AT Kearney Index and Economic Migration
The AT Kearney Index offers another approach to measuring globalisation, focusing on four key categories: political engagement, personal contact, technological connectivity, and economic integration. This index uses a points system to calculate globalisation scores, with the lowest value assigned 0 and the highest assigned 1, while intermediate values are given relative scores.
Definition: Economic integration refers to the process by which different countries or regions become more interconnected through trade, investment, and other economic activities.
One notable feature of the AT Kearney Index is that it applies double weighting to FDI, internet usage, and telephone traffic, recognizing the significant impact of these factors on global connectivity. The index then summarizes all scores to provide an overall measure of globalisation for each country.
The AT Kearney Index has several advantages:
- It covers 96% of the world's GDP and 84% of the world's population.
- It allows for comparisons between countries and over time.
- It provides a comprehensive view of globalisation across multiple dimensions.
However, the index also has limitations:
- It only includes 64 countries, which may not provide a complete global picture.
- The weighting system raises questions about who decides the importance of different factors.
- It faces challenges in measuring cultural trends, such as the influence of social media platforms like TikTok.
Highlight: The expansion of the European Union in 2004 significantly impacted economic migration patterns, particularly from Eastern European countries to Western Europe.
An important factor contributing to increased economic migration is the expansion of the European Union in 2004. This event allowed people from Eastern European countries, such as Poland, to move more freely to Western European nations like the UK. The lifting of immigration regulations enabled individuals to seek better-paying jobs in more economically developed countries, illustrating the real-world impact of political and economic integration on global migration patterns.
Example: After the 2004 EU expansion, many Polish workers moved to the UK to take advantage of higher wages and job opportunities, demonstrating the practical effects of increased economic integration.
Understanding these migration patterns and their underlying causes is crucial for comprehending the broader impacts of globalisation on labor markets and economic development across regions.
