Lecture notes meet the requirements of the State educational standard of higher professional education. Accessibility and brevity of presentation allow you to quickly and easily obtain basic knowledge on the subject, prepare for and successfully pass tests and exams. Provides an idea of the essence of the world economy and the mechanism of its functioning, highlights the problems of international division of labor, analyzes trends in the development of the world economy at the present stage, reveals the essence and factor of globalization of the world economy, examines natural resource and human potential, characterizes the sectoral structure of the world economy. The publication presents a classification of countries according to the level of socio-economic development, sets out the problem of unevenness, and also describes the global problems of our time. For students of economic universities and colleges, as well as those who independently study this subject.