What Matters: Globalization essays curated by McKinsey & Company

Globalization

Will the world be more tightly bound together 20 years from now, or less?

4 May 2009

We asked our most recent debaters whether the credit crisis would reverse globalization. While many readers agreed with Harold James that the global downturn will lead to an inevitable disruption, many more sided with Moisés Naím’s view that the world is far too tightly integrated to be easily split apart.

How executives view globalization

22 April 2009

In McKinsey’s fifth annual survey on global trends, we asked executives around the world for their views on the aspects of globalization that are of primary importance to most companies.

Global sourcing in a world less flat

By Dan Braga, Drew Erdmann, Yogesh Malik, and Aurobind Satpathy

21 April 2009

John Maynard Keynes, the great British economist, is suddenly back in vogue. During the current global economic downturn, you hear his name invoked in discussions regarding stimulus packages in the United States, China, Europe, and elsewhere aimed at preventing a 21st century Great Depression. But Keynes also speaks to those contemplating the potential patterns of global sourcing and trade in the coming decades.

Getting history right

By Francis J. Gavin

31 March 2009

In an effort to make sense of the recent chaos and confusion on global financial markets, many have looked to the past for answers and insights. The economic crisis is often compared to the Great Depression, which began with the collapse of the American stock market in 1929, spread around the world, and did not end in the United States until the Second World War.

Video interview: A new world disorder

By Ian Bremmer

26 March 2009

In this video interview, Ian Bremmer explains how a move away from globalization towards state-directed economic activity—as spurred by the downturn—will impact the geopolitical landscape and usher onto the world stage a new lineup of “winners and losers.” McKinsey’s director of publishing, Rik Kirkland, conducted this interview with Ian Bremmer in March 2009 in the New York office of Eurasia Group, the political-risk consultancy of which Bremmer is the president and founder.

Watch the video, or read the transcript.

Globalization: slowed but not stopped

By Tyler Cowen

25 March 2009

Despite the financial crisis, the world remains closely tied together, whether culturally or economically. You can see this in the foods you eat, the people you see in the shopping mall, your equity portfolio, and the stamps in your passport.

Toward a more bound-together world

By Gareth Evans

25 March 2009

Looking back two decades, the pace and intensity of global interaction have surpassed the predictions of even the most globally minded, and there is no strong ground for believing that trend will reverse over the next two decades. The ideological and geopolitical divides of the twentieth century look mostly now irrelevant.

The ties that bind

By Nayan Chanda

26 February 2009

Decades from now, however, the oil spike and the crash of 2008 will look like mere speed bumps on the road to an inexorably integrated planet.

When China is no. 1

By Andrew J. Nathan

26 February 2009

China’s dominance will be based neither on technological supremacy nor on an ability to colonize other nations. Rather, it mainly will be based on demography: China will be the biggest economy because it will have the biggest population.

Don’t take globalization for granted

By Philippe Legrain

26 February 2009

Today, globalization is neither uniform nor universal. It will always be incomplete. Clearly, then, it is also reversible.

Forcing companies to play nice

By Kenneth Roth

26 February 2009

The question is almost as old as globalization itself: When corporations expand their operations around the world, do they have the same social obligations as they do at home, such as avoiding complicity in human-rights violations? Not long ago, CEOs had a ready answer—such issues are not their problem.

Don’t count globalization out yet

By Richard Elman

26 February 2009

The founder and CEO of Noble Group, a global supply-chain-management company based in Hong Kong, speaks with McKinsey’s Clay Chandler about the economic downturn’s implications on global trade.

The cities of 2100

By Janamitra Devan

26 February 2009

Just as today’s cities look and feel and smell different than those of 100 or 200 years ago, the cities of 2100 will evolve in a dynamic of rapid cultural, technical, and economic change.

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The new normal
The business landscape has changed fundamentally; tomorrow’s environment will be different, but no less rich in possibilities for those who are prepared, argues McKinsey's worldwide managing director Ian Davis.
China takes aim at dollar
The Wall Street Journal reports on China's call for a new currency to replace the dollar as the world's standard.
Zhou Xiaochuan's speech
The full text of the essay by Zhou Xiaochuan, China's central bank governor, in which he calls for a new world currency, is available here.
A New Deal for Globalization
Rising wage inequality in the U.S. is threatening a protectionist backlash that will hurt everyone. The best way to avert the problem, argue Kenneth Scheve and Matthew Slaughter in Foreign Affairs, is by instituting a New Deal for globalization -- one that links engagement with the world economy to a substantial redistribution of income. (Article requires registration)