Going backwards

摘要

How integrated countries are with the rest of the world varies more than you might expect. And the world is less integrated in 2012 than it was back in 2007. These are the conclusions of the latest dhl Global Connectedness Index, which found that the Netherlands is the most globalised of 140 countries (see chart), just ahead of Singapore; landlocked Burundi is the least. (North Korea was not ranked.) The index measures both the depth of a country's connectedness (ie, how much of its economy is internationalised) and its breadth (how many countries it connects with). The economic crisis of 2008 made connections both shallower and narrower.