Technological Developments and their Effects on World Trade: Any Implications for Governments?

This paper summarizes new developments in world trade, technological changes worldwide and their implications for recent theoretical studies in economics. After defining the economic globalization and schematizing its relations with international trade, economic growth and technological change, dramatic increases in world trade in goods, services and financial assets in last decades are statistically documented in Chapter 2. Theoretical studies of economists on international trade and economic growth are certainly affected by the fact that the actual technological developments have strong implications for world trade and output growth. In Chapter 3, this new perspectives in economics are discussed. Last chapter presents some concluding remarks with special reference to the role of governments in the process of technological development within an increasingly globalizing world economy.