Issues in global business - Essay Example

REGIONALIZATION Regionalization is used to describe the conglomeration of people, trade, and ideas in a group of countries with similar economies or cultures. It is often used in a trade or economic sense. Through regionalization, people have become connected economically, politically, socially, and culturally. Examples of this process include NAFTA and the EU. Although regionalization can have a potentially negative impact, such as terrorism, it has often resulted in economic growth as a result of rising profits from exporting goods and services to other countries, such as China and other developing economies.

It has done an incredible amount to increase business productivity and trade and make many people richer. One of the founding economic theorists of globalization is David Ricardo who focused on distributing income among landowners and workers. He also had a lot to say about wages and prices. One of his big contributions was the idea of comparative advantage which involves countries with different advantages trading with one another in free markets so that both maximize their benefits. This underpins much contemporary regionalization and trade theory.

What one country can do well, it can often do better with the help of its neighbours. Thus we see the process unfolding in Europe and Southeast Asia. Regionalization is not simply about economics: it is also about the cultural and social shifts that accompany the reduction in tariff and the easing of travel, communication, and trade. It is about the way people from all across the world and in a geographic neighbourhood can come together to have a conversation and to collaborate on numerous projects and cultural products.

Cultural products are commodities too and they can be exchanged more easily in an open marketplace. Economic regionalization via NAFTA in the 1990s went hand in hand with the promotion of a new wave of American culture which found a receptive audience throughout North America. This is a good example of how effective the process can be. The world is changing like never before. Economic trading blocs are becoming more common. They offer many benefits to their members. This process of regionalization is changing the world for the best.