[3] Global economic interdependence has grown in the post-World War II period as a result of technological progress (e.g. computerization, containerization, low-cost travel, low-cost communications) and associated policies that were aimed at opening national economies internally and externally to global competition.
[16] According to Henry Farrell and Abraham L. Newman, states can "weaponize interdependence" by fighting over control of important nodes in global networks of informational and financial exchange.
[14][15] Beth Simmons and Patrick McDonald argue that interdependence creates groups in liberal capitalist states with vested interests in the status quo, which makes conflict less likely.
[19][7] According to Stephen G. Brooks, globalization of production has had a pacifying impact on great powers by (i) making it hard for great powers to have cutting edge military technology without being part of global supply chains, (ii) reducing incentives to conquer the territory of economically advanced countries, and (iii) facilitating regional integration.
The Hierarchical Network Approach is used to measure economic interdependence by analysing growth clusters and cross-country liaison, and business cycle synchronisations.
[23] To measure growth clusters, economists need to get hold and analyse changes in GDP for each country over a specified period of time.
By this measure, trends from the data has shown that the degree of world economic interdependence is growing due to globalisation.
A key challenge that is faced is the need for a valid method to measure exit costs and interdependence, whilst maintaining a systematic approach with many countries involved (a large-n analysis).
Given these two components, Crescenzi furthers his study by explaining the relationship between economic interdependence and its association with political conflict.