Institute of Development Studies

About the team

The Globalisation Team provides teaching, research and policy development aimed at promoting sustainable economic growth in developing countries. It starts from the view that such growth requires private sector investment and enterprise growth in developing countries, and that the potential for this is decisively influenced by the global economy.

Much of this work has analysed the increasing integration of the global economy, focusing on both macro issues such as trade and international finance alongside business-to-business relationships through work on global value chains and business-to-state relationships in the form of interactions between public actors and private investors. It has employed a variety of methods, ranging from computable general equilibrium models for the analysis of trade to global value chain analysis of business-to-business linkages and private standards, and both qualitative and quantitative methods to investigate state-business relations.

Globalisation processes change rapidly, and in response to global restructuring the team developed two new areas of work:

• Structural transformations in the global economy, most notably the emergence of new powers in the global economy and in global politics.
• Innovation in developing countries.

The global financial crisis of 2008-9 has created new and significant stresses in the global economy and in global politics, and also changed the global context in which pressing issues such as climate change will be addressed. This has prompted the team to focus on new global challenges and the potential for new growth paths to emerge. Recent events highlight not only the strategic importance of the rising powers (Brazil, China, India, etc.) in the global economy for global governance, but also point to new challenges for global stability. In this context, the team has applied its skills and capacities to issues such as the macro-economics of climate change adaptation in Africa, the impact of the financial crisis on trade and on developing countries, and the prospects for low carbon innovation in Europe and Asia.