Special report | The world economy
The peril and the promise
The covid-19 pandemic will accelerate change in the world economy. That brings both opportunity and danger, says Henry Curr
THE THEORY of “black swans” says that unpredictable high impact events play a vastly greater role than most people realise. Long before 2020 scientists feared that a zoonotic respiratory disease might originate in Asia and spread globally. But hardly anybody foresaw the consequences. The story told by a casual inspection of most economic data is this: little happened for decades, and then in 2020 covid-19 upended everything.
This article appeared in the Special report section of the print edition under the headline “The peril and the promise”
From the October 10th 2020 edition
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