Kenneth Rogoff: The Silver Lining in High Commodity Prices

Kenneth Rogoff: The Silver Lining in High Commodity Prices

Cambridge – Today's soaring commodity prices scream a fundamental truth of modern life that many politicians, particularly in the West, don't want us to hear: the world's natural resources are finite, and, as billions of people in Asia and elsewhere escape poverty, Western consumers will have to share them. Here is another truth: the price mechanism is a much better way to allocate natural resources than fighting wars, as the Western powers did in the last century.

Project Syndicate 5/13/08 6:45 PM