As geopolitical tensions rise, fears of deglobalisation have taken centre stage. However, world trade has remained surprisingly resilient, at least through 2023. This column uses bilateral trade data from 187 countries between 2015 and 2023 to identify decoupling patterns and their economic impacts. Trade reorientation mirrors political alliances more than comparative advantage, with a quarter […]
Commodity price spikes at the outset of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine contributed significantly to global inflation in 2022-23, which caught many policymakers off guard in both its intensity and persistence. This column uses a nonstationary competitive storage model to demonstrate that, beyond the temporary surge, the war-induced reduction in Ukraine’s acreage caused an upward […]
There is a growing concern that tensions between China and the US may lead to an unravelling of globalisation. This column discusses how rivalry between great powers can be detrimental to global trade and welfare and introduces the theory of hegemonic globalisation. Analysis of bilateral and multilateral treaties since 1800 shows that a dominant global […]
