The economies of most countries in the world are dominated by international businesses. Even though they may only employ a minority of the labour force, multinational companies dominate foreign trade. Crucially, their investments determine the pace and direction of business investment in most countries. In turn this investment determines the economic dynamics (rates of growth of output and employment) and the rate at which an economy acquires new technology and modernizes its economic infrastructure. In the present economic crisis, multinational companies are therefore a key institutional mechanism by which the financial crisis becomes a generalised economic crisis. But the way in which these mechanisms work has also been affected by changes in the financial system.

Generalisation about how the current financial crisis will affect international business, or multinational companies, is nevertheless a perilous undertaking. Multinational companies tend to specialize in particular industries. All of these industries are subject to cyclical fluctuations that tend to be peculiar to each industry, although we are now about to see these cycles coincide as particular economies and regions succumb to generalized economic depression. Furthermore, multinational companies do not all operate equally across the whole world. Their operations are usually concentrated in particular regions with links to particular financial centres. While many of these financial centres are more or less affected by the financial crisis, not all regions in the world are affected by that crisis.