With a deepening of specialization and a growing capacity to conduct transactions and take risks throughout the world, production has become increasingly international.1 The pronounced structural shift over the past decade to a far more vigorous and competitive world economy than that which existed in earlier post-World War II decades apparently has been adding significant stimulus to world economic activity.
This stimulus, like that which resulted from similar structural changes in the past, is likely a function of the rate of increase of globalization and not its level. If so, such impetus would tend to peter out as we approach the practical limits of globalization.