China's economic transformation began with the introduction in the 1980s of market incentives in the agricultural sector. These reforms were followed by a gradual opening to the global economy, a process that accelerated in the early 1990s.

Properly targeted public investment can do much to boost economic performance, generating aggregate demand quickly, fueling productivity growth by improving human capital, encouraging technological innovation, and spurring private-sector investment by increasing returns.

Reforms aimed at increasing an economy's flexibility are always hard - and even more so at a time of weak growth - because they require eliminating protections for vested interests in the short term for the sake of greater long-term prosperity.

Productivity gains are vital to long-term growth because they typically translate into higher incomes, in turn boosting demand. That process takes time, of course - especially if, say, the initial recipients of increased income already have a high savings rate.

Next to my family, it seems clear to me that the educational institutions and the teachers from whom I had the privilege of learning were especially important.

For highly indebted governments, low interest rates are critical to keep debt levels sustainable and ease pressure to restructure debt and recapitalize banks. The shift to a high sovereign-debt-yield equilibrium would make it impossible to achieve fiscal balance.

Monetary policy should never have been expected to shift economies to a sustainably higher growth trajectory by itself.

There is no question that the recovery from the global recession triggered by the 2008 financial crisis has been unusually lengthy and anemic.

A global economy that is levering up, while unable to generate enough aggregate demand to achieve potential growth, is on a risky path.

Developing economies may not have much control over the headwinds that they face today, but that does not mean that they are powerless. Much can be done not just to sustain moderate growth but also to secure a more prosperous and resilient future.