Development of Trade Institutions and Advent of Globalization Since the End of World War II

In the aftermath of World War II and the protectionism of the Depression era, as the decade of the 1950s approached, international trade as a share of world output had fallen to levels not seen since the beginning of the twentieth century. In contrast, the rise of world trade in the second half of the twentieth century, with all the associated gains from trade for all trading partners, was one of the economic miracles of the postwar era.