PrefBlog

The IMF has published a piece in defence of globalization:

Today’s surge in inflation grows out of the interplay of supply chain disruptions with large fiscal deficits. The pandemic, followed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, upended supply chains and produced scarcities. Rich industrial countries responded to the shortages, inequalities, and social stress with large fiscal packages. In the ensuing spiral, increased spending led to more demand, which led to more shortfalls. Another vicious spiral may follow. Rising food and fuel prices could spark discontent, protests, even revolutions and government breakdowns around the world.

The inflationary spiral may appear to herald a quite different world, split into competing blocs that pursue costly “friendshoring” strategies of steering trade to friendly nations and regimes while attempting to hobble rivals. Large states rethink the benefits of globalization and attempt to protect what they see as vital or strategic resources. This adds up to a recipe for freezing global economic growth.
…
An initial globalization centered around the Industrial Revolution saw the exchange of manufactured goods from a few countries for commodities from many in the rest of the world. The 1970s created globalization through increasingly complex supply chains. The current crises are generating a different sort of globalization, shaped by information flows. There will be marked contrasts in the competence with which societies respond to the new data revolution. Today’s globalization dynamic has the potential to create a revolution of system optimization, making the result of prior technical change cheaper and more accessible. In that sense, it is globalization that constitutes the real Inflation Reduction Act.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 2nd, 2023 at 8:33 pm and is filed under Market Action. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.