The Two-Track Economy: Inequality Emerging From Today’s Recession

By Simon Johnson

Simon Johnson, a professor of entrepreneurship at M.I.T.’s Sloan School of Management, is the former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund.

The quick way to talk about how any economy is doing is in terms of “growth.” This is just what it sounds like — a measure of how much the total value of production in a country has increased in the last month, quarter or year.

Thinking in terms of total production — more precisely, this is usually gross domestic product (G.D.P.) — never tells you everything that you want to know, but it usually gives you a sense of the near-term dynamics: Are business prospects expanding or contracting; is unemployment going to rise further; and will people’s wages outpace or fall behind inflation?