Fourthly, financial systems in various countries are now strongly linked. There is no parallel for the current ease with which large sums of money can be transferred from one place to another, or how financial assets and currencies can be traded across borders. It used to be the case where technology was time consuming, and hence, there was a danger that if you were trading in equities, the delay in making the transfer of money would mean that the price has gone against you in the mean time. Moreover, if one compares the growth in foreign assets in relation to world GDP, there has been an unprecedented sharp growth in the last twenty five years. Besides that, the Daily Currency Exchange turnover, in the last twenty five years, accounts for more than 6% of world GDP. As a result, not surprisingly, it was the enormous flows of financial assets across borders which caused the ERM (Exchange Rate Mechanism) in Europe to collapse.

The reason for such a strong link of financial systems across borders is perhaps is as follows. Firstly, there has been outstanding advancement in Information Technology, which now means that slow cumbersome process of form-filling has been replaced by technology, easing trade across borders. Secondly, laws and regulations regarding, for instance, the transfer of money across the border, have been seen as restricting free trade and not a desirable thing to control, and as a result have been abolished leading to globalized financial markets.

The final element of the strong globalization thesis relates to migration - the ease with which people can now move across borders. In EU, for instance, there has been a reduction in formal barriers. If a person is member of the EU, he or she has the right to live and work in any of the twenty four EU countries legally. Linked to this is the reduction in the cost of travel in relation to income which has now made traveling cheaper. As a result, stock of international migrants has doubled to nearly 3%, as a percentage of the world population.

All of the above reasons so far point to one direction and form the strong globalization thesis, suggesting that globalization is a reality, and really is without historical precedent. And a well known component of this view is Anthony Giddens, who wrote extensively about globalization, particularly the argument that economic and social forces have become highly globalized, and governments cannot control them. However, there are other views as well which throw doubt on the extent of globalization.

The first area in which we can doubt the extent of globalization is in relation to FDI. If we look at the patterns of FDI and where it tends to occur, then there are some sectors which are dominated by MNC, for instance, the automotive and pharmaceutical sector. But if we see other sectors like public services, which tend to government controlled, such as health and education, there has been little FDI and MNC's are exceptions rather than norm.