Measuring Globalisation

Globalisation is a timely and controversial topic. Against the chorus of globalisation’s proponents and detractors, the authors propose an approach for measuring globalisation and its consequences. Undertaking a comprehensive review of the literature on globalisation and using data from the MGI and KOF indices, the well-respected authors build a framework for defining globalisation and analyzing the relationships among economic, political, and social variables.

Globalisation is a timely and controversial topic. Against the chorus of globalisation’s proponents and detractors, the authors propose an approach for measuring globalisation and its consequences. Undertaking a comprehensive review of the literature on globalisation and using data from the MGI and KOF indices, the well-respected authors build a framework for defining globalisation and analyzing the relationships among economic, political, and social variables.

This second edition of the OECD Economic Globalisation Indicators presents a broad range of indicators on trade, foreign direct investment, the economic activity of multinational firms, and the internationalisation of technology.

This manual defines concepts and puts forward guidelines for data collection for indicators measuring globalisation's extent and intensity.

The aim of this book is to conduct a critical survey of the main tools devised for the synthetic measurement of globalization processes. To this end, the first part of the book discusses the meaning of the concept considered, highlighting the different and often contradictory interpretations put forward in its regard in the literature. Subsequently analysed are the passages and issues that must be addressed when constructing an instrument intended to measure a social phenomenon of such complexity as globalization. Stressed in particular is that the researcher’s subjectivity is repeatedly involved in these passages, so that no instrument can have objective validity. Given these premises, the book presents the principal tools employed in attempts to measure globalization, starting with those whose unit of analysis is the state. In this regard, particular space is devoted to indexes which take a multidimensional approach to the concept of globalization. There follows a comparison among the results obtained using these indexes, and criticisms are made of the ways in which the latter have been constructed. A limitation, or if one wishes a paradox, concerning such tools is that they measure in relation to states a process which has as one of its principal features the fact that it extends beyond the confines of states. For this reason, the final chapter considers whether globalization can be measured with different units of analysis – in particular people and cities. The books concludes with discussion of the general limitations of globalization indexes.

Over the past two decades, the percentage of the world’s population living on less than a dollar a day has been cut in half. How much of that improvement is because of—or in spite of—globalization? While anti-globalization activists mount loud critiques and the media report breathlessly on globalization’s perils and promises, economists have largely remained silent, in part because of an entrenched institutional divide between those who study poverty and those who study trade and finance. Globalization and Poverty bridges that gap, bringing together experts on both international trade and poverty to provide a detailed view of the effects of globalization on the poor in developing nations, answering such questions as: Do lower import tariffs improve the lives of the poor? Has increased financial integration led to more or less poverty? How have the poor fared during various currency crises? Does food aid hurt or help the poor? Poverty, the contributors show here, has been used as a popular and convenient catchphrase by parties on both sides of the globalization debate to further their respective arguments. Globalization and Poverty provides the more nuanced understanding necessary to move that debate beyond the slogans.

Understanding the impacts of globalization requires good data, and national statistical systems were not designed to measure many of the transactions occurring in today’s global economy. The chapters in this two-volume set identify biases and gaps in national statistics, examine the magnitude of the problems they pose, and propose solutions to address significant biases and fill key data gaps.

This report introduces the Global Integration Index, which assesses the progress of globalization across traditional areas, such as trade, investment and institutional arrangements, and includes new areas of digital connectivity and environmental cooperation. Building on ADB’s framework to measure progress in regional cooperation and integration, the index confirms Asia’s deeper global economic linkages, enabling comparison with other regions and across dimensions.