The Global Distribution of Economic Activity Cuased by...

Globalization is currently a very hot topic and many people have an awful lot to say about the matter, creating different theories and points of view. A definition of globalization could be, ‘The straightforward exchange between core and peripheral areas based upon a broad division of labour, is being transformed into a highly complex, kaleidoscopic structure involving the fragmentation of many production processes and their geographical relocation on a global scale in ways which slice through national boundaries.’ (Dicken ’98). When†¦show more content†¦Whilst the top 10% of GDP earners receive approximately 100 times more than the bottom 10%, at that lower end of the spectrum ‘2.8bn people live on less than $2 per day, and 1.1bn live in poverty at le ss than $1 per day.’ This figure living in poverty has fallen by around 400mn over the past 20 years which isn’t a huge number in the grand scheme of things, however when this is looked at in terms of proportion of the population the amount of people living in poverty has more than halved. This decline in people living on less than a dollar a day doesn’t necessarily mean that we now live in a more globalized economy. The main reason for this decline is due to the meteoric rise of China into the world trade network, along with Mexico and India, this kind of measure of poverty as a marker for economic activity can be hazed by the integration of these three economies alone. It can not be overlooked however and is definitely seen as a positive effect on the distribution of world economic activity. In terms of income per capita, ‘the average income in the richest 20 countries is 37 times that in the poorest 20 – a ratio that has doubled in the past 40 ye ars.’ This would insinuate that the extremes of the distribution have increased, whilst the rich have been getting