Economic Integration and Interdependencies

Economic Integration and Interdependencies

International trade promotes interdependencies since nations acquire what they lack and export what they have in surplus. Conventionally, nations were mostly limited to their national market, while external markets were protected by high tariffs and transportation costs. Low trade levels involved low levels of interdependency and economic efficiency. A decline in the relative costs of many commodities, parts, and finished goods took place through globalization. This is supported by lower transport costs, the exploitation of comparative advantages, reduced tariffs and larger consumer markets, and expanded economies of scale.

Globalization underlines a decreasing impact of boundaries in the geography of international trade in proportion to the level of interdependency. Economic integration processes, notably free-trade agreements, have established common tariff policies among groups of nations (such as G1 and G2) having a high level of interdependency. Multilateral agreements have also helped in establishing an increasingly deregulated global trading environment.