Quick questions on Investment, TNCs and the movement of labour explained: HSC Economics Topic 1

International investment takes two broad forms.

Labour is the least mobile of the factors that globalise, constrained by visa systems and national borders, but international migration for work is a significant and growing feature of the global economy.

Benefits include an inflow of capital, technology transfer, management expertise and employment. Costs include profits that are eventually repatriated to the parent company overseas (recorded as a debit in the primary income component of the current account), the risk that local firms are crowded out by larger foreign competitors, and reduced domestic policy leverage if the TNC is a dominant employer.

Replace "TNCs are important" with "TNCs organise around 80% of world trade through global value chains (UNCTAD/WTO)". The FDI volatility figures (2020 trough versus 2015/2022 peaks) and the $685 billion 2024 remittance figure (World Bank) are the highest-value numbers to keep current.

DESCRIBE first (direction, anchor figures, any sharp turning point such as a COVID-19 trough), then EXPLAIN with an economic cause (interest rates, pandemic disruption, geopolitical uncertainty), then say what it implies (e.g. FDI's volatility relative to trade signals it responds more sharply to global financial conditions).