7.1.3 What moves across borders?

Global exchange is easier to understand when we look at the things that flow across borders. Each flow is part of a system shaping the relationships between people, businesses, and countries.

Goods and services

The most familiar global flow is the movement of goods and services. Raw materials cross borders and are turned into parts used to make other goods. These parts might also move to be assembled into finished products. The finished products then travel further to reach shops and customers around the world. These networks, called supply chains, often stretch across several countries. Each stage involves different methods of transportation, different rules and relationships. 

Services also move across borders. A designer in one country may work for a company in another. Call centre workers, medical specialists, teachers, and programmers often serve people in far away countries. Entertainment services such as online gaming and film production are often created by global teams. 

These movements of goods and services link producers and consumers across the world. Trade in goods and services is not static, and often unpredictable. Businesses are constantly adjusting their supply chains to respond to changing costs, risks, or local laws and other conditions.

Figure 2. Relative value of goods and services exports (2024, US$, trillions).

(Credit: Data from Harvard Growth Lab’s Atlas of Economic Complexity, created in Flourish)

Money and finance

Money moves around the world every second. Payments flow across borders when people buy and sell goods and services. Businesses and individuals invest abroad in factories, projects, or financial assets such as stocks and bonds. States borrow money from other countries or international institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Banks and firms buy and sell currencies to make payments abrod or hoping to make a profit when exchange rates change. Remittances, money migrants send back home, are one of the largest financial flows in many countries (Figure 4).

As you may have read in Topic 6, financial flows shape what gets produced and where. Investors choose which industries, projects, or products receive funding, and this decides where factories open and which jobs are created. These flows can support development when they fund things people need, such as schools, hospitals, or clean water systems. But financial flows can also leave a country quickly. Investors often pull their money out during times of political or economic uncertainty. This sudden withdrawal, called capital flight, can leave a country short of cash and slow down its economy.

Energy

Energy makes every other flow possible (Section 1.2.2 and Section 1.2.3). Countries trade oil, gas, and coal, often across long distances through pipelines, ships, and shared power grids. Renewable energy sometimes flows between regions when there is extra wind or sunshine in one place. Every product traded carries embodied energy inside it, because energy is used to mine, grow, transport, or assemble it. Digital services rely on large amounts of electricity to power data centres and networks. Much of the energy we use is invisible to us.

Countries that produce little energy of their own often depend on others for oil, gas, or electricity, like the liquid natural gas shipments shown in Figure 6. This dependence can shift the balance of power between countries. For example, a country that supplies another with most of its gas can use that supply as a bargaining tool, or cut it off during a conflict. Wars, economic sanctions, and pipeline disruptions can send energy prices rising around the world, showing how closely connected modern economies really are.

Every global flow carries more than the object, person, or idea that moves. Goods carry hidden ecological footprints such as the energy, but also water use, land pressures, emissions, and waste. They also carry social stories about working conditions, wages, and the choices faced by producers. When people move, they strengthen some relationships and strain others. Families may be separated while communities may become more diverse. Money flows can support development or tie countries into long-term debt. Information flows can encourage cooperation or spread harmful ideas that affect trust and safety. 

These flows also connect places into networks, not just single point-to-point movements. Some countries or cities act as hubs, connecting many others (Section S.7). Singapore, for example, is a hub for energy flows by importing large amounts of oil, refining it, and exporting much of it again to other countries.

By noticing these hidden layers, we begin to understand how global exchanges shape the wellbeing of people and planet. Later sections explore these consequences in more detail and ask how global exchanges can become more fair and regenerative.

Concept: Systems

Skills: Thinking skills (transfer), Research (information literacy)

Time: Varies, depending on the option

Type: Individual, pairs, or small group

Option 1: Exploring your country's trade flows

Time: 25 minutes

Open the Atlas of Economic Complexity treemap. Choose the country where you live, or a country you have a connection to.

Instructions for using the tool

1. Find the country selector, usually near the top of the page, and choose your country.

2. Look for a toggle or setting labelled Exports and Imports. Start with exports, then switch to imports later.

3. The treemap shows product categories as boxes. The bigger the box, the larger that product's share of the total.

4. If you want to change country at any point, use the same selector to search for a new one.

Noticing:

1. With the view set to exports, look at the treemap of products for your chosen country. What are the two or three biggest export categories for your country?

2. Switch the setting to imports, and look at the same kind of treemap for products coming in. What are the two or three biggest import categories?

3. Is there anything that surprises you? Anything you expected to see but didn't?

Share out

In pairs or small groups, share one interesting pattern or question from your own country with another student who looked at a different country. What is similar? What is different?

Option 2: Remittances: following the money home

Time: 15-20 minutes

Open the interactive remittances map at the Migration Data Portal or engage with Figure 4. Choose the country you live in, or a country you have a connection to, and look at where its remittances come from.

Consider the following questions. The answers will vary depending on the country chosen, so the exercise doesn’t have ‘right’ answers :

1. Which country is the single largest source of remittances to your chosen country? Does that make sense to you, given what you know about migration between these two countries (for example shared borders, historical ties, or common migration routes)?

2. Compare your country's pattern to a very different one: does it receive remittances mainly from one or two source countries, or from many spread across the world? What might this mean for how exposed the country is if something disrupted money coming from its main source (for example a recession or new immigration rules in that country)?

3. Some countries appear repeatedly as major remittance senders across many receiving countries. Based on what you have looked at, can you name one? What does this suggest about that country's role in global labour migration?

Activity 3 – Energy imports and exports: who depends on whom?

Time: 20 minutes

Examine the Energy imports and exports data from Our World in Data (Figure 8) showing Singapore, Germany, China, Peru, the United States, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Angola.

Understanding the numbers

This chart measures energy trade as a percentage of a country's own energy use.

• A positive number means the country imports more energy than it produces itself. Germany, for example, imports about 70% as much energy as it uses, on top of its own production.

• A negative number means the country exports more energy than it uses at home. Russia, for example, sends abroad an amount equal to about 75% of what it uses domestically.

• A number higher than 100% (or lower than -100%) means the country's energy trade is actually bigger than its own energy use. Singapore imports 279.62% as much energy as it uses. This happens because Singapore imports large amounts of oil, refines it, and then exports much of it again, so its imports are far larger than what it actually keeps for itself. Angola shows the opposite pattern at -353.97%. It produces far more oil than its population uses, and exports the rest, so its exports are more than three times the size of its own domestic energy use.

Comparing countries

Add the country where you live, or a country you have a connection to, to the chart, then answer the following questions:

1. Is your chosen country a net importer or exporter of energy, and by roughly how much?

2. Pick one country from the original eight that has a similar value to your chosen country, and one that has a very different value. What might explain the difference between them?

3. What might your chosen country's position mean for it if energy prices suddenly rose?

Ideas for longer activities and projects are listed in Subtopic 7.5 - coming soon!

• Tree Map | The Atlas of Economic Complexity, Harvard Growth Lab — An interactive tool that visualises what any country exports and imports, sized by value, using UN trade data. Students can select a country and compare its trade with others, spotting patterns in what it produces or depends on. Difficulty level: easy/medium

• Migration | Our World in Data — A collection of interactive charts and commentary on migration from Our World in Data. Includes data on refugee populations by country, the share of each country's population born abroad, remittance flows compared to foreign aid, and the cost of sending remittances. Difficulty level: medium.

• Migration Data Portal | IOM — A collection of global migration statistics maintained by the International Organization for Migration. Includes data on international migrant numbers, labour migration, remittances, missing migrants, refugees, and internal displacement, along with an interactive tool showing remittance flows between countries. Difficulty level: medium.

• The hidden force in global economics: sending money home | Dilip Ratha - Economist Dilip Ratha argues that remittances, money migrants send home, matter far more than most people realise, adding up to several times global development aid. He also shows how high transfer fees and recruitment costs eat into what families actually receive. Difficulty level: medium.

• Planet Money’s T-Shirt Project – A video series from NPR’s Planet Money following the global supply chain of a simple cotton T-shirt, from cotton farms to factories to shipping networks. It highlights the role of globalisation, trade agreements, and labour conditions in modern manufacturing. Difficulty level: easy.

• How Containerization Shaped the Modern World – A short animated video from TED-Ed explaining how the invention of shipping containers revolutionised global trade, making it faster and cheaper, but also contributing to job losses in local industries and increased global economic interdependence. Difficulty level: easy. 

• Plastic Pollution | Our World in Data - Information from Our World in Data about how much plastic waste countries produce, and includes a section specifically on the trade of plastic waste between countries, including which countries export the most and why some countries choose to import it. Difficulty level: medium.

• Submarine Cable Map - An interactive map of the world's undersea internet cables, showing which countries are connected to which, and by how many cables. A striking way to see the physical infrastructure behind digital flows that are normally invisible. Difficulty level: easy.

Braunstein, J. (2019, December 3). Singapore in the global energy transition (Middle East Institute Insight No. 219). National University of Singapore. https://mei.nus.edu.sg/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Insight-219-Juergen-Braunstein-final-online.pdf

Council of the European Union. (2025, December 3). Council and Parliament strike a deal on rules to phase out Russian gas imports for an energy secure and independent Europe [Press release]. https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2025/12/03/council-and-parliament-strike-a-deal-on-rules-to-phase-out-russian-gas-imports-for-an-energy-secure-and-independent-europe/

International Labour Organization. (2024). ILO global estimates on international migrants in the labour force. https://www.ilo.org/publications/major-publications/ilo-global-estimates-international-migrants-labour-force

Kognity. (2017). IBDP Geography FE2019. https://kognity.com/products/ibdp/

Migration Data Portal. (2024). Remittances. International Organization for Migration, Global Migration Data Analysis Centre (GMDAC). https://www.migrationdataportal.org/themes/remittances-overview

NASA Earth Observatory. (2026, July 21). A week of smoky skies across North America. https://science.nasa.gov/earth/earth-observatory/a-week-of-smoky-skies-across-north-america/

Ortiz-Ospina, E., Rohenkohl, B., Samborska, V., Van Teutem, S., Beltekian, D., & Roser, M. (2018). Trade and globalization. Our World in Data. https://ourworldindata.org/trade-and-globalization

Patel, R. & Moore, J. (2020). A history of the world in seven cheap things: A guide to capitalism, nature, and the future of the planet. London: Verso.

Tsegay, S. M. (2022). “International Migration: Definition, Causes and Effects.” Social Sciences, 11(3): 61. https://www.mdpi.com/2313-5778/7/3/61

UN Environment Programme. (n.d.). Overview: Basel Convention. 

Coming soon!