Major recent events have amplified globalisation’s failures: broken supply chains, food and energy inflation, and vaccine inequity due to intellectual property rights that serve to funnel pandemic profits to a few multinational companies. Proposed responses to these problems have ranged from “reshoring” or “friend-shoring” production to enacting “industrial policies to increase country capacities to produce” (Stiglitz, 2022). It seems that the unfettered endorsement of globalisation has given way to the recognition that at least some national borders are necessary for economic development and security. 

Has globalisation reached its zenith? How can we better manage its decline? In this vein, the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung’s (KAS) Regional Economic Programme Asia (SOPAS) has published a five-paper “Deglobalisation Essay series” which focuses on the following topic: How has deglobalisation impacted economies and economic policy?

The second in the Deglobalisation Essay Series paper, “Deglobalisation May Slow Down Economic Growth and Institutional Changes” explains that since the world economy is highly interlinked, deglobalisation will further deepen the gap between countries that are major economies and developing economies. In addition, the paper also looks into the challenges that countries, and the world as a whole will face due to the effects of deglobalisation.