The new world economy is not defined by a single disruption. It is shaped by the interaction of inflation, innovation, climate transition, multi-globalization, demographics, debt, commodities, labor power, and technology. At 1FinanceWorld, Philippe Gijsels, Chief Strategy Officer at BNP Paribas Fortis, joins Henning Stein, Partner at 1BusinessWorld, for a conversation on how leaders and investors should understand the structural forces now reshaping markets, portfolios, policy, and growth.

Stein introduces Gijsels as the co-author of The New World Economy in Five Trends and frames the conversation around five defining forces: superinflation, hyper-innovation, climate transition, multi-globalization, and demographic shifts. Gijsels treats these trends not as separate themes, but as connected forces that form a new strategic environment. Four are inflationary in his assessment. Innovation is the major counterforce. The leadership challenge is to understand how they interact.

A Structural Framework for a New Regime

The conversation begins with an argument about regime change. Gijsels does not treat the current environment as a temporary adjustment after a series of shocks. He presents it as a structural shift in which inflation, interest rates, supply chains, labor, commodities, government debt, and innovation all need to be read together. In his view, the assumptions that shaped the post-crisis investment era no longer provide a sufficient map.

That framing gives the session its coherence. Multi-globalization changes how supply chains are organized. Demographics change the balance between labor and capital. Public debt changes the role of central banks. Climate transition changes the energy and industrial base. Artificial intelligence changes productivity, margins, and market leadership. Commodities and critical minerals return to the center of economic strategy because digital growth still depends on physical inputs.

Labor Reprices the Inflation Playbook

Demographics form one of the clearest links between macro change and market outcomes. Stein highlights Gijsels’s argument that the world is moving into a seller’s market for labor. Gijsels connects that shift to multi-globalization. As supply chains shorten and the world organizes around different centers, workers in some markets become less exposed to direct competition with the lowest-cost labor elsewhere. That gives certain workers, especially those with the right skills, more bargaining power.

The implications reach beyond wages. Gijsels notes that value added has often moved more to shareholders than workers, and he expects that balance to change. That change may make equity markets more complicated because labor costs, input costs, taxes, energy costs, capital expenditure, and productivity all become part of the same margin equation. For executives, the message is direct. Corporate performance in the new world economy depends not only on demand and market share, but on the ability to protect margins in a structurally more expensive operating environment.

Central Banks Lose the Easy Policy Trade

Central banks occupy a more difficult position when inflation becomes structural. Gijsels contrasts the long period after Volcker with the current environment. For decades, policymakers could cut rates during crises and, when necessary, use quantitative easing. Inflation rarely prevented that response. In a more inflationary world, the trade-off becomes harder. Stimulating the economy can allow inflation to run. Fighting inflation can weaken growth and raise the risk of recession.

Stein raises the question of price discovery and market dependence on policy support. Gijsels responds that investors have become used to buying the dip because markets have recovered quickly after major shocks. Central bank liquidity and investor behavior reinforce one another. The result is a market environment in which declines may not be allowed to clear excesses in the same way.

Fiscal dominance deepens the challenge. Gijsels argues that central banks may be pressured to help governments manage large debt burdens. That point links monetary policy, sovereign finance, inflation, and asset prices. Investors and executives therefore need to evaluate policy not as a background condition, but as a central driver of market structure.

From Paper Portfolios to Real Assets

Portfolio construction becomes one of the session’s most practical themes. Stein introduces the idea of heavy assets and low obsolescence, asking whether this real asset orientation is becoming a new standard for resilience. Gijsels answers by returning to debt and purchasing power. If governments continue printing money to manage large debt loads, he argues, money itself becomes a poor asset to hold over long periods of inflation.

His logic leads toward real assets. Real estate, gold, mines, equities, and tangible businesses become important because they sit closer to the physical economy. In a world where inflation runs higher than in the prior era, cash and nominal claims can lose purchasing power. Real assets may offer a way to participate in scarcity, productive capacity, and tangible value.

The digital economy strengthens rather than weakens this argument. Artificial intelligence, data centers, semiconductors, power systems, cooling, critical minerals, and infrastructure all depend on material inputs. The more the economy builds virtual systems, the more important the physical base becomes. That is why the conversation moves naturally from macro strategy to commodities.

Commodities Become the Physical Layer of Growth

Commodities are not treated as a narrow cyclical trade. Gijsels connects them to energy security, critical minerals, defense capability, industrial resilience, and the infrastructure demands of technological growth. He describes China as investing across coal, solar, nuclear, wind, gas, and other energy sources because it understands its energy dependence. He also notes that the United States needs rare earths and critical minerals for military and industrial capability.

Gold, silver, copper, energy, rare earths, and mining equities all appear in the discussion. Gijsels explains that central banks helped drive the early move in gold, while investor participation later became more visible through gold, silver, and miners. He also emphasizes the long lead time required to find resources, build mines, secure permits, arrange financing, and reach production. That makes existing and near-production assets strategically important when commodity demand and scarcity increase.

The silver discussion shows the nuance of the session. Silver has both industrial and monetary characteristics. Gijsels points to its use in solar panels, batteries, and vehicles, while acknowledging that gold and silver have recently shown correlation with equities. That makes diversification more complicated. In a sharp equity drawdown, miners and metals may initially fall, yet Gijsels expects gold and silver to play a stronger role if conditions deteriorate enough. The argument is not a simple safe-haven claim. It is a structural view of scarcity, timing, and market behavior.

Innovation Remains the Deflationary Counterforce

Innovation is the one force in Gijsels’s framework that he does not classify as clearly inflationary. Stein asks whether hyper-innovation can move fast enough to outrun global debt pressures and whether technology can produce the productivity gains needed to change the macro equation. Gijsels does not claim certainty. He describes the question as unresolved, while making clear that artificial intelligence may be a major deflationary force.

That optimism is balanced by concern about dislocation. Gijsels expects innovation to widen the divide between those who own, build, or benefit from new technologies and those who do not. He also notes that rapid technological succession may make monetization difficult for companies. The market is already beginning to distinguish between beneficiaries and vulnerable business models. Data centers and chip producers may benefit from the AI infrastructure buildout, while some software companies may face pressure from the same technology.

For corporate leaders, the conclusion is practical. AI does not reward every company equally. It creates dispersion. The strategic task is to understand where productivity, margins, infrastructure demand, and competitive advantage actually concentrate.

Europe’s Opportunity Requires Scale

Europe receives a constructive but disciplined assessment. Stein argues that Europe may be too pessimistic about its own prospects, citing potential deregulation, capital markets unification, defense and infrastructure spending, growth in Spain, and deleveraging in Greece. Gijsels agrees that markets may have been too negative on Europe, while noting the scale of U.S. dominance in global equity markets. The MSCI World, he says, is about 70 percent U.S., even though the United States is not 70 percent of the world economy.

Those building blocks include universities, innovation, IPOs, and capital. The issue is scale. Gijsels says Europe has not built even one company with a $100 billion market capitalization comparable to large U.S. technology leaders. Regulation and resource independence therefore become central to Europe’s strategic agenda. Europe has the foundation, but it must convert that foundation into companies and industries that can scale globally.

Climate Transition Becomes Strategic Independence

The climate transition closes the conversation as an economic, technological, and strategic theme. Stein frames it as an opportunity rather than an ideology. Gijsels connects it directly to European energy independence. If Europe wants to reduce dependence on carbon and external energy sources, it must invest in renewables, alternatives, and nuclear power. The transition will be difficult, but it is also part of Europe’s competitiveness and resilience.

The investment argument follows the same material-world logic. Rising energy prices, supply concerns, and the desire for independence bring attention back to solar, wind, nuclear, and other alternatives. Gijsels notes that alternative energy had a difficult period after prior enthusiasm, but now appears to be bottoming and moving higher. If alternatives can scale and bring costs down rapidly, they may help reduce inflationary pressure. If Europe remains too dependent on oil and natural gas, energy-intensive sectors face a harder path.

The New World Economy offers a clear message for investors, executives, and institutions. The next era cannot be understood through the old separation between digital and physical, policy and markets, labor and capital, energy and technology, Europe and the United States, or inflation and innovation. The new world economy is a system of interacting forces. Leadership now depends on seeing those forces together.

Session Intelligence

This 1FinanceWorld conversation examines the new world economy through the lens of inflation, innovation, labor power, central banking, debt, real assets, commodities, Europe, energy independence, and climate transition. Its central insight is that investors and executives need a more integrated framework for a world where physical scarcity, policy intervention, and technological acceleration are moving at the same time.

Core Leadership Theme

The new world economy is shaped by five connected forces that change how leaders read markets, policy, productivity, portfolios, and risk.

Portfolio Signal

Higher inflation, large public debt, and purchasing power erosion strengthen the case for real assets, commodities, and tangible exposure.

Strategic Market Standard

AI, energy, minerals, labor, and Europe’s scaling challenge show why future growth depends on connecting innovation to the physical economy.

New World Economy Superinflation Hyper-Innovation Multi-Globalization Demographics Labor Power Central Banks Fiscal Dominance Real Assets Gold Silver Commodities Critical Minerals Artificial Intelligence Europe Climate Transition Nuclear Power Energy Independence