Three new structural factors underlie the most recent global crisis:(i); the fact that several high-population countries have joined the growthprocess; (ii); the increasing scarcity of environmental and certain naturalresources; and (iii); the extraordinary concentration of income and wealththat has occurred in the advanced economies over the last two decades.These structural changes have significantly strengthened the links betweenglobal growth and commodity demand; they have made world commoditysupply increasingly inelastic, and have rendered economic growth moredependent on easy monetary and financial policies. The combination ofthese factors could make the world economy highly crisis-prone and mayhinder recovery from the current one.