North America?s Lost Decade? (The Munk Debates)

As stock markets gyrate, Europe lurches from crisis to crisis, and recovery in the United States slows, the future of the North American economy is more uncertain than ever. Can individual entrepreneurship, corporate innovation, and governments create a new era of sustained economic growth? Or, will the ongoing financial crisis, political dysfunction in the United States, and the rise of emerging nations erode living standards in North America for the long term?

In this edition of the Munk Debates -- Canada's premier international debate series -- Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman and Chief Economist and Strategist at Gluskin Sheff + Associates David Rosenberg square off against former director of President Obama’s National Economic Council Lawrence Summers and bestselling author Ian Bremmer to tackle the resolution: Be it resolved North America faces a Japan-style era of high unemployment and slow growth.

Paul Krugman is an American economist, Professor of Economics and International Affairs at Princeton, Centenary Professor at the London School of Economics, and columnist for the New York Times. He won the Nobel Prize in 2008.

David Rosenberg is the Chief Economist and Strategist at Gluskin Sheff + Associates Inc. and the former Chief North American Economist at Bank of America-Merrill Lynch. He lives in Toronto.

Lawrence Summers has served as Chief Economist of the World Bank, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, President of Harvard, and as President Obama’s director of the White House National Economic Council. Summers is the Charles W. Eliot University Professor at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.

Ian Bremmer is the founder and president of Eurasia Group and the author of several books, including the national bestseller The End of the Free Market. He lives in New York and Washington, DC.