This short course will examine recent global economic trends and their implications for income growth, trade, economic development and economic policy. The first session introduces the latest world economic forecasts from international institutions including the World Bank, IMF, OECD and the United Nations, highlighting areas of consensus and divergence and debating their potential implications. Current forecasts share a broad agreement about the most likely trends for economic growth, with a world economy still struggling to recover five years after the eruption of the global financial crisis. Recommendations about what countries should do, however, are very different. Can these divergent views be reconciled?
The course will then turn to more practical trade and industrial policy concerns, examining the collapse in global trade that occurred from 2008-2009 and its related effects on product and country-specific export performance. It will address the most important implications of the on-going trend whereby developing countries are growing much more rapidly than advanced ones. Topics discussed include what this trend means for the export opportunities available to developing countries.
The course will end with a discussion of the risks that these fast growing developing countries face of being unable to complete the process of structural transformation and remaining trapped at middle levels of income. In this context, it will analyze the role that industrial policies and South-South economic integration can play to take advantage of the new export opportunities and avoid the middle-income trap..
Delivered by: Division on Globalisation and Development Strategies
Presentations:
Global income and trade trends: Implications for export opportunities for developing countries