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Long-standing historical dynamics suggest a slow-growth, high-inequality economic future

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  • Burgess, Matthew G.
  • Langendorf, Ryan E.
  • Moyer, Jonathan D.
  • Dancer, Ashley
  • Hughes, Barry B.
  • Tilman, David
Abstract
Long-run economic growth is deeply uncertain, but will profoundly affect societal scale, well-being, and challenges. Statistical forecasts, expert opinions, and socioeconomic scenarios from integrated assessment models (IAMs) project an order-of-magnitude range of 2100 global GDP per capita values, with an even wider range for today’s developing countries. Definitive multidecadal predictions are impossible, but here we show that a long-standing historical relationship between GDP per capita growth and GDP per capita is most consistent with 21st-century scenarios projecting relatively slow economic growth and high inequality, though still projecting rising affluence in all regions. We show that a simple differential equation-based model that empirically fits this relationship to a Kuznets curve would have, since 1980, consistently projected a 21st-century economic future similar to the Shared Socioeconomic Pathway (SSP) scenario SSP4. Moreover, we show that the Kuznets model’s projections from 1980 onwards would have consistently outperformed short-term IMF forecasts for the 2010s, except in low-income regions, where both tend to over-project growth. We show that a complex empirically grounded IAM (International Futures, IFs) produces nearly identical 21st-century GDP per capita projections as the Kuznets model. Compared to the SSP scenarios, the IFs model projects a 21st century with relatively high poverty and population growth, and moderate energy demands and GHG emissions.

Suggested Citation

  • Burgess, Matthew G. & Langendorf, Ryan E. & Moyer, Jonathan D. & Dancer, Ashley & Hughes, Barry B. & Tilman, David, 2022. "Long-standing historical dynamics suggest a slow-growth, high-inequality economic future," SocArXiv q4uc6, Center for Open Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:osf:socarx:q4uc6
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/q4uc6
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Burgess, Matthew G. & Langendorf, Ryan E. & Ippolito, Tara & Pielke, Roger Jr, 2020. "Optimistically biased economic growth forecasts and negatively skewed annual variation," SocArXiv vndqr, Center for Open Science.
    2. Richard Startz, 2020. "The next hundred years of growth and convergence," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 35(1), pages 99-113, January.
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