Page added on February 28, 2005
Financial markets are abuzz about the possibility of yet another spurt of US-centric global economic growth. Irrespective of the current-account deficit and external debt implications of this outcome, America’s growth dynamic is the magic to which the rest of a growth-starved world has become addicted. In the minds of investors and policymakers alike, there’s no breaking this habit for the conceivable future.
Yet history cautions us against taking world economic leadership for granted. Look back no further than the late 1980s: America was widely thought to be “over,†and Japan and Germany — the two defeated great powers of World War II — were viewed as on the ascendancy to the pinnacle of global economic leadership
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