What are Global Markets: The Significance of Networks of Trade?

Abstract

Economic globalization is often seen simply as the emergence of global markets. This is problematic for two main reasons. First, economic globalization also includes non-market organization of economic activity, notably MNCs’ international organization of production within firms. Some accounts point out that non-market organization is rising relative to market operations though globalization (Dunning, 1993b; Ruggie, 1995). Second, it assumes that the concept of a global market is itself self-explanatory. This chapter examines what the globalization of product markets through international trade entails and thereby examines the nature of global markets and their importance relative to other forms of global economic activity.

I wish to thank participants at the ‘Globalization and its Critics’ workshop and Michael Dietrich for comments on an early draft. I remain solely responsible for the contents. This paper draws on work from the ‘Globalisation and the Advanced Industrial State’ Project at the Open University, funded by ESRC Research Grant R000233391.