IMF:F&D Magazine: We Need a New Growth Compact

 

We Need a New Growth Compact JUNE 2025  (Credit: Chantal Jahchan) Policymakers are grappling with how to boost growth and expand opportunities. Early in the last decade, the question was whether flagging growth was the result of years of technological stagnation. It was a different era, following the global financial crisis. But now is an appropriate time to revisit that question, Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, the IMF’s chief economist, writes in F&D.   Countries in the 2010s were united in addressing the aftermath of the financial crisis, and they had a common vision. Initiatives that emerged, such as prudential financial regulation, built future resilience. Today, the geopolitical landscape is under enormous strain and consensus is more elusive and the alarming downward trend of potential growth persists.   The glass may seem half empty, but it’s actually half full, Gourinchas writes: Productivity can be raised by addressing entrenched structural constraints that hold back innovation and by exploiting recent technological breakthroughs. 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 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) Kevin Fletcher explains why productivity, not competitiveness, is the better path to prosperity for Back to Basics.   When controlled by a select few, tech innovation can be self-serving and undermine the institutions that make it possible, Simon Johnson says in Café Economics.   Andreas Adriano profiles Agustín Carstens, finance minister, head of the BIS, and central banker with a start-up mentality, for People in Economics.   Picture This shows how stalled trade and rising tariffs are testing global economic resilience.   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: