IHS Chief Economist Nariman Behravesh reports that three major themes seem to be emerging from the Davos World Economic Forum.
The first is an ongoing and vocal debate between those who believe that now is the time for fiscal tightening and those who do not. The "tighten now" crowd includes many European pundits and is heavily influenced by the sovereign debt problems in Europe's periphery. The "tighten later" crowd includes many U.S. pundits as well as current and former members of the U.S. administration of President Barack Obama. The latter are now pointing to the United Kingdom's drop in fourth-quarter GDP as "evidence" for delaying any tightening.
The second theme is the concern about rising food prices and the security of food supply. Most thoughtful analysts view this as a short-term problem that could be exacerbated by bad policies such as export bans. Some have observed that with access to U.S. and European technologies agricultural production in many emerging markets could triple or quadruple.
Thirdly, while two years ago there was talk of the "end of globalisation", this year there is talk of business/government partnerships and some leaders (notably President Dmitry Medvedev of Russia) are aggressively courting foreign investors.
The bottom line is that the Davos WEF 2011 still provides a good reflection of the current mood in and key challenges facing the global economy.