Wealth on the Wing

The current global economic expansion, which began in the U.S. in November 2001, is unusual in one major aspect: for the first time in modern history, China and increasingly India, the world's two most populous countries, are factors in the global economy. Nobody paid any attention to them during economic recoveries in 1975, 1982 and 1991. But today, China, which recently became the world's fourth largest economy, has great significance both as a supplier of manufactured goods and a consumer of natural resources. The demand from China for raw materials has already resulted in higher equilibrium prices for many commodities, from...