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AbstractFollowing the trade collapse in 2009, Globalisation has recovered but the growth rate slowed down compared to the preceding period of Hyper Globalisation. The persistence of this slowdown is remarkable. We argue that increased awareness of firms for the costs of involvement in global supply chains can explain the recent developments in trade flows. We formalise the existence, length and consequences of changes in fragmentation cost along global supply chains. From a theoretical point of view, we allow tasks to be a combination of different occupations while the model endogenises production fragmentation, allowing for multiple production stages in multiple countries, while remaining tractable. From an empirical point of view, the model explains both the period of Hyper Globalisation and the subsequent Slowbalisation in terms of changing fragmentation costs along global supply chains. The model is also consistent with developments regarding labour market polarisation associated with modern globalisation: the labour market position of medium-skilled workers in advanced countries has deteriorated relative to high- and low-skilled workers, which can be understood by changing global supply chains. Our model implies, however, that even with zero fragmentation costs the demand for certain occupations does not fall to zero for any country.

Global income inequality has been declining for several decades. We argue that global income inequality will reach its lowest level around 2027 and then will rise again. This development is the result of both economic and demographic forces. By combining economic projections with demographic developments and by using GDP per worker instead of GDP per capita in projecting income levels we emphasize the role of demographics in income inequality. Especially in the long run (after 2030), differences in population growth and population structure between countries in different stages of development are shown to increase global income inequality.

Economic activity tends to cluster. This results in productivity gains. For policy makers this offers an opportunity to formulate and promote policies that foster clustering of economic activity. Paradoxically, although agglomeration rents are often found in empirical research a rationale for cluster policies does not exist. A brief tour through the literature shows that cluster policies face more problems than is often assumed in policy circles. We reflect on the main issues at stake and conclude that, if not carefully applied, cluster policy may do more harm than good.

We combine the resource curse literature with the literature on cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&As) to investigate two hypotheses, namely (i) natural resources wealth: countries with a comparative advantage in natural resources attract more M&As in natural resource intensive sectors and (ii) natural resources dependency: countries with a high natural resources dependency attract fewer M&As in all sectors. Using the Thomson dataset we test these hypotheses for a sample of 49 African and Latin American countries in the period 1988 - 2007. To test these hypotheses we disaggregate the data in sectors intensive and not intensive in natural resources. We emphasize the distinction between resource dependency and wealth. Both hypotheses were confirmed by our findings. Thus, resource dependency has a "crowding out" effect on M&As in all sectors, and natural resources wealth has a crowding in effect on M&As in sectors intensive in natural resources.