Globalization vs Protectionism – Mr. Peter Hall

March 29, 2023

An excerpt from “Is Economic Chaos our New Reality? Reflections on growth and hope in an unsettled world”

Mr. Peter Hall, CEO – econosphere, inc.

Transcript: Globalization vs Protectionism

I believe that for a prolonged period of time, there has been obvious uncertainty in the world economy and by extension, the world geopolitical situation. And my particular bent is that the economy is what has taken our geopolitical situation and changed it. 

So the context that I put this in is that when 2008 happened, until that point, generally we were all believers in globalization. We were trying to knit our economies together. We had a cavalcade–many, many free trade agreements, double taxation treaties, investment protection agreements. 

Those were the three primary mechanisms that opened up trust in international trade over a prolonged period of time. I’m very happy to say that Canada was a pioneer in this with the inauguration of the initial free trade agreement with the United States, and as a small open economy, a great beneficiary of freer trade. So we have been advocates for this. 

But something happened in 2008. And the way that I characterize the sea change that happened at that time, was that when the financial crisis occurred, and the economic crisis followed hard on its heels, we turned from a general approach of globalization to neo-protectionism. And this is why when we were compelled to pour very significant stimulus into our own economies, we said to ourselves, we want that stimulus to stay within our boundaries. 

In a globalized world, that’s very difficult to achieve. Because of course, we have greater import and export flows–what we call leakages–in our economy as a result of globalization. We didn’t want that stimulus to leak out, particularly because that stimulus was very significant as a share of each of our national GDP. 

So what do we do about a situation like this? Well, some of the greatest beneficiaries of globalization, all of a sudden became the greatest protectionists in the world.

Peter Hall, CEO – econosphere inc.

Peter Hall is CEO of econosphere inc., a boutique business strategy advisory firm. In this capacity he is involved in advising leading Canadian industry associations and corporations, advising and promoting international initiatives and conducting ad hoc project work. Mr. Hall is a special advisor to both Martinrea International and Elevate Export Finance, writes a weekly column in the Financial Post and is a featured speaker at conferences across Canada.

Until recently he was chief economist at Export Development Canada, heading up a large team of economists and country risk analysts that provided comprehensive forecasting for internal and external business strategy purposes, transaction risk analysis for over 160 countries, model creation, use and maintenance and data systems support. In addition to advising EDC’s executive team and board of directors, Mr. Hall personally conducted dozens of presentations annually to a wide variety of business, government and academic audiences and was continuously sought as a conference speaker at industry events in Canada, the United States and internationally.

Mr. Hall regularly speaks at conferences and corporate events and comments on the global and Canadian economies in print media, radio and television. While at EDC, he authored the widely-circulated Weekly Commentary. Prior to his work at EDC, Mr. Hall directed the economic forecasting activities of the Conference Board of Canada. He has served as the president of the Canadian Association for Business Economics, a 600+ member organization of professional economists and also its largest local chapter, the Ottawa Economics Association. He has served on the board and as an advisor to multiple Ottawa-area charities.

Mr. Hall has degrees in Economics from the University of Toronto and Carleton University.

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