Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/10609/251
Title: Integració de mercats, setembre 2008
Author: Cortadas Guasch, Pau  
Duch-Brown, Nestor  
Puig-Gómez, Albert  
González-Reverté, Francesc  
Director: Ribera-Fumaz, Ramon  
Abstract: The ¿Integration of Markets¿ course aims to study the different dimensions and actors that participate in the integration of markets both in terms of products and territorially. In fact, the integration of markets is one of the most visible characteristics of globalization processes and of the economic and political restructuring that have taken place in recent decades, whether we look it from the perspective of markets of products or from national markets. Many of the products that we consume are no longer produced or promoted for a local or national market, but are produced with an international or global market in mind. This should not surprise us if we bear in mind that the economic and social system hegemonic in the world is capitalism. Capitalism revolves around organizing production, distribution and consumption around the market. This organization through markets has as its objective the maximization of profit, necessary for continuing expansion and sustainability of a system not free of tendencies toward crises situations. In this dynamic, its basis is the worldwide market. As capitalism advances, it does so by extending and opening new markets. In other words, by integrating markets. Without a convergent macroeconomic environment, it is difficult for two markets in two different places to be integrated (for example, if free trade agreements do not exist). In the same way, companies and workers must fit into this new environment in an atmosphere of increased competition, which means that microeconomic factors also must be considered. However, the creation of bigger or new markets is not a strictly economic process. Without technology, especially in transport and communication, it is impossible to integrate production, distribution and sales systems. In addition, cultural and social diversity between groups of consumers and territories means that, regardless of economic and technological determinants for integration, this is not carried out in an optimal way. And of course, markets are not only determined by dimensions or structures; at the end of the process of exchanging commodities, people and institutions participate, thus, markets are a social construction. Not everybody has the same weight in defining integration of markets but there are individual and collective agents that play a key role such as transnational corporations, staff movement, the state and, we cannot forget them in a marketing course, consumers. It is for this reason that in order to piece together the puzzle of market integration, we must analyze these factors throughout the course. The answer that we will come up with, however, will be open-ended and not closed. This, then, is the last objective of the course; to provide you with the tools that, together with other courses related to economics and international marketing, allow you to build a critical personal vision, but based on scientific reasoning, of how markets are integrated.
Keywords: globalisation
market integration
Document type: info:eu-repo/semantics/lecture
Issue Date: 16-Sep-2008
Publication license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/es/  
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