On Tuesday, 10 October 2023, UNU-WIDER will host the the 27th WIDER Annual Lecture by Pinelopi (Penny) Goldberg, Elihu Professor of Economics and Management at Yale University, and former Chief Economist of the World Bank. The lecture will be held at Gamle Festsal at the University of Oslo in the historic Domus Academica, and streamed online via the UNU-WIDER YouTube channel.

The WIDER Annual Lecture will continue the tradition of presenting groundbreaking research and will partner with The Oslo SDG Initiative based at the University of Oslo’s Centre for Development and the Environment.

After advancing rapidly for two decades, globalization slowed following the 2008–2009 financial crisis, but it did not cease. Data on trade, capital and immigration flows show that globalization continued, albeit at a slower pace, even throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. However, recent changes in public sentiment and government policy in some of the world’s largest economies, including two of globalization’s bastions, the United States and Great Britain, suggest the beginning of a new era.

Penny Goldberg will speak about her research on the topic of globalization. The lecture will explore the causes of the recent globalization shift. It will cover the role of increasing inequalities in advanced economies, the labour market pressures arising from imports from low-wage countries, perceptions of unfair trade practices by China, as well as new demands for ‘resilience’ in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the invasion of Ukraine.

Is the globalization crisis the result of these and other crises in health and geopolitics? Or were these crises simply the trigger for a change that had been long brewing? The lecture will conclude with thoughts about potential consequences of the shifting landscape for growth, inequality, efforts to address global challenges such as poverty reduction and climate change, and resilience.