The Third Globalization: Human Capital and Demographic Decline

Half of the world lives in a country where the number of births fails to replace those who die.

Theme: Ironic demographics and globalization

Subject Article: "Investing in People as an Economic Growth Strategy."

Other Links: 1. "The Rise (and Likely Fall) of the Talent Economy."
2. "Extensive and Intensive Globalizations: Explicating the Low Connectivity Puzzle of US Cities Using a City-Dyad Analysis."
3. "Boston Versus Silicon Valley: Advantage Beantown."
4. "From Metal to Minds: Economic Restructuring in the Rust Belt."
5. "Peak Talent."

Postscript: "Rich countries' populations are beginning to shrink. That's not necessarily bad news":

Demographic decline worries people because it is believed to go hand in hand with economic decline. At the extremes it may well be the result of economic factors: pessimism may depress the birth rate and push up rates of suicide and alcoholism. But, in the main, demographic decline is the consequence of the low fertility that generally goes with growing prosperity. In Japan, for instance, birth rates fell below the replacement rate of 2.1 children per woman in the mid-1970s and have been particularly low in the past 15 years.

As economic prosperity diffuses, so will demographic decline. How we manage that demographic decline will define economic geography.