Global Expansion and Differential Integration: The End of the South?

Abstract

Since 1950, there has been a vast expansion of international trade, investment and bank lending. World trade has expanded sixtyfold in current dollar terms, sixfold or more in real terms (United Nations, WES, 1994, p. 2 and p. 42). Comparable data for international investment and credit flows are not available but between 1970 and 1986 US-owned assets, of all types, abroad rose 6.5 fold to $1.07 trillion while foreign-owned assets in the USA rose 12.5 times to $1.3 trillion (Fieleke, 1988). Stocks of foreign direct investment in the world as a whole appear to have risen from $68 billion in 1960, to $714 billion in 1985 (United Nations, 1988, p. 24), reaching at least $1.94 trillion in 1992 (United Nations, 1994, p. 19). Between 1973 and 1992, the foreign assets of deposit banks also rose 18.4 times to $6.9 trillion (IMF, IFS, 1993).