The fantasy of deglobalisation
Since the beginning of the COVID crisis, and even more so with the war in Ukraine, we hear that there will be deglobalisation (reshoring, shortening of value chains, search for independence for a number of goods), and we accept that this would be inflationary. Of course, Russia is now partly exiting the global economy, but beyond Russia, will there be deglobalisation? First of all, we are not seeing it at all (in foreign trade or direct investment flows); Second , it is unlikely for several reasons: The demand for low prices is very strong in OECD countries; A deglobalised economy would be ineffective, because it would no longer exploit comparative advantages; Countries that have mercantilist growth strategies (for example Germany, Turkey, China, Japan, South Korea, etc.) are not going to change them easily, especially when they are affected by population ageing.