Is the Party Over for Economic Growth? When economic stagnation becomes the new normal

Intelligence Squared

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4.2 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 20 May 2016

⏱️ 61 minutes

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Summary

It was a blast. Since the Industrial Revolution, we enjoyed unprecedented economic growth, propelled by a seemingly unstoppable wave of technological innovation. For 100 years from around 1870, life in the West was transformed by inventions such as electricity, the car and domestic appliances, which led to soaring growth, better lives and booming wealth for all. The poor became less poor, and the number of middle income earners exploded. In the second half of the 20th century the rest of the world began to catch up, with China lifting hundreds of millions out of extreme poverty and the rise of the BRICs. But then it stopped. Since around 1970, middle incomes in the US have stagnated, while the top 1% have pulled away in terms of earnings and wealth. Productivity growth fell. The great recession of 2008 was expected to be a blip but we are still in the doldrums. China’s miracle growth has shuddered to a slowdown and is set to drop even further. Just last week, the European Central Bank announced fresh... Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/intelligencesquared. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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0:54.2	newsletter. Thank you Robert very kind I'm the man with the big books clearly economics is now rock and roll hence this packed audience here tonight
1:06.8	to talk about the notion, the kind of big notion is growth kind of over and really for the West I think more than for the
1:17.0	emerging markets if you imagine that we were having this meeting 10 years ago. A I would say it would be about a tenth as full as it is this evening
1:28.4	and B would all be feeling a bit smug wouldn't we? 2006, the great moderation, the end of boom and bust. Economists
1:39.7	have sort of fixed everything. We'd fixed inflation. We had got medium level interest rates.
	...

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