1 Describe the shifts in the world economy over the last 30 years. What are the implications of these shifts for international businesses based in Britain, North America, and Hong Kong?

Although the question is talking the shifts of the world economy over the past 30 years, however, since the end of World War II, global trade has grown faster than global income. Globalization is the trend in these 30 more years because of the technological change. According to the textbook, globalization is defined as the shift toward a more integrated and interdependent world economy. Telecommunication, transportation technology and information transition (including World Wide Web) has been developed rapidly in the past years. These upgrades have made
By practical experience, corruption can improve growth by allowing firms to pay money to prevent inefficient regulations and bureaucratic put off. It also can shorten the time for processing. In the working environment, time means money. Therefore, many firms would like to use money for shorten the processing time and conflict. As a result, the whole transaction will be more efficient and competitive. Corruption in an international level is also giving a help. For example, a company needs to transport goods from one country to another country. If the company pays bribes, the transportation time will be shortened a lot and can meet the tight schedule. It is very important for a company to deliver goods to his customers on time. In the short run, we can say that a bit of corruption is not harm to the economic growth.

However, one of the Economists, Paolo Mauro (1995 and 1997) who thinks that corruption affects investment and economic growth. There is new evidence on the relationship between corruption and the components of government expenditure. On his findings, a significant occurrence is management of a firm treats corruption is a must when they want to start a business. Then the total cost of operating a business increases. The attractiveness of investment will then be a concern and may be lesser investment occurs. Even reduce the attractiveness of foreign direct investment. In the long term, the corruption affects the general economic