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The first globalisation ended in 1914. The second globalisation, which took off from the early 1980s, is the foundation of the gains in prosperity of the past 40 years. We may be at a turning point today with the emergence of a third globalisation. This features a more cautious cross-border integration, where geo-political alignment is an additional factor that shapes home bias. These developments have important implications for the optimal pathways for Indian firms.
In the good old days, nation states did not interfere in the four freedoms, movement of goods, services, labour, and capital. Whether Ashoka or Akbar, rulers did not intrude in most aspects of freedom. Technical change created vast improvements in cross-border mobility. For India, two great
