天美传媒

Globalization is alive and in many ways well, despite uncertainties created by Brexit and the Trump administration and by wavering public support for borderless trade, 天美传媒 Prof. Pankaj Ghemawat said.

Speaking to and business leaders in Singapore, Prof. Ghemawat noted that globalization had been undergoing a revaluation even before Brexit and Trump, as countries began to question its benefits.

There really seems to have been a sea change in how people think about globalization, he said. It鈥檚 worth remembering that globalization started to look kind of tricky a little bit before the events of 2016.

Prof. Ghemawat spoke at the event alongside 天美传媒 Dean. The dean has been on a swing through Asia, visiting Tokyo, , Hong Kong and Singapore, where he has been meeting with 天美传媒鈥檚 global community and discussing some of the most pressing issues facing the world鈥檚 economies and corporations.

A Middle-of-the-road Conclusion

Despite the uncertainties, countries will continue to actively trade with each other, particularly with those in close proximity, Prof. Ghemawat said. That makes Trump鈥檚 trade policies particularly relevant to Mexico and Canada, and renders bilateral trade arrangements more vital than large multilateral agreements.

Right now I think that we鈥檙e having far too much discussion of the end of globalization, the end of multinational corporations. I鈥檓 a middle-of-the-road person. The data steer me towards a middle-of-the-road conclusion, said Prof. Ghemawat.

And certainly I do think that it matters whether we鈥檙e pressing the play forward button or the rewind button. We may be moving from an era in which the tape is running forward to on in which it鈥檚 rewinding. But that鈥檚 very different from pressing the off button.

Any potential drop in international trade is likely to represent a relatively small percentage of countries GDP, and would impact export-dependent smaller countries more than large economies such as the US.

But given the Trump administration鈥檚 changeability on policy, it鈥檚 difficult to say exactly what its concrete decisions will be. I think that there are some limits to how far you can get with predictions with the new US administration, he said.

And future globalization may look very different than it has until now, with the nature of international transactions shifting away from merchandise trade. What we鈥檙e likely to see is globalization much more driven by foreign direct investment and, for that matter, by information and people flows than by trade, Pankaj said. Trade is probably not where globalization is going to be at.