New report highlights systemic risks arising from 'tidal wave' of globalisation

15 July 2010

A new report, authored by Dr Ian Goldin, was launched on 14 July at the Lloyd’s 360° Globalisation conference in London. The report, entitled Globalisation and Risks for Business, examines in detail how globalisation has improved our society, but also led to increased political, economic, health and cyber risks.

Globalisation has stabilised governments, led to uniformity on a global scale and made us more knowledgeable about our planet, but the financial crisis has shown it also exposes society to systemic risk that requires international co-operation to prevent and predict rather than react and solve.

Dr Goldin commented, “The financial crisis is the first of the new systemic shocks arising from the tidal wave of globalisation. The political, economic and technological revolution, together with population growth and urbanisation, has brought huge benefits. However, it also has transformed the nature of risk. Physical and virtual proximity has led to new forms of systemic risk, which transmit much more rapidly and leapfrog traditional risk boundaries. Businesses, governments and regulators must now work together at an international level to predict and prevent the aggregation of these risks in the future.”

At the launch event for the report, Dr Goldin presented key arguments and participated in a panel discussion with leading experts from the insurance industry. Also speaking were Chairman of Lloyd’s Lord Levene, author and broadcaster Kate Adie, Sir Andrew Cahn, Chief Executive of UK Trade and Investment and Sir Michael Rake, Chairman of BT. Attended by nearly 200 representatives from business, government and industry, the event concluded with participants being urged to conduct risk audits (and disaster management plans) and stress tests for low-probability catastrophe scenarios.

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