From New Left Review, on current projections, a fifth of the world’s population will be over 60 by 2050. With old-age poverty set to increase across the planet, Robin Blackburn presents a plan for funding a universal pension of a dollar a day. Sovereign wealth world: James Surowiecki on why there’s too much anxiety over foreign investment. Sovereign wealth funds are in the news these days mainly because of the possibilities of strategic behavior that they offer their owners. Who will pick up the thread after the great unwinding? Martin Wolf wants to know. A new apologia for Anglo-Saxon noblesse oblige: More on A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World by Gregory Clark. John Kay on how emerging economies have not become "decoupled". Dani Rodrik on economic growth’s many recipes, and more on One Economics, Many Recipes: Globalization, Institutions and Economic Growth. The consensus story is that resource abundance boosts GDP in the short-run but hinders or reverses the development of growth-enhancing institutions and thus long-run growth. New evidence suggests that this works by worsening corporate transparency, capital allocation and growth. An interview with Richard B. Freeman on globalization and its complex consequences for inequality in national and global contexts. A look at how big governments and globalisation are complementary. An excerpt from The Bottom Billion by Paul Collier.
