Globalisation ‘cheerleader’ McKinsey Global Institute has second thoughts

For years, the McKinsey Global Institute has been leading the charge for globalisation, publishing research on the virtues of free trade, open data flows, cross-border investment, and liberalised immigration.

“The core drivers of globalisation are alive and well,” the think-tank of American consultancy McKinsey wrote in a 2010 study, while the world was still recovering from the financial crisis.

“To be unconnected is to fall behind,” its researchers wrote in 2014. But a study McKinsey released yesterday stresses the economic gains of changes in the global economy have not been widely shared lately, especially in the developed world.