Historical Context of the World Economy A change has occurred in the world economy over the last 30 years. It all started after the end of World War II, when global trade started growing faster than global income. Globalization has served as a direction of change due to technological change. Telecommunications, transportation technology, and information transition (including the World Wide Web) have developed rapidly and contributed significantly to globalization. The global economy experienced an evolution in world trade and global gross domestic product in 1981 and 2010. In 1981, world trade was dominated by the United States of America (USA). The country exported products amounting to 12.3% of total world exports, while China exported only 1% of world exports. In 2010, this changed as US exports decreased from 12.3% to around 10%, while China's total exports increased dramatically from 1% to nearly 10%. IMF statistics indicate that the United States still leads global exports. However, the economic power of some emerging countries such as China, India and Brazil is continuously growing. It is also believed that in the future China will become the world's economic leader and largest exporter. Considering foreign direct investment, US companies dominated the international foreign direct investment market in the 1960s. British companies were second. It was subsequently modified with the reduction of barriers to the free exchange of goods, services and capital. China has emerged on the world market in the last 30 years and has become a major player in the global economic market during that time. Chinese workers work in worse conditions and for lower wages than workers in almost all other countries. China has…… half the paper…… 1990-2000. Taiwan and India have become much more powerful than in the past while France and Italy, very powerful countries until 1990, lost their primacy in the last ten years of the 20th century and are no longer even on the list. We can note the tendency of Europe to lose its lead in the world economy and the rapid rise of Asian countries, especially China. Country Rank Incremental GDP (US$ billion) Share of Global Incremental GDP: World 10,321,649 100.00%1 United States 4,310,175 41.76%2 Japan 1,627,500 15.77%—European Union 1,492,890 14 .46%3 China 808,198 7.83%4 United Kingdom 472,048 4.57%5 Mexico 393,570 3.81%6 Germany 344,908 3.34%7 South Korea 262,980 2.55%8 Brazil 179,730 4%9 Taiwan 161,188 1 .56%10 India 147,296 1.43% Table 2: 10 largest economies by incremental nominal GDP between 1990 and 2000 (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_economy)