Shared Prosperity in a Fractured World - by Dani Rodrik (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

New, practical approaches to confronting today's most daunting global issues

Fighting climate change, saving democracy, and eradicating poverty are urgent global challenges, yet the world's leaders continue to pursue outdated policies that focus on one while worsening the tradeoffs between each of them. Shared Prosperity in a Fractured World shows how the nations of the world can achieve all three objectives.

Dani Rodrik provides a bold new vision of globalization, one in which we accelerate the green transition to achieve a sustainable planet, shore up the middle class to restore democracy's foundations, and hasten economic revitalization in the developing world to put an end to poverty. The rising tide of authoritarianism has demonstrated our inability to alleviate economic anxieties. Economic nationalism has raised the specter of increased protectionism and deteriorating prospects for economic growth. And automation and other new technologies have undercut the advantages of low-cost, unskilled labor in manufacturing and export-oriented industrialization. Rodrik reveals how we can restore prosperity through new forms of collaborative public-private action--to promote renewables and green industries, middle-class jobs, and enhanced productivity in labor-absorbing services--even in the absence of global cooperation. He explains why this new kind of globalization must also recognize the legitimate desire of governments to pursue their economic, social, and security interests autonomously.

Turning conventional economic wisdom on its head, Shared Prosperity in a Fractured World builds on practices that work while radically transforming those that don't, presenting a grounded, clear-eyed approach to tackling the problems that affect us all, at home and around the world.

Review Quotes

"A thoughtful consideration of how to promote democracy, sustainability, and prosperity in a world riven by dislocation and conflict. . . . A closely reasoned--and pragmatic--call for remaking the world's economy."-- "Kirkus Reviews"

About the Author

Dani Rodrik is the Ford Foundation Professor of International Political Economy at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. His many books include Straight Talk on Trade: Ideas for a Sane World Economy (Princeton), Economics Rules: The Rights and Wrongs of the Dismal Science, and The Globalization Paradox: Democracy and the Future of the World Economy.