Navigating new global dynamics: Challenges and policies

The world faces a conflux of powerful forces of change. Digital technologies and advances in artificial intelligence are transforming markets, economies, and societies. Global geopolitics is shifting, and the rise of China is challenging the postwar international order led by the United States. Geopolitical tensions are elevated, and so are political polarization and societal anxieties within countries as change creates winners and losers. Nationalist industrial policies and protectionism are surging. Added to this mosaic of transformation is climate change, which will have profound effects on global patterns of production, investment, and trade.

International cooperation has become more daunting, but it is essential in matters ranging from the regulation of new technologies to trade policies to global finance to climate transition. In a more contested world, a rules-based international order has become even more critical.

On October 21, the Global Economy and Development program at Brookings, jointly with the Korea Development Institute (KDI), convened a panel of experts to discuss the challenges of navigating these new global dynamics.

The event marked the launch of a new book, New Global Dynamics: Managing Economic Change in a Transforming World. The book, a product of a joint research project between Brookings and the KDI, examines how today’s forces of change are affecting the global economy, international power structures and competition in markets, and the future of globalization and multilateralism, delving into the shifting dynamics in industry, trade, and finance and addressing the new challenges institutions and policymakers face at national and global levels.

The event was an in-person public event; it was also livestreamed for those joining online.