Energy, economic growth, and geopolitical futures
Subtitle: eight long-range forecasts
By: Evan Hillebrand and Stacy Closson
Contributors: Closson, Stacy, 1971-
Publisher: The MIT Press
Published: 2015
Place of publication: Cambridge, Massachusetts
Language: eng
Number of pages: 230
ISBN-13: 9780262028899
Subjects: Economic development; Forecasting; Energy development; Geopolitics
Description: This book presents eight varied scenarios of possible global futures, emphasizing the interconnectedness of three drivers of change: energy prices, economic growth, and geopolitics. Other published global future scenarios focus on only one of these factors, viewing, for example, economic growth as unaffected by energy prices or energy prices in isolation from geopolitical conditions. In this book, Evan Hillebrand and Stacy Closson offer a new approach to scenario construction that acknowledges the codependence of these key drivers and integrates qualitative analysis with a quantitative model. The eight scenarios represent possible combinations of high or low energy prices, strong or weak economic growth, and global harmony or disharmony across three time periods: the 2010s, 2020 to 2040, and 2040 to 2050. The Regional Mercantilism scenario, for example, envisions high energy prices, weak economic growth, and global disharmony. To impose numerical consistency across scenarios, Hillebrand and Closson employ the International Futures (IFs) model developed by Barry Hughes. (Interested readers can download this interactive model to alter or build scenarios themselves.) Assessing the probability of each scenario, they conclude that increased U.S. energy supply and the sustainability of the Chinese growth miracle are the most significant drivers over the next forty years.--
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 207-218) and index.