Includes bibliographical references and index.

Towards a better global economy project : overview and policy options / Jere R. Behrman and Shahrokh Fardoust -- The past, present, and future of economic growth / Dani Rodrik ; commentary / Kemal Derviş, Chang-Tai Hsieh, Branko Milanovic, Zia Qureshi -- Population quantity, quality, and mobility / Jere R. Behrman and Hans-Peter Kohler ; commentary / Ronald Lee -- The hyperglobalization of trade and its future / Arvind Subramanian and Martin Kessler ; commentary / Bernard Hoekman -- Does finance accelerate or retard growth? : theory and evidence / Franklin Allen, Elena Carletti, Jun "QJ" Qian, and Patricio Valenzuela ; commentary / Stijn Claessens, Thorsten Beck -- Resource depletion, climate change, and economic growth / Andrew Steer ; commentary / Jeremy Oppenheim -- Global markets, global citizens, and global governance in the twenty-first century / Nancy Birdsall, with Christian Meyer and Alexis Sowa ; commentary / Pratap Bhanu Mehta.

"This book examines the factors that are most likely to facilitate the process of beneficial economic growth in low-, middle-, and high-income countries. It examines past, present, and future economic growth; demographic changes; the hyperglobalization of trade; the effect of finance on growth; climate change and resource depletion; and the sense of global citizenship and the need for global governance in order to draw longer-term implications, identify policy options for improving the lives of average citizens around the world, and make the case for the need to confront new challenges with truly global policy responses. The book documents how demographic changes, convergence, and competition are likely to bring about massive shifts in the sectoral and geographical composition of global output and employment, as the center of gravity of the global economy moves toward Asia and emerging economies elsewhere. It shows that the legacies of the 2008-09 crisis--high unemployment levels, massive excess capacities, and high debt levels--are likely to reduce the standard of living of millions of people in many countries over a long period of adjustment and that fluctuations in international trade, financial markets, and commodity prices, as well as the tendency of institutions at both the national and international level to favor the interests of the better-off and more powerful pose substantial risks for citizens of all countries."--Publisher description