Growing Pains: The Outlook on Development Revisited

• Published in: Harvard international review Vol. 27; no. 3; pp. 66 - 69
• Main Author: COOPER, RICHARD N.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge Harvard International Relations Council, Inc 22.09.2005; Harvard International Relations Council
• Subjects: Analysis; back to the future PREDICTING THE PRESENT; Bailouts; Bank loans; Banking crises; Company business planning; Currency; Debt restructuring; Developing countries; Economic conditions; Economic crises; Economic crisis; Economic development; Economic forecasts; Economic growth; Economic recessions; Female employees; Future predictions; GDP; Global economy; Government crises; Gross Domestic Product; International economic cooperation; International finance; International trade; LDCs; Planning; Predatory pricing; Prosperity; Protectionism; Recessions; Strategic petroleum reserve; United States; Warnings; World War II; United States
• ISSN: 0739-1854; 2374-6564

Statements about the future almost always involve extensions of the past. They may be complicated extrapolations, incorporating rates of change and even identifying turning points, but they are extensions of the past nonetheless. Few individuals genuinely identify true discontinuities, and they are usually dismissed as crackpots or are admired as intellectual entertainers rather than as serious futurologists. Some extensions of the past rely implicitly on a model of the social system under consideration, with its own dynamics and constraints. Others rely on analogies across apparently different social systems at different stages of their evolution. With respect to developing countries in the mid-1980s, the author had in mind the existence of a reasonably well-functioning (but not trouble-free) world economy with the key economic determinants being the level of economic activity in its largest national economies.