Economic nationalism, pandemic and war have not stopped globalization, meaning international trade and exchange within so-called global value chains. They have certainly slowed it down, but it looks like we are facing an irreversible phenomenon stimulated by technological progress. Today, however, we are paying the price of the effects of that sweeping globalization that revolutionized the planet at the end of the last century and at the beginning of the new millennium. “In many countries” says Tito Boeri, the Festival’s scientific director, “that globalization has bequeathed distributional tensions that have often resulted in a large-scale expression of populist movements. And the current geopolitical tensions themselves can be also read as consequences of a too-rapid globalization that has strengthened undemocratic autocracies in some countries.”
Economics, politics, and social sciences therefore must change their approach. They must rethink globalization, as the theme chosen for the 2023 edition of the International Festival of Economics suggests. “It is necessary,” Boeri highlights, “to graduate its pace, to temper the speed brought about by technological progress, to strengthen multilateral institutions, to reform our social protection systems, to develop new business models that strengthen vertical integration instead of focusing on the disintegration of production processes.”
There is a lot of research on these issues. That is why on June 1st-4th 2023 Turin will become the world capital of rethinking globalization. Four days full of ideas, projects, studies, testimonies. With one ambition: debating in order to find new ways forward, with competent, passionate contributions, designed for the wider audience.