There’s a backlash against globalisation underway in many western countries. Although Americans still say positive things about international trade and immigration, political candidates like Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Bernie Sanders have got a lot of support for opposing both to a degree that would have been unthinkable a decade ago. Meanwhile, trade deals like the relatively innocuous Trans-Pacific Partnership are suddenly in danger. Britain’s divorce from the European Union (EU) is also commonly interpreted as a rejection of globalisation.
But there’s a likelihood that today’s anti-globalisation warriors are fighting yesterday’s war. By many measures, globalisation has been in full retreat since the crisis of 2008.
First, there’s trade. For many decades up until 2008, global trade volumes had been increasing at a healthy clip. But the crisis and recession stopped trade growth in its tracks, and it hasn’t recovered; 2008 was the all-time peak of world trade as a percentage of total output.
Next, there’s immigration. Globally, the number of migrants living in other countries has continued to increase, just very slowly. In the United States, the big immigration boom is over. Immigration from Mexico to the US, the subject of so much political hand-wringing, has gone into reverse. From 2008 through 2014, the population of Mexicans living in the US declined by more than one million. The reason? Undocumented immigrants have been going back to Mexico in large numbers.
Then there’s finance. As the Financial Times’ Izabella Kaminska showed with a series of charts from UBS, cross-border financial flows remain well below their pre-crisis peaks, and cross-border bank claims have actually declined.
In other words, the great globalization boom that marked the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st is over, and may even be starting to unwind. The hysteria about globalization is cresting about a decade late.
Why is this happening? The recession is part of the answer. Slower growth, especially in developed economies, means less trade, which leads to less international finance. It also reduces the incentive for immigrants to move for economic reasons. China, the big engine of global growth and international investment, has also slowed down.
The regulatory curtailing of the financial industry might be another factor. The big global banks, mostly based in the US and Europe, suffered huge losses in the crisis, but that was only the beginning. Since then, higher capital requirements, tighter regulatory oversight and new rules like the US’s Dodd-Frank Act have weakened banks’ business models and reduced their profitability. Humbler banks mean less cross-border financing.
Slower population growth may also be a drag on globalisation. The end of the Mexican immigration wave in the US probably has something to do with the dramatic fall in Mexico’s fertility rate, which began plunging in the 1970s. Fewer Mexicans are coming of age every year, leaving family businesses unattended and starving factories and stores of workers. That creates a gravitational pull that slowly calls Mexicans — especially undocumented immigrants — back from the US.
Elsewhere, low fertility throughout most of the world is undoubtedly a drag on growth. China’s working-age population is now falling by millions every year and the rate is only set to accelerate. Europe and East Asia are greying rapidly, and fertility has fallen to replacement levels throughout much of the world. Only sub-Saharan Africa, the world’s poorest region, continues to see high fertility.
Yet, another trend might be the end of the offshoring boom. Wages have begun to equalise around the world, with an especially steep rise in China. Some estimates even suggest that making things in China is no longer significantly cheaper than making them in the US. When you add doubts about quality, intellectual property theft and the sheer hassle of managing supply chains across borders, the case for offshoring looks weaker than it has in decades. Other countries like India might step up to take China’s place, but so far, most haven’t shown the ability to marshal the infrastructure and education levels required to become the new workshops of the world.
A final issue might be politics. The increase in protectionism after the Great Recession was slower and subtler than the one that followed the Great Depression, but it’s there nonetheless. China, the offshoring superstar, may now be trying to reduce its economy’s dependence on overseas companies. Meanwhile, the administration of US President Barack Obama has quietly presided over the largest number of undocumented immigrant deportations in US history.
So there are lots of reasons why globalisation is sliding into reverse. Even if the political winds shift back towards an embrace of trade and immigration, the trends in population, financial regulation and labour cost equalisation are unlikely to change course in the next few decades.
— Washington Post
Noah Smith is an assistant professor of Finance at Stony Brook University and a freelance writer for finance and business publications
