CIBC World Markets’ chief economist Jeff Rubin is resigning from CIBC to focus on his new book, he announced on Friday.

After more than 20 years at CIBC, Rubin is writing a book called Why Your World Is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller. It will be published in May by Random House Canada, along with Random House in the United States and Virgin Books in the United Kingdom.

The book explores the ways in which oil scarcity will lead to the end of globalization.

“Though the book grew out of my experience as an economist on Bay Street, this is not a book about financial markets,” said Rubin. “It’s a book about the way the world is about to change. We’ve all got our eyes right now on the global financial meltdown, but I believe that oil scarcity will change the global economy even more profoundly and in the process change all of our lives – from where we work to where we live to what we eat.”

“Jeff Rubin has spent two decades on Bay Street, but he has always thought outside that box,” said Anne Collins, vice-president, publisher, Random House Canada. “When he realized that his analysis of the oil economy was leading him to believe that we could be looking at the end of globalization as we know it, he knew that he had to find a way to get that message out, and he needed the scope a book would give him in order to develop his argument.”

IE