This is a useful exercise because it is an antidote to the type of thinking which concentrates on very recent developments, some of which I will cover later. 2  C. Gust and J. Marquez, “Productivity Developments Abroad”, Federal Reserve Bulletin, October 2000. 3  “The New Economy Beyond the Hype”, OECD, Paris, 2001. 4  IMF, World Economic Outlook, database, http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2002/01/data/index.htm.
2  BIS Review 41/2002  The two main trends that are of relevance for tonight’s topic are as follows: (1)  Our region - which is mainly the developing countries of Asia - has grown a lot quicker than the world as a whole and so its share of world output has risen from 10½ per cent in 1980 to 24 per cent in 2001.