Globalization Metrics and Measurements

There is broad agreement that the world economy is becoming more deeply integrated and interdependent along multiple dimensions: economic, cultural and political. While one might expect cultural or political integration to be difficult to measure with precision, global economic integration has also proven resistant to detailed quantification and empirical characterization. We have a strong sense of profound changes in the world economy, and see signs everywhere, but cannot fully describe the new patterns and structures that are taking shape, not least because the official statistics at our easy disposal were created for other purposes and in simpler times. IPC researchers have helped to develop data collection frameworks that are being tested in their own research and by international a national statistical agencies.