2. ECONOMIC AND TECHNOLOGICAL FACTORS

After having looked at policy changes that led to a reduction in international interaction costs and that made globalisation thus possible, we now turn to have a look at economic and technological factors that have had similar effects. It is, of course, possible that the groups of factors reinforce each other. This will shortly be dealt with in the conclusion of this chapter.

In this section, six economic and technological factors will be presented. Factors that can be grouped as supply-side factors are (1) rapid technological change, (2) increasing mobility of supply, (3) reduction in transport costs, and (4) the Internet as a multi-purpose tool for business. After having presented them, we will turn to two demand-side factors, namely (5) the homogenisation of preferences, and (6) the rapid change in consumption patterns.