Economic and financial globalization is not just about trade. It is about trade only to the extent that trade includes goods, services, capital, labor, information, and culture. Globalization concerns the positioning of the firm and the individual in the world, not just the positioning within the nation-state or local economy. While globalization affects everyone, the focus is more significant for those who are more in touch with London than Cleveland, Paris over San Antonio, and Beijing over Jacksonville.
Globalization’s Evolution in Education
This deeper perception of globalization is more apparent with younger money managers and those educated at better universities around the country and world because of a change in teaching focus in the liberal arts, especially history. The ascent of global history as a replacement for the history of the nation or Western civilization has refocused thinking about a person’s place in the world. The redirection to global history has made students appreciate alternative regions and cultures’ parallel development and advanced developments.
Global Macro Investing
Global macro investing is for the globalist investors who believe the world’s connectedness is primal to all investing. This connectedness is exploitable because everyone does not immediately perceive it. Closeness around the globe exists, but the speed of adjustment is not always immediate. For example, the impact of policies by the Bank of Japan will take time to affect industrial production in the US. Credit defaults in China will spill over to the rest of the world, but the impact is complex. The discounting of global events by non-globalists is slow. This leads to opportunities.
Cross-Border Thinking
Being prepared to accept cultural differences makes cross-border thinking and analysis easier. Global history and the broader teaching of cultures and philosophies have reduced psychological home biases. Unified frameworks using finance tools are employed without specific anxiety about global distances or culture.