Beware of the Consequences of Low, Non-Inclusive Growth

Sadly -- and unnecessarily -- the persistent and prolonged failure to deliver higher and more inclusive growth has become a defining characteristic of the last decade in advanced economies. The harmful effects have extended well beyond economics and finance to include worrisome institutional, political and social consequences.

Indeed, we are seeing some of these factors play out this week in the heated debate over President Donald Trump's first budget. Without higher and more inclusive growth, the proposal is a fiscal non-starter, an institutional detractor, politically infeasible and socially destructive. Yet too much of the ongoing work on growth seems to fail to internalize fully the five main lessons from too many years of disappointments. As such, the analysis risks being either unnecessarily fatalistic or harmfully unrealistic.