ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a stylized view of two major and persistent dynamic forces at work in the world economy--the Fifth Kondratieff Upswing and the Fourth Industrial Revolution. It aims to provide something about the current, disheveled state of the world economy. The chapter suggests how these large matters may relate to the issues. The central phenomenon of a Kondratieff upswing is a shift in the direction of investment toward the expansion of supplies of the high-priced commodities in relatively short supply. On the downswing, with some interesting explicable exceptions, investment shifted toward industrial sectors, urban infrastructure, and service sectors where the relative profitability of investment was favorable. The Fifth Kondratieff Upswing began at the close of 1972 with an explosion of grain prices, followed by a quadrupling of oil prices the next year.
