Global boosters

Recent economics models of the world in 2050 are projections of the past, not the future. They are not designed to deal with constraints.

Suddenly, with the turn of the decade and the latest World Economic Forum opening, we’re awash with projections of how the world economy might look in 2050, produced by economists, and each as implausible as the other. Two, from HSBC and PwC (both open in PDF) offer similar (and improbable) views of a hugely expanded global economy to 2050.  But they also seem to assume that the future will be a lot like the past.