Managing the World Economy, while recognizing how much has been achieved since the start of the Industrial Revolution, challenges the view that much better results could have been attained. It argues that faster economic growth and much better use of the available human talent could have been in the past, and should be in the future, achievable targets. The reasons for the performance of the world economy over the last two hundred years being well below the achievable optimum stem mainly from misconceptions about macroeconomic policy, which the book sets out to explain and correct.

John Mills provides a critical survey of the way economics has developed. He argues that the main goal of economics ought to be to show how to achieve a combination of economic growth, full employment, low inflation, avoidance of extreme poverty and sustainability. That it has failed to do so is neither inevitable nor accidental. It has failed because of a combination of intellectual error and the effects of social and political pressure, which Mills claims could and should have been avoided.

John Mills provides a critical survey of the way economics has developed. He argues that the main goal of economics ought to be to show how to achieve a combination of economic growth, full employment, low inflation, avoidance of extreme poverty and sustainability. That it has failed to do so is neither inevitable nor accidental. It has failed because of a combination of intellectual error and the effects of social and political pressure, which Mills claims could and should have been avoided.