Moritz Schularick | Helmut Schmidt Lecture 2023 "Remaking Globalisation!"

Economic globalisation has produced winners and losers: in most countries of the world, social inequality and economic nationalism are on the rise. In addition, the global economy has been massively shaken by the ongoing war in Ukraine since the beginning of 2022. The war has led to increases in global inflation, food insecurity and energy shortages. For many countries, especially those already affected by poverty, violence and political instability, the economic situation is becoming increasingly precarious. The war has followed substantial declines in incomes and existing challenges arising from the climate crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Facing an intensifying systemic rivalry, the international community is far from finding solutions collectively. Multilateral cooperation is in decline and global supply chains are being interrupted and redirected. And all too often, the most vulnerable people along the global supply chains are being neglected. Since we do not believe that globalisation has ended, we, the Bundeskanzler-Helmut-Schmidt-Stiftung (BKHS), call for it to be redesigned, more socially sustainable and more equitable! But how can we achieve this? To get to the bottom of this question, we are dedicating our Helmut Schmidt Lecture 2023 and the third edition of our BKHS Magazine to the topic of "Remaking Globalisation!".

We could not imagine a better speaker for the Helmut Schmidt Lecture 2023 than Professor Dr. Moritz Schularick, who has been President of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW) since June 2023. Keen to find solutions to central challenges facing societies today, he studies the past and future of globalisation and engages in academic, public and policy discourses to advance economic knowledge and address global inequalities. 

The IfW’s mission – understanding and shaping globalisation – was not only a central goal for Helmut Schmidt who was awarded the IfW’s Global Economy Prize in 2007, but also describes how the BKHS approaches the issue of globalisation as a think tank: Considering today’s polycrisis, we aim to rethink the interplay of politics and economics and to re-evaluate the role of the nation state in the national as well as in the global economy.

In the spirit of our namesake, we will bring together inspiring personalities on 4 December 2023 at the Museum für Kommunikation in Berlin who are committed to making today a better place and promoting an even better tomorrow. In addition to Professor Dr. Moritz Schularick and our expert Dr. Elisabeth Winter, BKHS programme director "Global Markets and Social Justice", our guests are invited to join the conversation. After the lecture and the panel discussion, your opinions, impressions and thoughts will be included in the discourse through moderated small discussion groups. We will conclude the evening with concrete recommendations for remaking globalisation and a get-together with music.