In 1997, Harvard economist Dani Rodrik published a slim volume called Has Globalisation Gone Too Far?, and went a long way in answering the question in the affirmative. That made him one of only a few top establishment economists challenging the prevailing wisdom on trade and financial liberalisation.
As he later recounted, even colleagues who privately agreed with him in an intellectual sense berated him for “giving ammunition to the barbarians” — providing arguments for protectionism and other limits on the unrestrained globalisation that was pursued in the 1990s.
The FT’s European economics commentator, Martin Sandbu, decided to catch up with Rodrik partly because the world of economics — both in research and policymaking — has been catching up with him. Many of the dogmas which Rodrik questioned, such as the rejection of capital controls or industrial policy, are being left by the wayside. Policymakers are navigating a global economy that does not behave in line with traditional models and politicians are contending with a fierce backlash against globalisation and rising inequality.