1  Over the last decades, four overarching forces have been shaping the world economy: globalization, technological progress, demographic transition and climate change. For the most part, globalization and technological progress have been positive and powerful engines of economic progress and social change.
But given their heterogeneous, pervasive and differentiated effects, they have also been the object of fierce critiques and deep-seated fears, which policy makers should not neglect. Globalization is a complex, multidimensional phenomenon, consisting not only of the deeper integration of goods, services and capital markets, but also of the greatly increased mobility of people, information and ideas.