Abstract EN:

The current wave of globalization has led to an impressive growth in world trade in the last decades. In 2005, world exports of goods and services were clse to 12. 7 trillion dollars, more than 5 times their value in 1982 (UNCTAD, 2006). However, the globalization process by itself is nothing new. A long-term perspective largely relativizes the magnitude of the current phenomenon. Krugman (1995) and Irwin (1996), among others, have noticed that the share of trade in world production in the mid-70s was no higher than the level reached in 1913. What seems different today is the nature of world trade compared to the early twentieth century.