The world economy is in crisis again. If we look back 80 years, we might be able to fix it | Michael Jacobs

The historic Bretton Woods summit shaped a golden era of growth. This year's G20 could be our equivalent

• Michael Jacobs is professor of political economy at the University of Sheffield

For historians of the postwar economic era, 2024 marks an important anniversary. Eighty years ago, in July 1944, a small town called Bretton Woods in New Hampshire, America, hosted a conference. Its purpose was to establish a new set of rules and institutions that could keep order over global capitalism after the disasters of the Great Depression and the second world war. It is not too much to say that Bretton Woods established the infrastructure of the modern global economy.

Eight decades later, the world is a very different place. But once again the global economy - post-Covid, post-energy price shock, experiencing rapid climate change - is in crisis. Calls for a new Bretton Woods have been growing louder.

Michael Jacobs is professor of political economy at the University of Sheffield and a visiting senior fellow at the global affairs thinktank ODI