The Financial Times excerpts "In 100 Years"

I've blogged before about the book of essays edited by Ignacio Palcios-Huerta, "In 100 Years..."  Now the Financial Times has published short excerpts of three of the essays, by Marty Weitzman, me, and Bob Shiller. Below are excerpts of the excerpts...

Forecast: The world in 2114
Economists predict that geo-engineering, performance drugs and artificial intelligence will shape our future

Martin Weitzman

If there is one natural bridge spanning the chasm between today and a century from now, it is climate change. We can envision only the foundation of this bridge. Even so, we can make out enough features to sense that something big and possibly ominous may be on the distant horizon.

• Alvin Roth

The biggest trend of future history is that the world economy will keep growing and becoming more connected. Material prosperity will increase and healthy longevity will rise. While greater prosperity will not eliminate competition, it will give people more choices about whether and how hard to compete. Many will opt for a slower track, spending more time accumulating youthful experiences. Retirement will be a longer part of life and new forms of retirement will emerge.

For those who wish to compete, there will be technological developments to help them. Some of these, such as performance-enhancing drugs, are becoming available today but are widely regarded as repugnant. That repugnance seems likely to fade.

• Robert Shiller

The next century carries with it any number of risks as an unprecedented number of people attempt to live well on a planet with limited resources, with more dangerous strategic weapons of mass destruction, and with the flourishing of new information technologies that stir up labour markets and create career risks.

Much of the management of these risks will be in the domain of science and engineering but there is also the purely financial and insurance domain. There is an expectation that with the help of new technology, far better risk management will be deployed against all these risks.