We need a new policy approach to the world's biggest challenges

Local policies can be better in tackling climate change and other problems than top-driven policies

- DANI RODRIK

We need new ideas to address the three greatest economic challenges of our time: climate change, the erosion of the middle class and poverty.

The first is an existential threat to our physical environment; the second drives polarization and undermines democracy; and the third is a moral scourge. Yet with authoritarianism and economic nationalism on the rise, there seems to be little reason for optimism on any of these fronts.

In my new book, Shared Prosperity in a Fractured World, I point out that solutions to these problems already exist in prevailing practices. They often remain below the radar, though, or they are disregarded because they depart from conventional approaches.

Traditionally, industrial policies played a critical role in the process of economic transformation. Today, we need an updated version of the same strategy, taking into account the requirements of a green transition and the reality that manufacturing is no longer a source of job creation.