This original and panoramic book proposes that the underlying forces of demography and globalisation will shortly reverse three multi-decade global trends – it will raise inflation and interest rates, but lead to a pullback in inequality. “Whatever the future holds”, the authors argue, “it will be nothing like the past”. Deflationary headwinds over the last three decades have been primarily due to an enormous surge in the world’s available labour supply, owing to very favourable demographic trends and the entry of China and Eastern Europe into the world’s trading system. This book demonstrates how these demographic trends are on the point of reversing sharply, coinciding with a retreat from globalisation. The result? Ageing can be expected to raise inflation and interest rates, bringing a slew of problems for an over-indebted world economy, but is also anticipated to increase the share of labour, so that inequality falls. Covering many social and political factors, as well as those that are more purely macroeconomic, the authors address topics including ageing, dementia, inequality, populism, retirement and debt finance, among others. This book will be of interest and understandable to anyone with an interest on where the world’s economy may be going.

Alan Deardorff was 65 years old on June 6, 2009. To celebrate this occasion, a Festschrift in his honor was held on October 2OCo3, 2009, in the Rackham Amphitheater at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. The Festschrift was entitled OC Comparative Advantage, Economic Growth, and the Gains from Trade and Globalization: A Festschrift in Honor of Alan V Deardorff.OCO It was co-organized by two of Professor Deardorff''s former students, Drusilla Brown of Tufts University and Robert Staiger of Stanford University, together with Robert Stern representing the University of Michigan. The first day of the Festschrift involved a series of panels in which invited participants reflected on Professor Deardorff''s contributions, including his writings on: comparative advantage; trade and growth; the gains from trade and globalization; and computational modeling and trade policy analysis. The panel participants prepared written comments, setting out their evaluation of Professor Deardorff''s contributions combined with their own thoughts on the current state of knowledge and analysis of the particular topic. At the end of the first day, Paul Krugman of Princeton University and The New York Times delivered a Citigroup Foundation Special Lecture entitled OC Reflections on Globalization: Yesteryear and Today.OCO All of these papers and Krugman''s lecture are contained in the volume."

This is a splendid book. It sits at the interface of economics and economic history, and provides both a textbook-style introduction to the key themes of macroeconomics and personal insights into the central debates gleaned from interviews with leading economists. David Greasley, Australian Economic History Review It should be in every library. A hundred years from now, it will be an important guide to what leading economists thought they knew, and what they knew they didn't know as of A.D. 2002. Christopher Hanes, EH.Net Conversations on Growth, Stability and Trade is a wonderful survey of the development of macroeconomic thinking over the past decades. Brian Snowdon has a knack for combining insightful essays on a subject with interviews of interesting, relevant, and diverse economists. The interviews give one an excellent sense of how economists approach policy issues. David Colander, Middlebury College, US Conversations on Growth, Stability and Trade has all the lucidity of A Modern Guide to Macroeconomics by Snowdon, Vane and Wynarczyk, combined with the fascination of Conversations with Leading Economists by Snowdon and Vane. Students will love it and their teachers will devour it the night before the big lecture. If only I had learned macroeconomics this way. Mark Blaug, University of London and University of Buckingham, UK These well informed and highly readable interviews provide a great introduction to some of the big issues in modern economics. Roger E. Backhouse, University of Birmingham, UK This unique volume provides a comprehensive survey of the major economic issues that have helped shape the modern world. It includes discussions of the latest research findings in macroeconomics and scrutinises some of the most important debates in economic history. The author examines the many controversies relating to the role of government in a modern economy, long-run growth and development, the spread of the Industrial Revolution, the causes and consequences of the Great Depression , the Great Peacetime Inflation , the conduct of stabilisation policy, international economic integration and globalisation. To shed light on these major issues the volume contains interviews with ten leading economists who have each contributed extensively to the literature on macroeconomics, economic growth and development, international economics and economic history. A major theme which runs throughout the book is the conviction that economists can gain valuable insights concerning important contemporary policy issues from a knowledge of history, especially economic history. The distinguished economists featured in this book are: Ben Bernanke, Jagdish Bhagwati, Alan Blinder, Nick Crafts, Bradford DeLong, Barry Eichengreen, Kevin Hoover, Charles Jones, Christina Romer and Joseph Stiglitz. Containing an extensive and up-to-date list of references, the book provides a comprehensive guide to the modern literature on macroeconomics and related fields. It will be an essential reference for all scholars and students of economics, especially those with an interest in economic growth, business cycles, inflation, unemployment, trade and globalisation. It will also be of considerable value to students of economic history and the history of economic thought.

The research for this project was carried out while the author was at the staff of the Economics Faculty of Erasmus University Rotterdam. The core results were recorded in discussion papers 7821/G, 7901/G, 7910/G and 8002/G of the faculty's Institute for Economic Research. Working on the project I incurred considerable debts to some professors and fellow staff members of the faculty. Professor P. J. Verdoorn initiated this study by suggesting its subject and by encouraging me to turn my initially hesitantly held view of imports as 'indispensable' inputs into the cornerstone of the analysis; he also read the final manuscript. Professor H. C. Bos' enthusiastic encouragement greatly stimulated me in the arduous phase of the writing of the manuscript; his advise on style and emphasis considerably improved the presentation while his careful reading of the various versions of the manuscript eliminated many non sequiturs and some errors. I am deeply in debt to A. S. W. de Vries who scrutinized not only the manuscript but also the preliminary discussion papers; while sharing an office room with him for six years I had the benefit of many stimulating discussions and he equanimously put up with my moods when I was stuck at some point. I am also in debt to D. P. Broer for checking and improving the optimal control theorem in chapter 7; to Professor R. Harkema for inducing me to write sections 5. 1 and 5.