For Michael Spence's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
The world needs a benign form of strategic competition more than ever, where countries strive to reach the forefront of innovation without trying to prevent others from challenging them.
The Lewis turning point is being reached in developing countries as their expanding export sectors are absorbing the surplus labor in traditional sectors like agriculture.
Attitudes on both sides are hardening, with Washington and Beijing settling into a comfortable but unproductive certitude that it occupies the moral high ground.
Complex global supply networks work efficiently in normal times, but they are not prepared for COVID-19-like shocks.
The most eye-opening development of the past three months has not been the COVID-19 pandemic, but the dramatic increase in the frequency and severity of extreme weather.
Many in the West disapprove of China’s single-party governance structure, just as vocal elements in China disparage Western liberal democracy, which they argue is in terminal decline.
Businesses that survived the pandemic closures (many with support from fiscal programs) will experience rapid expansion, powered by pent-up demand.
Perhaps no single aspect of the digital revolution has received more attention than the effect of automaton on jobs, work, employment and incomes.
In many ways, the United States is at war against COVID-19. But the existing systems for delivering what is needed to win are weak, fragmented and, especially, uncoordinated.
Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures. Failing bold action, developing countries could be on track to lose years or even decades of progress in the post-pandemic world.
