When the Allied nations met in 1944 at Bretton Woods to negotiate the rules and procedures of a new international monetary system, the economist John Maynard Keynes recognized that a global economy will have a systematic bias toward contraction if countries that have borrowed heavily are forced to cut back spending while no pressure is applied to countries that are running large surpluses.

While economic growth continued in 2016 for the United States, the European Union and Japan, it did so at rates that would have seemed unacceptably low a decade ago. In these three economies, inflation remained below the 2 percent target that central banks aim for, and market indicators suggest that it might well remain so for the next decade. And most interest rates continued their downward trend, reflecting the diminished inflation expectations and a high level of saving relative to investment.

These and other statistics indicate that the United States and Europe are just one recessionary shock away from being caught in a deflationary trap. Japan has been stuck in one for more than a decade, with expectations of decreasing prices prompting consumers to delay spending and save money. Assuring adequate pressure for stimulus needs to become a priority for the Group of 20, to precaution against deflation.

Given figures on the hundreds of billions of dollars lost annually because of tax sheltering, the gains from a global effort to prevent capital income from escaping taxation are at least comparable to those from highly controversial trade agreements. And such measures would make possible more support for the middle class.

In recent years we have also commenced a race to the bottom in areas like labor standards, environmental protections and capital requirements for banks. Businesses evade stiffer rules by moving elsewhere, hindering national aspirations to improve in these areas. The remedy is international dialogue directed at establishing global minimum standards, harmonizing approaches.

Finally, fences, walls and barriers are not an effective approach to resisting undesired flows of people. The only enduring solution to the unprecedented flood of refugees will come from creating conditions that enable people to do what they most prefer — stay at home. The global gain from supporting source countries is much greater than the gain to any one nation from limiting support solely to the refugees within its borders.

The events of 2016 will be remembered either as a point at which we began to turn away from globalization or the one at which the strategies of globalization began to be reoriented away from elite and toward mass interests. As we make our choices over the next few years, the stakes are very high.