Globalization and international risk-sharing: The role of social and political integration

This study explores the relationships among various dimensions of globalization (i.e., economic, social, and political) and international risk-sharing, by exploiting the KOF globalization indices over a long time horizon (1970–2014) and for several groups of countries (i.e., World; Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD); European Union (EU); European Monetary Union (EMU); high-income economies (HI); and low and middle-income economies (LMI)). To this end, we follow a standard regression-based approach augmented by interaction terms. To date, the empirical literature has only investigated the economic and financial facets of globalization; we, on the other hand, find a significant relationship between risk-sharing and noneconomic aspects of globalization. For several groups of industrialized countries, social and political integration positively correlate with risk-sharing. The economic factor does not explain all the improvements that relate to globalization, and political integration plays a remarkable role in shaping risk-sharing opportunities, both among EMU/EU countries and on a global scale. For advanced economies, in an increasingly globalized world, political integration should be of great concern.