Although it may not feel like it if you are living in Europe, the US or Japan, it is quite possible that the global economy will expand at a faster rate this decade than in any of the previous three.
Goldman Sachs is forecasting that global gross domestic product will rise at an average annual rate of 4.1 per cent from 2011 to 2020. In the previous three decades, that growth rate never exceeded 3.5 per cent.
What is changing with exhilarating speed is the source of that growth. Many of the world’s biggest emerging markets have finally emerged and are now powering global expansion. In 2011, Brazil, Russia, India and China (the original Bric countries) created the equivalent of a new Italy in terms of economic output.