In Permacrisis: A Plan to Fix a Fractured World, Mohamed El-Erian and Michael Spence, along with their coauthors, Gordon Brown and Reid Lidow, consider how we’ve arrived at this state of constant instability and insecurity—and suggest concrete ways to break the cycle.

Mohamed El-Erian, president of Queens’ College Cambridge University, was previously the chair of President Obama’s Global Development Council, a Deputy Director at the International Monetary Fund, and CEO and co-CIO of PIMCO.

Michael Spence, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Philip H. Knight Professor and dean, emeritus, at Stanford Graduate School of Business, was awarded the 2001 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.

Together with Martin Reeves, the Chairman of the BCG Henderson Institute, El-Erian and Spence discuss new approaches to thinking about growth, economic management, and managing a global order, as well as how leaders could unlock the full potential of technologies that could drive growth, and ensure that the benefits of technological advancements, like AI, are widely distributed to avoid exacerbating national tensions.

Key topics discussed: 

[01:59] Defining permacrisis
[08:58] The essence of how we need to think differently about growth and value
[10:32] Unlocking the full potential of technologies that could drive growth
[14:09] How to ensure that the benefits of technological advancements, like AI, are widely distributed to avoid exacerbating national tensions
[19:40] Anticipating or managing similar crises (COVID-19) in the future
[25:15] Reforming multilateral institutions

Additional inspirations from Mohamed El-Erian:

• The Only Game in Town: Central Banks, Instability, and Recovering from Another Collapse (Random House, 2016)
• The Alpha Masters: Unlocking the Genius of the World’s Top Hedge Funds (Wiley, 2012)
• When Markets Collide: Investment Strategies for the Age of Global Economic Change (McGraw Hill, 2008)

Additional inspirations from Michael Spence:

• The Bus Driver’s Threnody (Truman State University Press, 2014)
• The Story of Emerson College: Its Founding Impulse, Work and Form (Temple Lodge Publishing, 2013)
• The Next Convergence: The Future of Economic Growth in a Multispeed World (Picador, 2012)