MILAN — Much economic commentary nowadays focuses on “divergence”: while broad equity-market indices are at or near all-time highs, much of the wider economy struggles to recover from one of the most severe downturns ever.

MILAN — Climate change was at the forefront of last month’s World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in Davos, Switzerland. Younger participants, in particular, underscored the challenge ahead, with the teenage activist Greta Thunberg delivering a powerful speech on the subject.

FORT LAUDERDALE — As one advances in age, one tends to mark each new year by reflecting on the broader developments that have run in parallel with one’s own lifetime.

MILAN — The eighteenth-century British economist Adam Smith has long been revered as the founder of modern economics, a thinker who, in his great works “The Wealth of Nations” and “The Theory of Moral Sentiments”, discerned critical aspects of how market economies funct

MILAN — Western attitudes towards digital technology have soured in recent years, as once-celebrated innovations have begun to reveal their downsides.

MILAN — For much of the post-World War II period, economic policy has focused on unemployment.

MILAN — The global economy is undergoing very large structural shifts, driven by three megatrends. One is the digital transformation of the foundations on which economies are built and run.

MILAN — China’s strategy for economic growth has been a work in progress since Deng Xiaoping launched the country’s “reform and opening up” in 1978.

MILAN — About a decade ago, the Commission on Growth and Development (which I chaired) published a report that attempted to distill 20 years of research and experience in a wide range of countries into lessons for developing economies.