F&D Magazine’s 50th Birthday Issue Looks at Global Economics

F&D magazine marks golden anniversary, 50 years after 1964 launch

Special issue examines how the economy has changed and the challenges it faces

F&D reveals what 5 economics Nobelists worry about at night, and lists 25 economists under age 45 who are shaping the global economy

The 50th anniversary issue of F&D magazine opens with a look at the changes the global economy the past half-century. Economists Ayhan Kose and Ezgi Ozturk describe how technological advances in communications and trade have affected the way an F&D article is written, how the statistics behind its charts are produced, and copies of the magazine printed and shipped.

Kose and Ozturk observe that global actors have grown in number and diversified in power, moving toward a multipolar economy. And the global economy grew faster than the earth’s population, offering a better standard of living with longer life expectancy for the average world citizen that is enhanced by improvements in medical technology and education. Nevertheless there are serious threats to continued improvement in wellbeing, including increased inequality in most countries and global climate change.

Indeed, the world’s top economists agree these are issues we need to worry about. F&D asked five Nobel prize–winning economists—George Akerlof, Paul Krugman, Robert Solow, Michael Spence, and Joseph Stiglitz—what keeps them up at night. Their responses ranged from inequality to climate change to helping lagging countries catch up with the rest of the world, and getting affluent economies back into gear.

Martin Wolf of the Financial Times examines globalization—the integration of economic activity across borders, along with the spread of people and ideas—and how it is shaped by technology, institutions, and policy. He argues that benefits in the form of diffusion of power and decline in mass poverty have been tempered by political control of borders, migration, and regulations, and concludes that wise political choices are needed to maximize globalization’s opportunities.

Looking ahead, economists in the IMF’s Strategy, Policy, and Review Department are trying to predict what long-term trends have the most potential to influence—or disrupt—the global economy. In line with our Nobel economist advisors’ predictions, IMF staff fortune tellers conclude that the potential impact on economic growth of trends in demographics, diffusion of power, resource and environmental sustainability, interconnectedness, and...