This short primer distils Ruchir Sharmas decades of global analytic experience into ten rules for identifying nations that are poised to take off or crash.

A wake-up call to economists who failed to foresee every recent crisis, including the cataclysm of 2008, 10 Rules is full of insights on signs of political, economic, and social change. Sharma explains, for example, why autocrats are bad for the economy; robots are a blessing, not a curse; and consumer prices dont tell you all you need to know about inflation. He shows how currency crises begin with the flight of knowledgeable locals, not...