ABSTRACT
Traditionally, a fundamental reason that governments have existed has been to provide a coordinated system of safeguarding the interests of their citizens. "Consumer beware" was once operative phrase in business-to-consumer exchanges. Governmental interventions aimed at protecting consumers are most common in developed nations in North America, Europe, and, to a lesser extent, Asia. Because firms often have more information than consumers about the quality of their products and customer service, there are potential asymmetric-information problems. Society faces a trade-off in granting intellectual property rights. In a highly globalized economy, a nation's residents can find a way to generate incomes, sales, or other taxable activities in other nations, thereby depressing the domestic tax base and domestic tax revenues. Globalization has long been regarded as a contributor to product innovation, or the introduction of new goods and services for consumption by a nation's residents and production by its firms.
