Table Of ContentOECD INSIGHTS OECD INSIGHTS
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ECONOMIC
Economic Globalisation
GLOBALISATION
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Origins and Although globalisation is as old as trade -Y
itself, it remains controversial. Does it boost V Origins and Consequences
Consequences E
development or worsen inequality? Does S H
it generate employment or destroy jobs? U
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Does it damage the environment or offer means to A
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preserve it? Does it cause fi nancial instability or make T
investment more effi cient? L
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Economic Globalisation: Origins and Consequences ÏC
V
from the OECD Insights series discusses these E
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questions in relation to the recent crisis as well D
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as the history of global economic integration. It R
examines how the accelerating interconnectedness
of markets and national economies is affecting us all
and assesses how globalisation is evolving in light of
E
recent events. C
O
Other titles in this series: N
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Human Capital M
Sustainable Development IC
International Trade G
L
International Migration O
Fisheries B
A
From Crisis to Recovery L
I
S
From Aid to Development A
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OECD INSIGHTS
Economic
Globalisation
Origins and Consequences
Jean-Yves Huwart and Loïc Verdier
This work is published on the responsibility of the Secretary-General of the OECD.
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Please cite this publication as:
Huwart, J.Y. and L. Verdier (2013), Economic Globalisation: Origins and Consequences,
OECDInsights, OECD Publishing.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264111899-en
ISBN 978-92-64-11189-9 (print)
ISBN 978-92-64-11190-5 (PDF)
ISBN 978-92-64-11217-9 (HTML)
Series: OECD Insights
ISSN 1993-6745 (print)
ISSN 1993-6753 (online)
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Foreword
International trade, migration and globalised finance are the
ingredients of a cocktail named globalisation, the recipe of which
we haven’t yet mastered and the taste of which we may, if we’re not
careful, find bitter.
Furthermore, these three ingredients are very unevenly dosed. Most
countries want to strictly control international migration. They’re mak-
ing timid efforts to organise international trade (booming since contai-
nerisation) in major negotiations, while finance –globalisation’s most
successful component– is still regulated very weakly.
It’s an explosive mixture. Governments face widely-varying obsta-
cles depending on migrants’ qualifications and country of origin,
against the backdrop of a social question that’s becoming global. Trade
growth creating both winners and, lest it be forgotten, losers is a source
of tension. The economy’s excessive “financialisation” has emerged as
the ideal culprit for a crisis whose extent we’re only now starting to
measure, and runs the risk of distracting attention from a whole set of
imbalances that have been growing over the past 20years.
The danger lies in making globalisation responsible for most rich
countries’ economic ills –offshoring, de-industrialisation, unem-
ployment, rising income inequality, impoverished remote regions,
and standardised lifestyles– and deluding us into believing that if
we can reverse the phenomenon, we will solve all these problems.
The truth is that no simple solution such as “deglobalisation” can
respond to such complex phenomena. This book’s great merit is that
it summarises currently available analyses and provides bench-
marks against which we can evaluate the effectiveness of our judg-
ments and policies in overcoming the growing fragility of
individuals, companies, sectors, countries, and sometimes even
entire regions.
To support these benchmarks, the book provides an extensive his-
torical overview that shows how empires and trade grew side by
side. Where previously we had a centre and a periphery, today we
are witnessing the emergence of a multi-centric world economy and
the increasingly pronounced convergence of emerging countries,
led by China, India and Brazil.
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While this convergence is specific to globalisation (on the
upswing in the past 30years), it also applies to life expectancy, fer-
tility and – quite spectacularly – education. Between the
early1960s and2010, the literacy rate of the world population
increased from under 60% to 82%. This crucial aspect of “immate-
rial” globalisation is the combined result of generalised schooling,
widespread communication networks and the proliferation of
media for exchanging information.
Our view of globalisation is very much influenced by the angle
from which we approach it. Iwould like to emphasise three of the
issues covered in this book. First, we must be very careful with the
numbers we use to measure globalisation. Statistics are misleading.
Trade is conducted by companies, not countries. Some of what fea-
tures in international flows is only intra-firm trade stemming from a
globally dispersed value chain, and some of what features in domes-
tic flows stems from the activities of subsidiaries belonging to for-
eign groups that have decided to shift from exporting to producing
in the local market. Yet while this features in companies’ interna-
tional activities, it mostly does not appear in international flows.
Further, in the interests of objectivity, we need to retain a certain
perspective on the extent of global economic integration. As
MatthieuCrozet and LionelFontagné reminded us in Économie et
statistiques (Economy and Statistics), published by the National
Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE) in2010: “In
developed and emerging countries alike, the share of companies
directly engaged in an international relationship is very much the
minority, and rarely exceeds 20%. Moreover, most exporters have
an extremely limited presence in global markets and are active only
in a small number of neighbouring markets.”
Finally, while most globalisation studies cover the legal economy,
what do we know of the extent of the “dark side” of globalisation –the
black market economy, offshore centres, etc.? As AlainBauer and
XavierRaufer wrote in La face noire de la mondialisation (The Dark
Side of Globalisation), published by the Centre national de la recher-
che scientifique (CNRS) in2009, we must examine “how this criminal
globalisation undermines economies, finances, and countries” if we
are to implement effective policies to combat practices and organisa-
tions that undermine democracies and equitable economies.
4
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It is up to each of us to observe and gauge, curiously and cautiously,
the magnitude of the complex phenomenon of globalisation.
Pascal Le Merrer
Economist, professor at the École normale supérieure de Lyon,
author of Économie de la mondialisation: opportunités et fractures
(The Economics of Globalisation: Opportunities and Fractures) (de
Boeck, Brussels, 2007)
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Acknowledgments
The authors wish to thank BrianKeeley and PatrickLove for their
editorial contribution and the following for their valuable advice and
participation: AdrianBlundell-Wignall, BrendanGillespie,
PrzemyslawKowalski, AndrewMold, RaedSafadi and PaulSwaim.
We particularly wish to thank Katherine Kraig-Ernandes,
Clare O’Hare-d’Armagnac, Jean Mispelblom Beijer and
JanineTreves.
The book was translated from French by RomydeCourtay and
copyedited by PeterColes.
OECD Insights Blog : http://oecdinsights.org.
OECD Insights is a series of primers commissioned by the OECD Public Affairs
and Communications Directorate. They draw on the Organisation’s research and
expertise to introduce and explain some of today’s most pressing social and
economic issues to non-specialist readers.
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