Programs & Projects

Global Economic Futures

Global Economic Futures

Trade wars, populism, and geopolitics. The world is quickly becoming more fraught as complex forces threaten to disrupt and reshape the global economy in profound ways. In this context, the Lowy Institute launched the Global Economic Futures project aimed at better understanding this rapidly changing global economic landscape, where it might take us, and the key choices to be made.

The project examines the future shape of the global economy especially given rising tensions between the world’s two largest economies – the United States and China – and the possible implications for, and changing roles of, major regional economies, including Australia, India, Indonesia and others.

Experts
Latest publications
News and media
Lockdown: A dilemma for the economic optimists
Lockdown: A dilemma for the economic optimists
Everyone – including economists themselves – jokes about economic forecasting failures. But the intrinsic difficulties are compounded for the international economic agencies,…
After coronavirus: Where the world economy will stand
After coronavirus: Where the world economy will stand
For all the drama of collapsing output, demand, and jobs in Australia and many economies around the globe, we should expect that output in most countries will begin to recover…
The government's bazooka is biggest, not the RBA's
Commentary
The government's bazooka is biggest, not the RBA's
Lowy Institute Nonresident Fellow Stephen Grenville evaluates the RBA's response to COVID-19. Originally published in the Australian Financial Review.
What the G20 needs to deliver
What the G20 needs to deliver
The Covid-19 outbreak has rapidly gone from a crisis for China to a crisis for the world. The pandemic is desperately crying out for international leadership. So far that has…
Vital to focus on fiscal policy as recession inevitable
Commentary
Vital to focus on fiscal policy as recession inevitable
It goes without saying that the medical response to the pandemic should have the highest policy priority ... On the economics of the pandemic, initial reactions have been…
The RBA's job is to back banks, not bail out gamblers
Commentary
The RBA's job is to back banks, not bail out gamblers
It’s quite a while since I was at the Reserve Bank, but one of my tasks there was to draft replies to letters received. So let me try my hand at responding to Christopher Joye’s …
Limiting the global economic fallout from Covid-19
Limiting the global economic fallout from Covid-19
Panic has now set in over the Covid-19 global pandemic. The coronavirus is spreading rapidly, especially in Europe and the US, and severe public-health measures are being put in…
Central bank reputations at risk from impossible targets
Commentary
Central bank reputations at risk from impossible targets
Central banks around the world are caught in the same bind: inflation is below their target. Originally published in The Australian.
Covid-19: Nearing a global pandemic?
Covid-19: Nearing a global pandemic?
The novel coronavirus, or Covid-19, has spread throughout the world in three short months. Outbreaks have been reported in more than 50 countries, there are 88,000 confirmed cases…
How China is changing the global balance of economic power
Interactives
How China is changing the global balance of economic power
China has displaced the United States from its traditional dominance as a major trading partner for most countries of the world.