How Food Globalization Serves Up the World on Your Plate

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When people hear the word “globalization” they probably think of giant container ships, wonky economic terms like “offshoring” and “trade deficit,” or geopolitical tensions and agreements. 

And, to be sure, Cato’s Defending Globalization project covers all of that stuff and more. Yet, as Cato explains in a new essay for the project, there may be no better symbol of real globalization—and its many benefits—than the restaurant down the street. 

Globalization Puts The World On Your Plate

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Want an example of how globalization puts the world on your plate?

When people hear the word “globalization” they probably think of giant container ships, wonky economic terms like “offshoring” and “trade deficit,” or geopolitical tensions and agreements. And, to be sure, Cato’s Defending Globalization project covers all of that stuff and more. Yet, as we explain in a new essay for the project, there may be no better symbol of real globalization—and its many benefits—than the restaurant down the street.

Access the essay here.

Globalization Is Working Better

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Globalization has rallied and is even working better but a new report also acknowledges that threats to globalization are real, with today’s “turbulent environment” of geopolitical tensions and other crises not being beneficial to business and policy-making. 

Slowbalization After Global Financial Crisis

©iStock/Anna Shalygina

Globalization has seen ebbs and flows over the decades. According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the “Slowbalization” that followed the global financial crisis has been characterized by a prolonged slowdown in the pace of trade reform, and weakening political support for open trade amid rising geopolitical tensions.

As the Chart of the Week shows in this link, globalization plateaued in the decade and a half since the global financial crisis. This latest era is often referred to as “slowbalization.”