Increasing volumes of trade should bolster productivity as economies concentrate their resources in those sectors in which they are relatively more efficient. But I have seen little direct evidence on the extent to which globalization may have boosted aggregate productivity growth in the United States in recent years.
Nevertheless, research at the Board finds that multinational corporations, which may have greater opportunities to realize efficiencies by shifting production locations, accounted for a disproportionate share of aggregate productivity growth in the late 1990s. And some microeconomic  2  BIS Review 63/2006  studies have found a relationship between global engagement and productivity at the firm level.