This increasing integration of the global economy is, in fact, far from a phenomenon peculiar to India. In fact, in the years preceding the global financial crisis, global economic integration grew and grew sharply. World trade, as a percentage of global GDP, rose from a little over 20 per cent of GDP to well over 30 per cent in 2007.
Cross border capital flows, as a percentage of global GDP, also rose from about five per cent in the mid-1990s to about 20 per cent in 2007. The ratio fell sharply as the crisis emerged but global capital flows have recovered since then.