Doubling Our World's Economy

Abstract

The record of long-term forecasting, particularly by economists, is not a glorious one. In a celebrated article, great English economist John Maynard Keynes, writing in 1930 about the economic possibilities of our grandchildren, forecast that in a century s time working week would be about 15 hours long, thus creating a serious challenge of how to use our extensive leisure. We have less than a quarter century to realize that result. The trends point in right direction, but are substantially off in magnitude. In early 1950s, Twentieth Century Fund published an ambitious projection of world economy to year 2000, in which it foretold a world population of 3.25 billion, up from 2.4 billion in 1950, and concluded that major future challenge would be how to feed so many people. In fact, world population in 2000 was about 6.1 billion, and average diet was significantly better than it was in 1950. And, of course, many forecasts of world energy demand were made after oil shocks of 1970s, most of which proved wildly