Broken Politics and a Fragile World Economy

The global economy is gathering momentum, the International Monetary Fund has declared. That's probably correct and undeniably encouraging, but there's an ominous discord between this economic expansion and what's euphemistically called "political uncertainty" -- that is, the stresses caused by surging anti-trade, anti-market, anti-immigrant populism.

This "uncertainty" could be the prelude to some seriously bad policies, enough to derail one or more leading economies and stall the global expansion. And there's another danger, less obvious but no less important: the prospect of chronic underperformance. Even if the new politics doesn't bring the ceiling down, it threatens to block the longer-term policies that would promote growth.