ΙΜF update

 

Tech’s Winner-Take-All Trap JUNE 2025  (Credit: Sonia Pulido) Eastern Europe in the late 1980s and ’90s proved an interesting case study for an aspiring economist who had just written his thesis on the hyperinflation and economic chaos in Germany and the Soviet Union in the 1920s.   After completing his PhD at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and starting a postdoctoral position at Harvard, Simon Johnson found himself working with Poland’s first noncommunist government and studying the emergence of the private sector there and in neighboring countries following the fall of the Iron Curtain. Johnson’s astute study of private enterprise’s successes and failures formed the basis for his enduring research on the role of institutions in economic development, which won him the 2024 Nobel Prize in economics.   Johnson has recently turned his attention to how technology is making its mark on today’s economy and the potential impact, of artificial intelligence especially, on the institutions he believes are so crucial for equitable growth. His latest book, with coauthor Daron Acemoglu, Power and Progress, examines the close relationship between technology and prosperity and cautions against allowing too few innovators to control technology’s strategic direction.   Johnson, now the Ronald A. Kurtz Professor of Entrepreneurship at the MIT Sloan School of Management, spoke with F&D’s Bruce Edwards about technology, inequality, and democracy. Read more Point of View (Credit: Chantal Jahchan) Reclaiming a Policy Role for Economists | Acknowledging missteps, listening well, defending data, and avoiding jargon will help the profession engage | Karen Dynan   Europe’s Future Hinges on Greater Unity | But first the EU must overcome distrust between its member states and in its institutions | Simon Nixon   We Need a New Growth Compact| Innovation and integration can revive growth amid sweeping geopolitical change | Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas Europe: From Adversity to Advantage (Credit: Brian Stauffer) Europe’s Integration Imperative | The case for closer economic union has become more compelling as external challenges multiply | Alfred Kammer   Europe’s Elusive Savings and Investment Union | An integrated capital market must be accompanied by regulatory reforms to attract substantial investment | Ravi Balakrishnan and Mahmood Pradhan   Europe’s Innovators Are Waking Up| The continent’s innovation success stories and renewed sense of purpose defy criticism of overregulation | Alessandro Merli   Making Germany Grow Again| Long-term, future-focused investment can rescue Europe’s largest economy from stagnation | Ulrike Malmendier and Claudia Schaffranka   Plus, government ministers from three of Europe’s fastest-growing economies share their perspectives on how to revive growth:   Europe’s Economic Revival | Poland’s economic transformation can inspire Europe today | Andrzej Domański   Greece’s Remarkable Recovery | Strong reforms have turned it into one of Europe’s fastest-growing economies | Konstantinos Hatzidakis   Spain’s Shift to Success | Our balanced and sustainable growth is overcoming traditional dilemmas | Carlos Cuerpo “The European Union must unite to shape today’s global economy, rather than be shaped by it.”— F&D editor-in-chief Gita Bhatt Read more Also Featured (Credit: Hadley Hooper) The Debate over Falling Fertility | A decline in global population later this century may threaten human progress, or it may lead to better lives | David E. Bloom, Michael Kuhn, and Klaus Prettner   The Longevity Dividend | Aging populations should be embraced, not feared | Andrew Scott and Peter Piot   Sustaining Growth in an Aging World | Older populations need not lead to slumping economic growth and mounting fiscal pressures | Bertrand Gruss and Diaa Noureldin   A Moving History | Migration has propelled human progress for hundreds of thousands of years | Ian Goldin   Machine Intelligence and Human Judgment | AI could reverse the widening inequality driven by technology, or aggravate it | Ajay Agrawal, Joshua Gans, and Avi Goldfarb   Stanley Fischer (1944–2025)| His storied career at the IMF, at central banks, and at universities shaped the study of macroeconomics and the next generation of macroeconomists | James Boughton Our Regular Departments (Credit: iStock/erhui1979) Picture This shows how stalled trade and rising tariffs are testing global economic resilience.   Andreas Adrianoprofiles Agustín Carstens, finance minister, head of the BIS, and central banker with a start-up mentality, for People in Economics.   Kevin Fletcher explains why productivity, not competitiveness, is the better path to prosperity for Back to Basics.   For books, Mouhamadou Sy reviews Our Dollar, Your Problem: An Insider’s View of Seven Turbulent Decades of Global Finance, and the Road Ahead by Kenneth Rogoff.   Volker Wieland reviews Crisis Cycle: Challenges, Evolution, and Future of the Euro by John H. Cochrane, Luis Garicano, and Klaus Masuch.   And Vivek Arora reviews Entropy Economics: The Living Basis of Value and Production by James K. Galbraith and Jing Chen   For Currency Notes, Salsa Mazlan tells how Macao SAR’s unique history has yielded different yet equally elegant versions of the same banknote.   Nick Owen  Managing Editor | Finance & Development   nowen@IMF.org Stay connected with the International Monetary Fund: