One day the world's population will start falling

For those who worry about global warming and all the other damage humans are doing to our planet, the latest news on world population growth doesn’t seem good. Fortunately, however, the relationship between population and the environment is paradoxical. The United Nations Population Division updated its projections in June. From its present 7.7 billion, the world’s population is projected to have grown by 2 billion in 2050....

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In poor countries income does trickle down

Try this test of your economic literacy: has world poverty decreased or increased since 1990? If you said decreased, congratulations. You’re smarter than the average bear. If you were sure it had increased, you’re the victim of a news media gone overboard in indulging your preference for bad news over good. A lot of bad things are happening in the world, but also some really good things, and we immiserate ourselves when we...

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Growth in world economy will take a toll on the environment

If the world’s population keeps growing, and the poor world’s living standards keep catching up with the rich world’s, how on earth will the environment cope with the huge increase in extraction, processing and disposal of material resources? It’s a question many people wonder and worry about – without much sign it’s even crossed the mind of the world’s governments. Until now. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and...

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We should rescue economics from the folly of neoliberalism

There's no swear word in politics today worse than "neoliberalism". It's badly on the nose, and the reaction against it has a long way to run. But what is it, exactly? Where does mainstream economics stop and neoliberalism begin? The term means different things to different people. Professor Dani Rodrik, of Harvard, says in the Boston Review the term is used as a catchall for anything that smacks of deregulation, liberalisation,...

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Why India's development is so strange

Every Aussie who takes an interest in such matters knows how a country goes from being undeveloped to developed. We 've been watching our neighbours do the trick for years. It' s called export-oriented growth and it 's all about building a big manufacturing sector. You encourage under-employed rural workers to move to the city and take jobs in factories. Because your one big economic advantage is an abundant supply of...

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Chinese economy overtaking US and getting more like it

It isn't so many years since I used to berate the denizens of the financial markets for their lack of interest in the economy that had so much influence on ours: China. How things have changed. So has China. After averaging growth of 10 per cent a year for 30 years, China's economy is now struggling to achieve its reduced target of 7.5 per cent....

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The little we know on how poor countries get rich

Despite the contrary impression they like to convey, there's a lot economists don't know. And in various parts of their discipline fads and fashions change without much real progress being made. Take development economics, the study of how countries develop economically, growing their production and consumption of goods and services until they move from being poor to being rich. In his book, The Quest for Prosperity, Justin...

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