Global Growth & Local Discontent

Catalog description

The past three decades have brought unprecedented increases in global living standards. In the mid-1980s, countries then known as “Third World,” were mired in low growth, high debt, and runaway inflation, while the developed world seemed to hold the keys to prosperity. In a remarkable turnaround, a billion people have been lifted from poverty in those same countries—the now-much-heralded “Emerging Markets” that produce more than half of global output and almost three quarters of global growth. Indeed, when advanced economies plunged into recession following the Global Financial Crisis, it was not only quantitative easing by the Federal Reserve and European Central Bank that stabilized them in 2010, but also the strong economic performance of emerging economies that year. Following the crisis there are new challenges, as developed-world leaders assert that emerging economies’ success is responsible for income inequality and other economic ills in rich countries. Taking the historic fall of the Berlin wall in 1989 as the proximate impetus, we will explore the power of economic reforms to unleash sustainable, inclusive, and positive-sum global growth.