Is Democracy the Secret Sauce for Growth and Prosperity?” Pamela Cox (WATCH)

(Patten Free Library) In the last 75 years, there has been an unprecedented increase in economic growth and, even more importantly, in global prosperity, as poverty rates have plummeted and the ranks of the middle class have grown. At the same time, there has been an increase in the number of countries classified as democracies. Is there a link? Do democracies grow faster, and do their citizens enjoy higher incomes and better lives? As challenges to democracies increase worldwide – in both high-income countries in Europe and the United States and poorer countries such as India – what might this portend for future growth and prosperity?

Pamela Cox is an economist who has worked for over 34 years on economic and development issues. She worked on economic issues in Latin America, Africa, India, and East Asia during her career. She served as Vice President of the Latin America region and Vice President of the East Asia Region. In these roles, she was responsible for coordinating and implementing World Bank research, activities, and lending in these regions. Before her retirement in 2013, she served as Senior Vice President for Strategy, leading strategy development for the World Bank Group. She has a PhD from the Fletcher School, Tufts University. She is currently the President of the League of Women Voters of Maine/Democracy Maine, and serves on several other boards.

The Camden Conference was founded in 1987 as a nonprofit, non-partisan educational organization whose mission is to foster informed discourse on world issues. The 38th Annual Camden Conference theme is Democracy Under Threat: A Global Perspective.