Blog post

Chart of the week: The great transformation

One of the main challenges for the incoming EU leadership will be to deal with the great transformation of the global economy. How should the EU maste

Publishing date: 10 July 2014
Authors: Pia Hüttl

One of the main challenges for the incoming EU leadership will be to deal with the great transformation of the global economy. How should the EU master globalisation as well as demographic, technological and environmental change? In this week's chart of the week, we document two striking features of the changing global economy: Emerging and developing market economies continued to forge ahead in the last decade, having been relatively immune to the financial crisis. Two key facts stand out: In 2013, emerging and developing countries together accounted – for the first time since at least 1850 – for more than 50 % of global GDP; meanwhile, their average public debt-to-GDP ratio dropped below 40 percent, while it nearly reached 110 percent in the advanced economies. This leaves the emerging markets in way better shape than the advanced economies to face the challenges in the future.

In the recent policy brief 'The great transformation' we discuss how the new EU leadership should deal with this challenge.

About the authors

Pia Hüttl

Pia Hüttl is an Austrian citizen and joined Bruegel as an Affiliate Fellow in 2015. Her research interests include macroeconomics, financial economics and monetary policy as well as European political economy.

Prior to this, Pia worked as Research Assistant for Bruegel, and as a Trainee in the Monetary Policy Division of the European Central Bank. Also, she worked as a Blue Book Stagiaire in the Monetary policy, Exchange rate policy of the euro area, ERM II and Euro adoption Unit in DG Ecfin of the European Commission.

She holds a Bachelor's degree in European Economics and a Master's degree in International Economics from the University of Rome Tor Vergata. She also obtained a Master's degree in European Political Economy from the London School of Economics, with a thesis on Current Account imbalances in the Euro area and the role of financial integration.

Pia is currently pursuing a PhD in Economics at the Humboldt University in Berlin.

She is fluent in German, Italian and English, and has good notions of French.

Declaration of interests 2015

Declaration of interests 2016

Declaration of interests 2017