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By Patrick ZWEIFEL, Chief Economist, Pictet Asset Management
The coronavirus pandemic threatens to accelerate de-globalisation. But there are reasons to hope it won't.
The coronavirus pandemic has cast a dark shadow over global trade. In the short term, lockdowns across the world have caused an unprecedented collapse in cross-border commerce, a rational response, guided by public health considerations. But the fear is that these negative effects will persist long after the crisis has passed. This, though, shouldn’t be a foregone conclusion. There are good reasons to believe that while the web of international economic relations is likely to change, perhaps significantly, trade won’t be damaged catastrophically. Instead, some of the flows of...
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