You don’t need us to tell you: it’s been a tumultuous few years. Between the pandemic, the first land war in Europe in generations, and higher-than-ever tensions between the US and China—any one of these events would have shaken the foundations of the globalized world economy. Together, they’ve introduced cracks that have led some to believe the era of prosperous globalization is coming to end. Not so fast, says new research from the McKinsey Global Institute. The bonds forged in the 20th century between regions, industries, companies, and countries are not so easily broken. The challenge now is to fully reckon with the risks of dependency—and to help actors in each sector understand their responsibilities. Check out the new discussion paper by MGI partner Jeongmin Seong, MGI senior partner Olivia White, and their coauthors for a nuanced understanding of how global value chains will be shaped by new forces in the coming decade. For more on the state of globalization today, check out these insights.
Global flows: The ties that bind in an interconnected world
Risk, resilience, and rebalancing in global value chains
Could climate become the weak link in your supply chain?
The new dynamics of financial globalization
Digital globalization: The new era of global flows
Globalization in transition: The future of trade and value chains
More from McKinsey
Bob Sternfels on global flows and value chains: “No region, no country is an island today.”