The Great Economic Slowdown

1. Introduction.- 2. The slowdown and real interest rates.- 3. The slowdown and asset prices.- 4. The slowdown and the share of profits.- 5. The slowdown in the data.- 6. Losing ground to China and other countries.- 7. The pandemic and its aftermath.- 8. Growth to the Rescue.

Edmund Phelps, the 2006 Nobel Laureate in Economics, is McVickar Professor Emeritus of Political Economy and Director of the Center on Capitalism and Society at Columbia University. His work can be seen as a lifelong project to put "people as we know them" into economic theory. In Mass Flourishing (2013) and Dynamism (2020), he argues and tests that broad job satisfaction in a nation requires widespread, indigenous innovating and that depends on the nation's values. His latest book is My Journeys in Economic Theory (2023).


Hian Teck Hoon is Professor of Economics at the Singapore Management University. He is a co-author of Dynamism: The Values That Drive Innovation, Job Satisfaction, and Economic Growth (Harvard University Press, 2020). He is the author of Trade, Jobs and Wages (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2000) and Economic Dynamism, Openness, and Inclusion: How Singapore Can Make the Transition from an Era of Catch-up Growth to Life in a Mature Economy (World Scientific Publishing, 2019). Hian Teck is a past Vice-President of the Economic Society of Singapore (2002-2004).



Gylfi Zoega is Professor of Economics at the University of Iceland and (now part-time) at Birkbeck College, London, since 1993 and was an external member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Central Bank of Iceland from 2009 to 2023. His research is focused on saving, financial stability and growth, including the financial crisis in Iceland starting in 2008.  He co-authored the book Dynamism and co-edited Preludes to the Icelandic Financial Crisis (2011), The 2008 Global Financial Crisis in Retrospect (2019) and Fault Lines After COVID-19: Global Economic Challenges and Opportunities (2023).