Leadership and Progress

Allan Meltzer

Published: September 2003

When World War II ended, the United States took the lead in providing political stability, rules for freer trade, and international financial stability. The ‘Pax Americana’ worked extremely well. During the postwar years, more people in more countries increased their living standards by larger amounts than in any period in recorded history. In order to continue the global growth, increased liberty and human progress of the last 60 years, Allan Meltzer argues that new arrangements are called for to provide the public goods that progress requires. Developing these new arrangements is the major challenge to US leadership as the engine of world progress in the new century.