The ability of countries to control their own economies is being eroded by trans-national financial networks and other forces of economic interdependence.
Among various factors that have led to the recognition of global interdependence are the development of world-wide communications, the growing importance of transnational corporations in several sectors of the world economy, the expansion of international banking and the increasing integration of international capital markets, greater awareness of interdependence with respect to supplies of energy in its various forms and to supplies of natural resources, difficulties to coordinate national economic policies among developed market-economy countries, and growing awareness that the solution of certain environmental problems, such as pollution and desertification, requires international cooperation.