Peter Gallagher

The Intro­duc­tion rec­og­nizes the inti­mate rela­tion­ship of adjust­ment and growth, the role of cities, the attrac­tions and lim­its of autonomous growth, the rich vari­ety of suc­cess­ful man­age­ment choices, the steril­ity of the ‘reform for reform’s sake’ agenda and the tri­umph of prag­matic poli­cies over­dogma in turn­ing growth into bet­ter lives for more people.

It also under­stands that the extent of the eco­nomic devel­op­ment we have seen in our life­times is a phe­nom­e­non with­out prece­dent due mostly to the glob­al­iza­tion of learn­ing and opportunity:

Growth of 7 per­cent a year, sus­tained over 25 years, was unheard of before the lat­ter half of the 20th cen­tury. It is pos­si­ble only because the world econ­omy is now more open and inte­grated. This allows fast-growing economies to import ideas, tech­nolo­gies, and knowhow from the rest of the world. One con­duit for this knowl­edge is for­eign direct invest­ment, which sev­eral high-growth economies actively courted; another is for­eign edu– cation, which often cre­ates last­ing inter­na­tional net­works. Since learn­ing some­thing is eas­ier than invent­ing it, fast learn­ers can rapidly gain ground on the lead­ing economies. Sus­tain­able, high growth is catch-up growth. And the global econ­omy is the essen­tial resource…