As transportation and communication costs continue to fall, the world market becomes the only market. This means a consolidation of multinational corporations into true international entities with multinational management. Nevertheless, national economies will be characterized by large numbers of smaller specialized firms. In the 19th century competition drove firms to vertically integrate to protect themselves from a rival capturing any component of their operations. With intense international competition, firms will concentrate on their core business. They will contract out secondary activities knowing that in a competitive world market the threat from a rival capturing a needed service is remote. Increasingly, firms will conduct business through a network of contracts between firms with can be changed as market conditions change.
Any important aspect of political economies is the need to innovate to accommodate constant technological change. With major national efforts to promote new technology, new industries will be constantly displacing old industries. Because new technology is frequently not understood by managers in existing firms, many of the new industries will be created by startups. Then, as the industry matures, competition will result in a small number of large producers. With constant, rapid change, internal organization will increasingly rely on temporary groups to solve sequences of specific problems. These temporary groups will frequently communicate using video communications from diverse locations on the globe, the moon, and perhaps even Mars.