Introduction to Globalization and the Economy

What you’ll learn to do: define globalization and describe its manifestation in modern society

This picture is of the outside of the fast food chain McDonald's. "McDonald's" is spelled using the Cyrillic alphabet since this McDonalds is located in Russia.

Globalization refers to the process of integrating governments, cultures, and financial markets through international trade into a single world market. There are benefits and drawbacks to globalization. Often the countries that fare the worst are those that depend on natural resource extraction for their wealth. Many critics fear globalization gives too much power to multinational corporations and that political decisions are influenced by these major financial players.