A Message From The Managing Director

Welcome to the Growth Dialogue, a network driven by a passion to see economic growth extended to as many places on the planet as possible, since without growth, it is hard to imagine sustainable development and improvements in people’s lives. The Growth Dialogue seeks to connect high level policymakers and thought leaders with those whose policy decisions can benefit from practical experience and the latest work on economic growth. As Prof. Robert Solow said at the first meeting of the Commission on Growth and Development, “we know what the essential ingredients are for growth, but we are unsure as to the exact recipe.” Our goal is to assist policymakers in the trenches, those dealing with development challenges in poor and emerging economies, in order to equip them with independent, unfiltered advice from other regions, the latest thinking on new policy challenges, and applied academic findings that will help them carry out the task of growing their economies.

Policy networks like the Growth Dialogue are only as useful as their content, their accessibility, and their relevance. The Dialogue aspires to be the place where new ideas are incubated, where experiential learning takes place, and where policymakers can meet to discuss their common challenges, free of ideology and institutional influence.  In this vein, it is a successor to the Commission on Growth and Development, which was chaired by Nobel laureate Michael Spence and was comprised of many distinguished economic policymakers and accomplished leaders. The Dialogue continues in the same traditional of hosting regional and global events that bring together academic and policy experts to exchange views on growth and growth-related issues with the hope of fostering practical policy shifts that can help promote shared growth and development. It seeks to be a leading forum for growth conversations.

Sustainable economic growth, indispensable as it is, requires continuous attention. As with Prof. Robert Lucas who is purported to have said that once he thought about economic growth, he could think of little else, the Growth Dialogue was established with a vision that economic growth lessons need continuous recalibration and wide promulgation. Particularly in a global environment in which growth paradigms seem to be changing and new policy challenges emerging, it is the goal of the Growth Dialogue to provide a network of ideas, practical exchange of experience, and policy connectivity. Its supporters see it as a means to explore difficult issues, a site to post new thinking and experience, and an independent voice for policy experimentation.  We hope that you, through your participation, will help it to achieve these goals.

Danny Leipziger, Managing Director of the Growth Dialogue