ABSTRACT
A study of integration of firms from developing countries into the global economy entails first an investigation into the structure of that global economy itself. Since the beginning of the 1990s, the global business environment has undergone profound changes, driven by liberalisation of trade and capital flows, rapid advances in information technology, and the trend of privatisation and deregulation in many parts of the world. One of the direct consequences of these changes is an explosion in merger and acquisition activities between firms from high-income countries, leading to unprecedented degrees of concentration in many industries at a global level. Nolan (2001) has named this phenomenon ‘the global business revolution’. This chapter investigates these recent changes in global business structure and adds a historical perspective by comparing the global business revolution with the emergence of large American business at the end of the nineteenth century.
