Opportunities and risks: the rise of China and India, the new financial order and the principal risks to continued fast growth

Public Lecture

Speaker: Martin Wolf CBE, Associate Editor and Chief Economics Commentator, Financial Times
Chair: Glenn Withers, Professor of Public Policy, ANZSOG

Date: Tuesday 4 September 2007
Venue: Zinc Restaurant, Federation Square, Melbourne
Time: 12.00 - 2.00pm

Cost:
Alumni & guests $135.30 per person or $1285.35 table of 10
Non-members $187.00 per person or $1776.50 table of 10

To register, download the registration form and fax to 03 9663 7271.

The integration of the world economy and the rise of Asia are the great economic and political stories of our era. They are the result of three forces: technology, particularly the reduction in the cost of transport and communication; the worldwide move to the market economy that followed the collapse of belief in the planned economy, inward-looking development and socialism; and the hunger of the Asian masses for the standard of living pioneered by the West.

These changes have big consequences. Among the most important are: integration of the production of tradeable goods and services across frontiers and increased tradability of services convertible into 'bits'; the shift in the distribution of earned income from unskilled and semi-skilled labour in high-income countries towards highly skilled labour and capital; the collapse in the power of western organised labour; the rise of global financial markets and the global corporation; increased mobility of capital and labour; increased competition; a shift in the terms of trade in favour of resources and against labour-intensive manufactures; the elimination of absolute poverty from east Asia; and the rise of China and India.

Yet this is not the only era of globalisation since the industrial revolution. The first, in the 40 years prior to the First World War, collapsed in war, protection and depression. So how likely is this one to endure? The dangers are evident: protectionism is on the rise; financial instability remains a threat; pressure on natural resources is growing; globalisation of 'goods' brings with it globalisation of 'bads' - terrorism, disease and crime; and, not least, huge changes in relative power bring with them stresses on international relations. In the last resort, maintenance of a globalised world requires co-operation among territorial governments. Is that possible? Maybe, but it has, alas, never been sustained for long in past epochs.

Martin Wolf CBE Martin Wolf is Associate Editor and Chief Economics Commentator at the Financial Times, London. He was awarded the CBE (Commander of the British Empire) in 2000 'for services to financial journalism'. Mr Wolf is also a visiting fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford University, and a special professor at the University of Nottingham. He has been a forum fellow at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, in Davos since 1999. He was a keynote presenter at ANZSOG's Executive Fellows Program in 2005. Mr Wolf was joint winner of the Wincott Foundation senior prize for excellence in financial journalism for 1989 and again for 1997. He is one of two British journalists to have won this prize twice since its establishment in 1970. He won the RTZ David Watt memorial prize for 1994. This prize is granted annually "to a writer judged to have made an outstanding contribution in the English language towards the clarification of national, international and political issues and the promotion of their greater understanding". He won the "Accenture Decade of Excellence" at the Business Journalist of the Year Awards of 2003 and was on the shortlist for 2005. In giving the award, the organisers stated that Mr Wolf's weekly column "was recognised by the judges as offering a level of insight and analysis unique to a daily newspaper." He won the Newspaper Feature of the Year Award at the Workworld Media Awards 2003 for an article on UK pensions.

Mr Wolf obtained first class honours in classical moderations at Oxford University in 1967, followed by first class honours in politics, philosophy and economics in 1969. He obtained the Master of Philosophy. in economics at Oxford University in 1971. In that year, Mr Wolf joined the World Bank as a Young Professional and was promoted Senior Economist in 1974. In 1981 Mr Wolf joined the Trade Policy Research Centre, London, as Director of Studies. In 1987, he joined the Financial Times as Chief Economics Leader Writer. He was promoted Associate Editor in 1990 and Chief Economics Commentator in 1996. His most recent publication is Why Globalization Works (Yale University Press, 2004).