CAUSES, DIRECTIONS AND CONSEQUIENCES OF THE TRANSFORMATION OF A LINEAR – MULTI-STAGE MODEL OF INTERNATIONAL ECOPNOMIC INTEGRATION IN THE PERIOD OF GLOBALIZATION

Abstract

Globalization, intensified internationalization of the world economy, an incomplete multi-sided trade system (WTO), the need for sustainable economic growth and challenges of innovative development bring essential adjustments to the ideas of the economic integration based on B. Balassa's model. The purpose of this paper is to conceptualize the reasons which have influenced changes in the mechanisms of integration, identify the forms of newgeneration integration associations and their consequences for the world economy. Integration groups of new generation (intermediate, interblock, interregional, transcontinental) differ from classical integration associations by the “globalized” nature of their activity, extra-regional subject structure, the power of mega-subjects of the international economic and political relations and the qualities of a multidimensional system characterized by an internal multi-level system, external poly-vectors, and a spatial multi-levelness of integration directions. As result of the transformation of integration mechanisms and changes in the global economic architecture, new geo-economic alliances of regional and interregional nature are being formed.