Dangers of Slow Growth
Article Summary and Author Biography
The most protracted period of slow economic growth since World War II has contributed to dangerous political and social unrest around the globe. The growth rate of the industrial countries has declined from 4.4 percent in 1988 to 1.7 percent in 1992. In the same four years, the United States averaged about 1/2 percent growth a year. Meanwhile the ex-communist economies lost more than one-third of total output. Slow growth has undermined political leaders and incited nationalism and protectionism. It also has crimped efforts to deal with economic development, environmental management and migration. Cures start at home in forceful U.S. measures to lower the deficit, increase investment and spur technological innovation.
Leonard Silk is Distinguished Professor of Economics at Pace University and Senior Research Fellow at the Ralph Bunche Institute on the United Nations at the Graduate Center, City University of New York. He was formerly the economics columnist of The New York Times. Copyright (c) 1993 by Leonard Silk.
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