understanding of how,
today, the most embodied forms of globalization such as the movement of
refugees and migrants are increasingly restricted, while the most
disembodied forms such as the circulation of financial instruments and
codes are the most deregulated.[25]
Globophobia has been used incorrectly to refer to the fear of globalization.
[26][27][28]
History[edit]
Main article: History of globalization
See also: Timeline of international trade
There are both distal and proximate causes which can be traced in the
historical factors affecting globalization. Large-scale globalization began in
the 19th century.[9]
Archaic[edit]

1st century CE Map of Silk Road

Main article: Archaic globalization
Archaic globalization is seen as a phase in the history of globalization
conventionally referring to globalizing events and developments from the
time of the earliest civilizations until roughly the 1600s. This term is used to
describe the relationships between communities and states and how they
were created by the geographical spread of ideas and social norms at both
local and regional levels.[29]
In this schema, three main prerequisites are posited for globalization to
occur. The first is the idea of Eastern Origins, which shows how Western
states have adapted and implemented learned principals from the East.[29]
Without the traditional ideas from the East, Western globalization would not
have emerged the way it did. The second is distance. The interactions
amongst states were not on a global scale and most often were confined to
Asia, North Africa, the Middle East and certain parts of Europe.[29] With
early globalization it was difficult for states to interact with others that were
not within close proximity. Eventually, technological advances allowed
states to learn of others existence and another phase of globalization was
able to occur. The third has to do withinterdependency, stability and
regularity. If a state is not depended on another then there is no way for
them to be mutually affected by one another. This is one of the driving
forces behind global connections and trade; without either globalization
would not have emerged the way it did and states would still be dependent
on their own production and resources to function. This is one of the
arguments surrounding the idea of early globalization. It is argued that
archaic globalization did not function in a similar manner to modern
globalization because states were not as interdependent on others as they
are today.[29]
Also posited is a 'multi-polar' nature to archaic globalization, which involved
the active participation of non-Europeans. Because it predated the Great
Divergence of the nineteenth century, in which Western Europe pulled
ahead of the rest of the world in terms of industrial production and
economic output, archaic globalization was a phenomenon that was driven

not only by Europe but also by other economically developed Old World
centers such as Gujurat,Bengal, coastal China and Japan.[30]
Portuguese carrack in Nagasaki, 17th-century Japanese Nanban art
The German historical economist and sociologist Andre Gunder Frank
argues that a form of globalization began with the rise of trade links
between Sumer and the Indus Valley Civilization in the third millennium
B.C.E. This archaic globalization existed during the Hellenistic Age, when
commercialized urban centers enveloped the axis of Greekculture that
reached from India to Spain, including Alexandria and the other Alexandrine
cities. Early on, the geographic position of Greece and the necessity of
importing wheat forced the Greeks to engage in maritime trade. Trade in
ancient Greece was largely unrestricted: the state controlled only the
supply of grain.[4]
Native New World cropsexchanged globally: Maize, tomato, potato, vanilla,
rubber, cacao, tobacco
Trade on the Silk Road was a significant factor in the development of the
civilizations of China, the Indian subcontinent,Persia, Europe, and Arabia,
opening long-distance, political and economic interactions between the
civilizations.[31]Though silk was certainly the major trade item from China,
many other goods were traded, and religions, syncreticphilosophies, and
various technologies, as well as diseases, also travelled along the Silk
Routes. In addition to economic trade, the Silk Road served as a means of
carrying out cultural trade among the civilizations along its network.[32]
Early modern[edit]
Main article: Proto-globalization
'Early modern-' or 'proto-globalization' covers a period of the history of
globalization roughly spanning the years between 1600 and 1800. The
concept of 'proto-globalization' was first introduced by historians A. G.
Hopkins andChristopher Bayly. The term describes the phase of increasing
trade links and cultural exchange that characterized the period immediately
preceding the advent of high 'modern globalization' in the late 19th century.

[33] This phase of globalization was characterized by the rise of maritime

European empires, in the 16th and 17th centuries, first thePortuguese and
Spanish Empires, and later the Dutch and British Empires. In the 17th
century, world trade developed further when chartered companies like the
British East India Company (founded in 1600) and the Dutch East India
Company (founded in 1602, often described as the first multinational
corporation in which stock was offered) were established.[34]
Early modern globalization is distinguished from modern globalization on
the basis of expansionism, the method of managing global trade, and the
level of information exchange. The period is marked by such trade
arrangements as the East India Company, the shift of hegemony to
Western Europe, the rise of larger-scale conflicts between powerful nations
such as the Thirty Year War, and a rise of new commodities most
particularly slave trade. The Triangular Trade made it possible for Europe to
take advantage of resources within the western hemisphere. The transfer
of animal stocks, plant crops and epidemic diseases associated with Alfred
Crosby's concept of The Columbian Exchange also played a central role in
this process. Early modern trade and communications involved a vast
group including European, Muslim, Indian, Southeast Asian and Chinese
merchants, particularly in the Indian Ocean region.
19th century Great Britain was an early global superpower.
Modern[edit]
Main article: History of globalization
During the 19th century, globalization approached its modern form as a
result of the industrial revolution. Industrialization allowed standardized
production of household items using economies of scale while rapid
population growth created sustained demand for commodities.
Globalization in this period was decisively shaped by nineteenth-century
imperialism. In the 19th century, steamships reduced the cost of
international transport significantly andrailroads made inland transport
cheaper. The transport revolution occurred some time between 1820 and
1850.[9] More nations embraced international trade.[9] Globalization in this
period was decisively shaped by nineteenth-centuryimperialism such as in

Africa and Asia. The invention of shipping containers in 1956 helped

advance the globalization of commerce.[35][36]
After the Second World War, work by politicians led to the Bretton Woods
conference, an agreement by major governments to lay down the
framework for international monetary policy, commerce and finance, and
the founding of several international institutions intended to facilitate
economic growth multiple rounds of trade opening simplified and lowered
trade barriers. Initially, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT),
led to a series of agreements to remove trade restrictions. GATT's
successor was the World Trade Organization (WTO), which provided a
framework for negotiating and formalizing trade agreements and a dispute
resolution process. Exports nearly doubled from 8.5% of total gross world
product in 1970 to 16.2% in 2001.[37] The approach of using global
agreements to advance trade stumbled with the failure of the Doha round
of trade negotiation. Many countries then shifted to bilateral or smaller
multilateral agreements, such as the 2011 South KoreaUnited States Free
Trade Agreement.
Since the 1970s, aviation has become increasingly affordable to middle
classes in developed countries. Open skies policies and low-cost carriers
have helped to bring competition to the market. In the 1990s, the growth of
low-cost communication networks cut the cost of communicating between
different countries. More work can be performed using a computer without
regard to location. This included accounting, software development, and
engineering design.
In the late 19th and early 20th century, the connectedness of the world's
economies and cultures grew very quickly. This slowed down from the
1910s onward due to the World Wars and the Cold War[38] but picked up
again in the 1980s and 1990s.[39] The revolutions of 1989 and subsequent
liberalisation in many parts of the world resulted in a significant expansion
of global interconnectedness. The migration and movement of people can
also be highlighted as a prominent feature of the globalization process. In
the period between 196590, the proportion of the labor force migrating
approximately doubled. Most migration occurred between the developing
countries and least developed countries (LDCs).[40] The Internet has
become influential in connecting people across the world. As of June 2012,

more than 2.4 billion peopleover a third of the world's human population
have used the services of the Internet.[41][42]
Growth of globalization has never been smooth. One influential event was
the late 2000s recession, which was associated with lower growth (such as
cross-border phone calls and Skype usage) or even temporarily negative
growth (such as trade) of global interconnectedness.[43][44] The DHL
Global Connectedness Index studies four main types of cross-border flow:
trade (in both goods and services), information, people (including tourists,
students and migrants) and capital. It shows that the depth of global
integration fell by about one-tenth after 2008, but by 2013 had recovered
well above its pre-crash peak.[45][46]
Globalized society offers a complex web of forces and factors that bring
people, cultures, markets, beliefs and practices into increasingly greater
proximity to one another.[47]
Global business organization[edit]
Main article: International business
Global Competitiveness Index(20082009): competitiveness is an
important determinant for the well-being of nation-states in an international
environment
With improvements in transportation and communication, international
business grew rapidly after the beginning of the 20th century. International
business includes all commercial transactions (private sales, investments,
logistics, and transportation) that take place between two or more regions,
countries and nations beyond their political boundaries. Such international
diversification is tied with firm performance and innovation, positively in the
case of the former and often negatively in the case of the latter.[48] Usually,
private companies undertake such transactions for profit.[49] These
business transactions involve economic resources such as capital, natural
and human resources used for international production of physical goods
and services such as finance, banking, insurance, construction and other
productiveactivities.[50]

International business arrangements have led to the formation of

multinational enterprises (MNE), companies that have a worldwide
approach to markets and production or one with operations in more than
one country. A MNE may also be called a multinational corporation (MNC)
or transnational company (TNC). Well known MNCs include fast
foodcompanies such as McDonald's and Yum Brands, vehicle
manufacturers such as General Motors, Ford Motor Company and Toyota,
consumer electronics companies like Samsung, LG and Sony, and energy
companies such as ExxonMobil, Shell and BP. Most of the largest
corporations operate in multiple national markets.
Businesses generally argue that survival in the new global marketplace
requires companies to source goods, services, labor and materials
overseas to continuously upgrade their products and technology in order to
survive increased competition.[51] According to a recent McKinsey Global
Institute report, flows of goods, services, and finance reached $26 trillion in
2012, or 36 percent of global GDP, 1.5 times the level in 1990.[52]
International trade[edit]
Main article: International trade
Singapore, the top country in theEnabling Trade Index, embraced
globalization and became a highly developed country
International trade is the exchange of capital, goods, and services across
international borders or territories.[53] In most countries, such trade
represents a significant share of gross domestic product (GDP).
Industrialization, advancedtransportation, multinational corporations,
offshoring and outsourcing all have a major impact on world trade. The
growth of international trade is a fundamental component of globalization.
An absolute trade advantage exists when countries can produce a
commodity with less costs per unit produced than could its trading partner.
By the same reasoning, it should import commodities in which it has an
absolute disadvantage.[54] While there are possible gains from trade with
absolute advantage, comparative advantage that is, the ability to offer
goods and services at a lower marginal and opportunity cost extends the
range of possible mutually beneficial exchanges. In a globalized business

environment, companies argue that the comparative advantages offered by

international trade have become essential to remaining competitive.
Trade agreements, economic blocs and special trade zones[edit]
Gross domestic product in 2011 US dollars per capita, adjusted for inflation
and purchasing power parity (log scale) from 1860 to 2011, with population
(disk area) for the US (yellow), UK (orange), Japan (red), China (red), and
India (blue).[55]
Establishment of free trade areas has become an essential feature of
modern governments to handle preferential trading arrangements with
foreign and multinational entities.[56]
A Special Economic Zone (SEZ) is a geographical region that has
economic and other laws that are more free-market-oriented than a
country's typical or national laws. "Nationwide" laws may be suspended
inside these special zones. The category 'SEZ' covers many areas,
including Free Trade Zones (FTZ), Export Processing Zones (EPZ), Free
Zones (FZ), Industrial parks or Industrial Estates (IE), Free Ports, Urban
Enterprise Zones and others. Usually the goal of a structure is to increase
foreign direct investment by foreign investors, typically an international
business or a multinational corporation (MNC). These are designated areas
in which companies are taxed very lightly or not at all in order to encourage
economic activity. Free ports have historically been endowed with favorable
customs regulations, e.g., the free port ofTrieste. Very often free ports
constitute a part of free economic zones.
A FTZ is an area within which goods may be landed, handled,
manufactured or reconfigured, and reexported without the intervention of
the customs authorities. Only when the goods are moved to consumers
within the country in which the zone is located do they become subject to
the prevailingcustoms duties. Free trade zones are organized around major
seaports, international airports, and national frontiers areas with many
geographic advantages for trade.[57] It is a region where a group of
countries has agreed to reduce or eliminate trade barriers.[58]
A Billboard in Jakarta welcoming ASEAN Summit 2011 delegates.

A free trade area is a trade bloc whose member countries have signed a
free-trade agreement, which eliminates tariffs, import quotas, and
preferences on most (if not all) goods and services traded between them. If
people are also free to move between the countries, in addition to a freetrade area, it would also be considered an open border. The European
Union, for example, a confederation of 27 member states, provides both a
free trade area and an open border.
Qualifying Industrial Zones (QIZ) are industrial parks that house
manufacturing operations in Jordan and Egypt. They are a special free
trade zones established in collaboration with neighboring Israel to take
advantage of the free trade agreements between the United States and
Israel. Under the trade agreements with Jordan as laid down by the United
States, goods produced in QIZ-notified areas can directly access US
markets without tariff or quota restrictions, subject to certain conditions. To
qualify, goods produced in these zones must contain a small portion of
Israeli input. In addition, a minimum 35% value to the goods must be added
to the finished product. The brainchild of Jordanian businessman Omar
Salah, the first QIZ was authorized by the United States Congress in 1997.
The Asia-Pacific has been described as "the most integrated trading region
on the planet" because its intra-regional trade accounts probably for as
much as 50-60% of the region's total imports and exports.[59] It has also
extra-regional trade: consumer goods exports such as televisions, radios,
bicycles, and textiles into the United States, Europe, and Japan fueled the
economic expansion.[60]
The ASEAN Free Trade Area[61] is a trade bloc agreement by the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations supporting local manufacturing in
all ASEAN countries. The AFTA agreement was signed on 28 January 1992
in Singapore. When the AFTA agreement was originally signed, ASEAN
had six members, namely, Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines,
Singapore and Thailand. Vietnam joined in 1995, Laos and Myanmar in
1997 and Cambodia in 1999.
Tax havens[edit]

The ratio of German assets in tax havens in relation to the total German
GDP.[62] The "Big 7" shown are Hong Kong, Ireland, Lebanon, Liberia,
Panama, Singapore, and Switzerland.
Main article: Tax haven
A tax haven is a state, country or territory where certain taxes are levied at
a low rate or not at all, which are used by businesses for tax avoidance and
tax evasion.[63] Individuals and/or corporate entities can find it attractive to
establishshell subsidiaries or move themselves to areas with reduced or nil
taxation levels. This creates a situation of tax competition among
governments. Different jurisdictions tend to be havens for different types of
taxes and for different categories of people and companies.[64] The central
feature of a tax haven is that its laws and other measures can be used to
evade or avoid the tax laws or regulations of other jurisdictions.[65] A 2012
report from the Tax Justice Networkestimated that between USD $21 trillion
and $32 trillion is sheltered from taxes in unreported tax havens worldwide.
[66]
Tax havens have been criticized because they often result in the
accumulation of idle cash[67] that is expensive and inefficient for
companies to repatriate.[68] The tax shelter benefits result in a tax
incidence disadvantaging the poor.[69]Many tax havens are thought to
have connections to "fraud, money laundering and terrorism."[70][71] While
investigations of illegal tax haven abuse have been ongoing, there have
been few convictions.[72][73]
International tourism[edit]
Main article: Tourism
Tourism is a form of travel for recreational, leisure or business purposes.
The World Tourism Organization defines tourists as people "traveling to and
staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one
consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes".[74] There are
many forms of tourism such as agritourism, birth tourism, culinary tourism,
cultural tourism, eco-tourism, extreme tourism, geotourism, heritage
tourism, LGBT tourism, medical tourism,nautical tourism, pop-culture
tourism, religious tourism, slum tourism, war tourism, and wildlife tourism.

Globalization has made tourism a popular global leisure activity. The World
Health Organization (WHO) estimates that up to 500,000 people are in
flight at any one time.[75]
Modern aviation has made it possible to travel long distances quickly.
As a result of the late-2000s recession, international travel demand
suffered a strong slowdown from the second half of 2008 through the end
of 2009. After a 5% increase in the first half of 2008, growth in international
tourist arrivals moved into negative territory in the second half of 2008, and
ended up only 2% for the year, compared to a 7% increase in 2007.[76]
This negative trend intensified during 2009, exacerbated in some countries
due to the outbreak of the H1N1 influenza virus, resulting in a worldwide
decline of 4.2% in 2009 to 880 million international tourists arrivals, and a
5.7% decline in international tourism receipts.[77] One notable exception to
more free travel is travel from the United States to bordering countries
Canada and Mexico, which had been semi-open borders. Now, by US law,
travel to these countries requires a passport.[78]
In 2010, international tourism reached US$919B, growing 6.5% over 2009,
corresponding to an increase in real termsof 4.7%.[79] In 2010, there were
over 940 million international tourist arrivals worldwide.[80]
International sports[edit]
Wheelchair basketball teams playing in the 2008 Summer Paralympics
Main articles: Olympic Games and List of world championships
Modern international sports events can be big business for as well as
influencing the political, economical, and other cultural aspects of countries
around the world. Especially with politics and sports, sports can affect
countries, their identities, and in consequence, the world.
The ancient Olympic Games were a series of competitions held between
representatives of several city-states and kingdoms from Ancient Greece,
which featured mainly athletic but also combat and chariot racing events.
During the Olympic games all struggles against the participating city-states
were postponed until the games were finished.[81] The origin of these

Olympics is shrouded in mystery and legend.[82] During the 19th century

Olympic Games became a popular global event.
While some economists are skeptical about the economic benefits of
hosting the Olympic Games, emphasizing that such "mega-events" often
have large costs, hosting (or even bidding for) the Olympics appears to
increase the host country's exports, as the host or candidate country sends
a signal about trade openness when bidding to host the Games.[83]
Moreover, research suggests that hosting the Summer Olympics has a
strong positive effect on thephilanthropic contributions of corporations
headquartered in the host city, which seems to benefit the local nonprofit
sector. This positive effect begins in the years leading up to the Games and
might persist for several years afterwards, although not permanently. This
finding suggests that hosting the Olympics might create opportunities for
cities to influence local corporations in ways that benefit the local nonprofit
sector and civil society.[84] The Games have also had significant negative
effects on host communities; for example, the Centre on Housing Rights
and Evictions reports that the Olympics displaced more than two million
people over two decades, often disproportionately affecting disadvantaged
groups.[85]
Globalization has continually increased international competition in sports.
The FIFA World Cup, for example, is the world's most widely viewed
sporting event; an estimated 700 million people watched the final match of
the 2010 FIFA World Cup held in South Africa.[86]
According to a 2011 A.T. Kearney study of sports teams, leagues and
federations, the global sports industry is worth between 350 billion and
450 billion (US$480-$620 billion).[87] This includes infrastructure
construction, sporting goods, licensed products and live sports events.
Illicit international trade[edit]
Main articles: Black market and Transnational organized crime
The black market in rhinoceros horn reduced the world's rhino population
by more than 90 percent over the past 40 years.[88]

"Black markets" and organized crime often operate on a transnational

basis, with global sales totaling almost US$2 trillion annually as of 2013.
[89]
In 2010, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) reported
that the global drug trade generated more than US$320 billion a year in
revenues.[90] The UN estimated that as of 2000 there were more than 50
million regular users of heroin, cocaine, and synthetic drugs worldwide.[91]
The international trade of endangered species was second only to drug
trafficking among smuggling "industries".[92] Traditional Chinese medicine
often incorporates ingredients from all parts of plants, the leaf, stem, flower,
root, and also ingredients from animals and minerals. The use of parts of
endangered species (such as seahorses, rhinoceros horns, saiga antelope
horns, and tiger bones and claws) resulted in a black market of poachers
who hunt restricted animals.[93][94]
Economic globalization[edit]
Main article: Economic globalization
Shanghai has become a symbol of the recent economic boom of China. In
2011, China had 960,000 millionaires.[95]
Economic globalization is the increasing economic interdependence of
national economies across the world through a rapid increase in crossborder movement of goods, service, technology and capital.[96] Whereas
the globalization of business is centered around the diminution of
international trade regulations as well as tariffs, taxes, and other
impediments that suppresses global trade, economic globalization is the
process of increasing economic integrationbetween countries, leading to
the emergence of a global marketplace or a single world market.[97]
Depending on the paradigm, economic globalization can be viewed as
either a positive or a negative phenomenon. Economic globalization
comprises the globalization of production, markets, competition,
technology, and corporations and industries.[96] Current globalization
trends can be largely accounted for by developed economies integrating
with less developed economies by means of foreign direct investment, the

reduction of trade barriers as well as other economic reforms and, in many

cases, immigration.
In 1944, 44 nations attended the Bretton Woods Conference with a
purpose of stabilizing world currencies and establishing credit for
international trade in the post World War II era. While the international
economic order envisioned by the conference gave way to the neo-liberal
economic order prevalent today, the conference established many of the
organizations essential to advancement towards a close-knit global
economy and global financial system, such as the World Bank, the
International Monetary Fund, and the International Trade Organization.
As an example, Chinese economic reform began to open China to
globalization in the 1980s. Scholars find that China has attained a degree
of openness that is unprecedented among large and populous nations, with
competition from foreign goods in almost every sector of the economy.
Foreign investment helped to greatly increase product quality and
knowledge and standards, especially in heavy industry. China's experience
supports the assertion that globalization greatly increases wealth for poor
countries.[98] As of 20052007, the Port of Shanghai holds the title as the
world's busiest port.[99][100][101][102]
In India, business process outsourcing has been described as the "primary
engine of the country's development over the next few decades,
contributing broadly to GDP growth, employment growth, and poverty
alleviation"