2030: How Today’s Biggest Trends Will Collide and Reshape the Future of Everything

In this astute and optimistic debut, Guillén, a professor of international management at the Wharton School, examines recent economic shifts and technological advances in order to predict how the world might look a decade from now. Solving contemporary crises such as climate change and economic inequality, Guillén writes, will require “lateral thinking” that approaches a problem from multiple angles and tests numerous solutions. He explores, for example, how agricultural advances might curtail hunger in Africa, where a rising middle class will impact worldwide consumer trends. He also examines how cryptocurrencies might sabotage the banking industry, predicts an uptick in wealth for Asian countries, and offers a carefully reasoned discussion of both the positive and negative potential repercussions of increased automation. Environmentalists may disagree with Guillén’s assertion that “small, ordinary adjustments to our daily behavior” can stimulate the dramatic carbon reduction necessary to mitigate climate change, and his query about the gig economy (“will monopolistic digital platforms... end up exploiting workers and consumers alike?”) will strike many readers as already answered. Still, this sharp, well-informed analysis of present-day trends and future outcomes provides valuable insights to investors, business owners, and policy makers. (Aug.)