China, India, Indonesia, Russia and Brazil collectively are to account for more than half of all global growth through 2024, based on fund projections. There is no scenario in which the global economy can achieve healthy growth unless these five economies, especially China, see their output and incomes rise strongly. Between the 1970s and the 1990s, it was common to characterize the US as the locomotive of the world economy (“On the locomotive theory in international macroeconomics,” Martin Bronfenbrenner, 1979). US fiscal and monetary policy usually played the decisive role in the development of the global economic cycle through trade and financial links to smaller economies. China on its own, and the other major emerging markets collectively, are now more important drivers of the global economy.

Source: Taipei Times November 08, 2019 16:06 UTC