Hurrah for global growth

Here is the good news. The world economy is growing at its most rapid rate since the early 1970s. Emerging economies – home to about 5.5 billion of the world’s 6.5 billion population – are growing particularly fast.

The news comes from the International Monetary Fund’s twice-yearly
World Economic Outlook. Sadly it has received little publicity. But the Outlook includes an interactive database which is easy to use and extremely useful.

One publication which has picked up the story is the Economist. Its comment this week makes the point that for the first time the emerging world made up more than half of global output last year (at purchasing power parity, 30% at market exchange rates). The magazine welcomes this development and explores it in more detail in an accompanying survey. Sadly it reaches the conventional conclusion that the world does not have sufficient resources for everyone to adopt current American lifestyles.