On the Edge of Times by György Matolcsy

The author shares his insights in response to articles published in globally renowned journals by the top economists, scientific experts and opinion leaders of our time. They point the way towards not only long-term sustainable and viable systems, but also a completely new way of thinking. He invites the reader to regard the world economy as a complex living system where cycles, patterns and fractals work together and the rules of the Quantum World are the Power Laws. The author challenges all the extremes of liberal economic thinking in order to accelerate the transition to a sustainable global economy based on new sustainable economics. All his arguments can be summarized in the title of the book: we live on the edge of times, where the “50-year” and “80-year” cycles tend to shape the 2020s, our time.

György Matolcsy has been serving as the Governor of Magyar Nemzeti Bank, the central bank of Hungary, since 2013. Prior to this, he was the country’s Minister of National Economy from 2010 to 2013 and its Minister of Economic Affairs from 2000 to 2002. Between 2002 and 2010 he was a director of the Institute for Growth, and from 1995 to 2000 a director of the Privatisation Research Institute. As a member of the Board of Governors, he represented the Hungarian Government at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development between 1991 and 1994. In 1990 he served as a political state secretary and as the personal economic advisor to Prime Minister József Antall. He began his career in the Ministry of Finance in 1978, subsequently joining the Financial Research Institute as a scientific researcher in 1985. He graduated from Budapest’s Karl Marx University of Economics in 1977, obtaining a doctorate in 1984. György Matolcsy is a frequent lecturer at top foreign and Hungarian universities. An honorary member of the Fudan Development Institute of Fudan University and of the International Advisory Board of Shanghai Forum, he is also an honorary professor of the Fudan University, an honorary doctor of the University of Debrecen and the University of Kaposvár, and an honorary professor of the John von Neumann University. György Matolcsy is the author of several hundred articles, studies, and books. His most recent work, Hungarian Vision and Strategy 2030/40, was published in 2024.