One of the most striking developments has been the rise, fall and rise again of the semiconductor industry of the United States, which is, once again, the dominant player in the most advanced semiconductor product-markets.

It remains to be seen, for example whether China can continue to develop as a market economy while still retaining an authoritarian communist political system.

The primary driver of final consumer demand is, of course, the level of disposable income.

Every production network has spatiality - the particular geographical configuration and extent of its component elements and the links between them.

the internationalization of economic activity and its major vehicle, the TNC, can be regarded simply as being part of the normal expansive process of capitalist development.

Geographically, the global economy is now multi-polar , as new centres of production have emerged in parts of what had been, historically, the periphery of the world economy. The world is now more accurately described as a 'mosaic of unevenness in a continual state of flux'.

Transnational corporate networks, and their resulting spatial patterns, are always in a continuous state of flux. At any one time, some parts may be growing rapidly, others may be stagnating, others may be in steep decline.