Human Geography Key Terms - Globalisation
The Acceleration of Globalisation
• Transitional corporations (TNCs): businesses whose operations are spread across
the world, operating in many nations as both makers and sellers of goods and
services
• Gross domestic product (GDP): a measure of the financial value of goods and
services produced within a territory (including foreign firms located there) – it is
often divided by population size to produce a per capita figure for the purpose of
making comparisons
• Emerging economies: countries that have begun to experience high rates of
economic growth, usually due to rapid factory expansion and industrialisation – they
are sometimes called newly industrialised countries (NICs)
• Remittances: money that migrants send home to their families via formal or
informal channels
• Interdependency: if 2 places become over-reliant on financial and/or political
connections with one another, then they have become interdependent
• Spatial division of labour: the common practice among TNCs of moving low-skilled
work abroad (or ‘offshore’) to places where labour costs are low
• Intermodal containers: large-capacity storage units which can be transported long
distances using multiple types of transport, such as shipping and rail, without the
freight being taken out of the container
• Shrinking world: due to technology, distant places start to feel closer and take less
time to reach
• Foreign direct investment (FDI): a financial injection made by a TNC into a nation’s
economy, either to build new facilities or to acquire, or merge with, an existing firm
already based there
• BRICS group: the 4 large, fast growing economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China and
South Africa
• Trickle down: the positive impacts on peripheral regions caused by the creation of
wealth in core regions
• Sovereign wealth funds: government-owned investment funds and banks, typically
associated with China and countries that have large revenues from oil, such as Qatar
• Trade blocs: voluntary international organisations that exist for trading purposes,
bringing greater economic strength and security to the nations that join
• Tariffs: the taxes that are paid when importing or exporting goods and services
between countries
• Special economic zone: an industrial area, often near a coastline, where favourable
conditions are created to attract foreign TNCs – these conditions include low tax
rates and exemption from tariffs and export duties
• Offshoring: TNCs move parts of their own production process to other countries to
reduce labour or other costs
• Outsourcing: TNCs contract another company to produce the goods and services
they need rather than do it themselves
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The Acceleration of Globalisation
• Transitional corporations (TNCs): businesses whose operations are spread across
the world, operating in many nations as both makers and sellers of goods and
services
• Gross domestic product (GDP): a measure of the financial value of goods and
services produced within a territory (including foreign firms located there) – it is
often divided by population size to produce a per capita figure for the purpose of
making comparisons
• Emerging economies: countries that have begun to experience high rates of
economic growth, usually due to rapid factory expansion and industrialisation – they
are sometimes called newly industrialised countries (NICs)
• Remittances: money that migrants send home to their families via formal or
informal channels
• Interdependency: if 2 places become over-reliant on financial and/or political
connections with one another, then they have become interdependent
• Spatial division of labour: the common practice among TNCs of moving low-skilled
work abroad (or ‘offshore’) to places where labour costs are low
• Intermodal containers: large-capacity storage units which can be transported long
distances using multiple types of transport, such as shipping and rail, without the
freight being taken out of the container
• Shrinking world: due to technology, distant places start to feel closer and take less
time to reach
• Foreign direct investment (FDI): a financial injection made by a TNC into a nation’s
economy, either to build new facilities or to acquire, or merge with, an existing firm
already based there
• BRICS group: the 4 large, fast growing economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China and
South Africa
• Trickle down: the positive impacts on peripheral regions caused by the creation of
wealth in core regions
• Sovereign wealth funds: government-owned investment funds and banks, typically
associated with China and countries that have large revenues from oil, such as Qatar
• Trade blocs: voluntary international organisations that exist for trading purposes,
bringing greater economic strength and security to the nations that join
• Tariffs: the taxes that are paid when importing or exporting goods and services
between countries
• Special economic zone: an industrial area, often near a coastline, where favourable
conditions are created to attract foreign TNCs – these conditions include low tax
rates and exemption from tariffs and export duties
• Offshoring: TNCs move parts of their own production process to other countries to
reduce labour or other costs
• Outsourcing: TNCs contract another company to produce the goods and services
they need rather than do it themselves
1
