middle-income trap

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Red Flags: Why Xi's China Is in Jeopardy by George Magnus

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‘China 2030’, World Bank and Development Research Center of the State Council, p. 332. 25. World Health Organization, ‘Deepening Health Reform in China’, 2016. 7 Middle-Income Trap 1. Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson, Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty, Crown Publishers, 2012. 2. ‘With Greater Efforts, There’s Still Time to Avoid Middle-Income Trap’, China Daily, 17 March 2016, <http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/opinion/2016-03/17/content_23903667.htm>. 3. Greg Larson, Norman Loayza and Michael Woolcock, ‘The Middle-Income Trap: Myth or Reality?’, Research & Policy Briefs, March 2016, <http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/965511468194956837/pdf/104230-BRI-Policy-1.pdf>. 4.

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Barry Eichengreen, Donghyun Park and Kwanho Shin, ‘Growth Slowdowns Redux: New Evidence on the Middle-Income Trap’, NBER Working Paper 18673, January 2013. 5. Ruchir Sharma, ‘Broken BRICs: Why the Rest Stopped Rising’, Foreign Affairs, November/December 2012. 6. Pierre-Richard Agenor, ‘Caught in the Middle? The Economics of Middle-Income Traps’, Fondation pour les études et recherches sur le développement international, May 2016, p. 6, <http://www.ferdi.fr/sites/www.ferdi.fr/files/publication/fichiers/wp142_agenor-upadte_version-2016-05.pdf>. 7. World Bank, ‘World Development Report 2017’. 8. Jesus Felipe, ‘Tracking the Middle-income Trap: What Is It, Who Is in It, and Why?’

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China will have to consider how to evolve coping mechanisms best suited to itself when it comes to labour force participation and the organisation of work. Ultimately, like all other ageing economies, it will have to look to productivity growth. This takes us directly to the issue underlying the fourth red flag, the middle-income trap. 7 MIDDLE-INCOME TRAP In a notable book about economic development, entitled Why Nations Fail, authors Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson set the scene by introducing us to the city of Nogales.1 To the north of the fence that divides it lies the American city of Nogales, Arizona. To the south lies the Mexican city of Nogales, Sonora.

China's Future by David Shambaugh

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Most of the rest of the countries failed to finish this process and saw economic stagnation, even recession, half-way catching up but getting stuck in the Middle Income Trap. Latin American nations and the countries of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe are typical examples of that.”13 The scope and scale of inhibiting factors in China’s case are far greater. Finance Minister Lou Jiwei recently admitted in a speech at Tsinghua University that there was only a 50 percent chance of escaping the Middle Income Trap.14 But, concomitantly, if China succeeds in doing so it will produce an economy the likes of which the world has never witnessed.

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A return to Soft Authoritarian and more liberal approaches to politics and state-society relations would have many positive effects on the economy. But ultimately, it would not be sufficient to fully escape the Middle Income Trap and become a fully mature modern economy. That requires fuller democratization. It could also be that Soft Authoritarianism is the midwife to Scenario 4. Semi-Democracy and Successful Reform If China were to embrace a transition to a Singapore-style democracy, it would permit all of the qualitative changes needed to transition from the old to the new growth and development model. Under this scenario, China escapes the Middle Income Trap (by innovating its way out), resolves its debt overhang problem and fixes its financial system, introduces greater competition and market forces throughout the economy, succeeds in the government’s urbanization scheme (see next chapter) and resolves the hukou dilemma, expands the service sector and household consumption, tackles corruption, cleans up the environment, fully taps factor endowments (land, labor, capital), becomes an innovative society, and achieves many other goals envisioned in the Third Plenum documents and the World Bank/State Council China 2030 report.

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I am grateful to Pieter Bottelier for these insights. 10. http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD. 11. See Naughton, “Economic Rebalancing, op. cit., p. 117. 12. See Wing Thye Woo, “The Major Types of Middle Income Trap that Threaten China,” in Wing Thye Woo, Ming Lu, Jeffrey D. Sachs, and Zhao Chen (eds.), A New Economic Growth Engine for China: Escaping the Middle Income Trap by Not Doing More of the Same (London and Singapore: Imperial College Press and World Scientific Publishing, 2012). 13. Chen Changsheng and He Jianwu, “A Ten-Year Outlook,” in Li Shijin and Development Research Center of the State Council Medium to Long-Term Growth Project Team, China’s Next Decade: Rebuilding Economic Momentum and Balance (Hong Kong: CLSA Books, 2014). 14.

China's Great Wall of Debt: Shadow Banks, Ghost Cities, Massive Loans, and the End of the Chinese Miracle by Dinny McMahon

"World Economic Forum" Davos, 2013 Report for America's Infrastructure - American Society of Civil Engineers - 19 March 2013, American Society of Civil Engineers: Report Card, Andrei Shleifer, Asian financial crisis, bank run, business cycle, California gold rush, capital controls, crony capitalism, dark matter, Deng Xiaoping, Donald Trump, Edward Glaeser, eurozone crisis, financial innovation, fixed income, Gini coefficient, Global Witness, Great Leap Forward, high-speed rail, if you build it, they will come, income inequality, industrial robot, invisible hand, low interest rates, megacity, middle-income trap, military-industrial complex, money market fund, mortgage debt, new economy, peer-to-peer lending, Ponzi scheme, Ronald Reagan, short selling, Silicon Valley, subprime mortgage crisis, too big to fail, trickle-down economics, urban planning, working-age population, zero-sum game

That’s what makes Lou Jiwei, who until late 2016 was China’s finance minister, so pessimistic about the country’s growth prospects. “In the next five to ten years, the chance of China sliding into the middle-income trap is extremely high. I put the odds at 50–50,” Lou said in a speech to Tsinghua University students in mid-2015. “Why? . . . Because society is aging and the working-age population is shrinking too fast.” The middle-income trap is an idea first conceived by World Bank economists who found that, of the 101 developing economies that, in 1960, could be classified as having been “middle income” (that is, they weren’t stuck in poverty, but they didn’t qualify as developed nations either), only 13—a group that includes Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Israel, and Ireland—managed to become rich nations by 2008.

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Economists generally agree that developing countries can achieve a certain level of wealth simply by taking people from the countryside and putting them to work in factories. But there comes a point when labor stops being cheap, requiring the overall economy to transform in some way if it’s to continue its upward trajectory. What economists can’t agree on is what sort of reform is necessary to facilitate the transition. The “middle-income trap” is the bête noire of the Chinese leadership. In 2015, the World Bank defined rich nations as those with gross national incomes of more than $12,475 per capita, and the level generally rises by about 2% each year. In 2016, China’s GDP per capita was $8,000. If the Chinese economy continues to grow at 6.5% a year—as it did in 2015—it could officially enter the ranks of rich nations by the middle of the next decade.

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He called the strategy “supply-side structural reform.” According to an anonymously written column published on the front page of the People’s Daily in mid-2016, widely assumed to have been written by Xi’s closest economic adviser, supply-side reform is to be “the lifeline that saves China from the middle-income trap.” At first blush, it seems an odd school of economic thought to be embraced by China’s Communists. After all, supply-side economics is most closely associated with Ronald Reagan. Under Reagan, supply-side economics—alternatively labeled “trickle-down” or “voodoo” economics—meant stimulating the economy by cutting business taxes.

Democracy and Prosperity: Reinventing Capitalism Through a Turbulent Century by Torben Iversen, David Soskice

Andrei Shleifer, assortative mating, augmented reality, barriers to entry, Big Tech, Bretton Woods, business cycle, capital controls, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, central bank independence, centre right, clean tech, cloud computing, collateralized debt obligation, collective bargaining, colonial rule, confounding variable, corporate governance, Credit Default Swap, credit default swaps / collateralized debt obligations, deindustrialization, deskilling, Donald Trump, first-past-the-post, full employment, general purpose technology, gentrification, Gini coefficient, hiring and firing, implied volatility, income inequality, industrial cluster, inflation targeting, invisible hand, knowledge economy, labor-force participation, liberal capitalism, low skilled workers, low-wage service sector, means of production, middle-income trap, mirror neurons, mittelstand, Network effects, New Economic Geography, new economy, New Urbanism, non-tariff barriers, Occupy movement, offshore financial centre, open borders, open economy, passive investing, precariat, race to the bottom, radical decentralization, rent-seeking, RFID, road to serfdom, Robert Bork, Robert Gordon, Silicon Valley, smart cities, speech recognition, tacit knowledge, The Future of Employment, The Great Moderation, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, the strength of weak ties, too big to fail, trade liberalization, union organizing, urban decay, vertical integration, Washington Consensus, winner-take-all economy, working-age population, World Values Survey, young professional, zero-sum game

But this is not synonymous with deciding whose class interests are favored by government policies; the fundamental equality of democracy is an expression of middle-class power. In the following we develop our argument further by applying it to the five puzzles we identified above in addition to the resilience of ACDs: the middle-income trap; the strengthening of advanced capitalism by democracy; the rise of democracy; persistent varieties of capitalism in an age of globalization; and the lack of response to rising inequality. 1.4. The Middle-Income Trap Puzzle A remarkable fact is that the group of advanced democracies has only been slightly expanded since their rise in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The distribution of world income has become marginally more equal since the 1980s, but this is virtually all due to the rise of a few populous poor countries to the ranks of middle-income economies, notably China and India, and not the rise of middle-income countries into the high-income group.

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Democratic parties and politicians that successfully promote the prosperity and welfare of a majority will be rewarded by winning elections, and the majority will be skilled workers who are keen to see the advanced sectors of the economy thrive. Spelled out in greater detail below, we thus see our broad approach going some way in explaining the resilience puzzle. It also explains, we believe, five related puzzles which we elaborate below: first, the middle-income trap, and why so few countries have developed into advanced capitalist democracies after the Second World War. Second, it shows why a thoroughly integrated world economy has not undermined the existence of different forms of advanced capitalist democracies, since their institutional differences cause and are caused by distinct patterns of specialization.

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Countries all the way to the left received zero patents in 1976 and have been assigned an arbitrarily low value (since numbers are logged). Source: OECD.Stat. Data extracted on March 3, 2018, 02:19 GMT. The difficulty of breaking into the rich ACD club is known in the economic literature as the “middle-income trap” (e.g., Kharas and Kohli 2011). Eichengreen et al. (2012) have persuasively argued that the key barrier is the creation of large knowledge-intensive sectors sustained by internally driven innovation. It is precisely the existence of such dynamic, skill-intensive sectors that define advanced capitalism as we use it in this book.

The Rise and Fall of Nations: Forces of Change in the Post-Crisis World by Ruchir Sharma

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They hound an aspiring nation at every step up the development ladder. Yet the hype over the middle-income trap has only grown since 2010. A 2013 study by the Berkeley economist Barry Eichengreen and his colleagues noted that a Google search turned up a total of four hundred thousand references to the middle-income trap. Dig into those stories, and one finds warnings about countries ranging from poor ones like Vietnam and India to richer ones including Malaysia, Turkey and Taiwan at risk of falling into the middle-income trap. The concept of the trap is so vaguely and variously defined that it doesn’t help narrow down the list of vulnerable countries.

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Im, Fernando Gabril, and David Rosenblatt. “Middle Income Traps A Conceptual and Empirical Survey.” World Bank Operations and Strategy Unit, Working Paper no. 6594, September 2013. Joffe, Josef. “China’s Coming Economic Slowdown.” Wall Street Journal, October 25, 2013. Kraay, Aart, and David McKenzie. “Do Poverty Traps Exist? Assessing the Evidence.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 28, no. 3 (2014): 127–48. Lomax, John, and Wietse Nijenhuis. “Not in a (Middle-Income) Trap.” HSBC Research, 2013. Magnus, George. “Hitting a BRIC Wall: The Risk of the Middle Income Trap.” UBS Investment Research, January 21, 2013.

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Over the next four years, Brazil’s economic growth rate fell by more than half and its stock market lost 50 percent of its value in dollar terms. In late 2013, The Economist ran a cover with the same Christ statue nose-diving into the ground, asking a bit more tentatively, “Has Brazil blown it?” The Case for Constant Vigilance Why is it so difficult for any economy to sustain strong growth? One popular explanation is the middle-income trap, which holds that a poor nation can grow at catch-up speed by making simple improvements such as paving roads but will find it difficult to sustain rapid growth when it hits a middle-income level and needs to develop more advanced industries. The truth, however, is that “development traps” can knock countries off track at any income level.

Belt and Road: A Chinese World Order by Bruno Maçães

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Local governments’ heavy reliance on fiscal policy periodically results in large property bubbles and massive investment in heavy industry and construction threatens environmental sustainability. All these signs seem to indicate that China is a prime candidate for what development economists call “a middle-income trap”. The term captures a situation where a country can no longer compete internationally in standardized, labor-intensive commodities because wages are relatively too high, but neither can it compete in higher value added activities on a broad enough scale because productivity—constrained by structural factors—remains relatively too low.

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In 2015 China’s finance minister, Lou Jiwei, took the unusual step of publicly conceding that China had a 50 per cent chance of falling into the much-dreaded trap. Speaking at a conference at Tsinghua University, Lou argued that the government needed to solve the problem of structural imbalances and market distortions in the economy within the next five to seven years while maintaining 6.5 to 7 per cent growth in order to avoid the middle-income trap. To that end, he highlighted reforms in five sectors, including encouraging imports of agricultural products, accelerating reform of the hukou (household registration) system, speeding up human resources reform, pushing rural land reforms, as well as tackling social security system-related issues.

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The strategy, approved in July 2015, unabashedly claims: “We will strive to transform China into the global manufacturing leader before the centennial of the founding of New China, which will lay the foundation for the realization of the Chinese dream to rejuvenate the Chinese nation.” The present moment, however, is fraught with danger. China finds itself on the cusp of falling into a middle-income trap. After the global financial crisis, developed countries have been attempting to revive their industrial sectors, as a response to both electoral discontent about job losses and the sense that manufacturing is entering a significant new revolution. Meanwhile, developing countries are seeking to expand their share of global industrial labor and are investing in industrial capital to develop their export markets.

Grave New World: The End of Globalization, the Return of History by Stephen D. King

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Fukuyama, Political Order and Political Decay: From the Industrial Revolution to the globalization of democracy, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 2014. 8.See, for example, http://www.theguardian.com/world/datablog/2015/jul/23/vladimir-putins-approval-rating-at-record-levels 9.http://www.ned.org/remarks-by-president-george-w-bush-at-the-20th-anniversary/ 10.https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/15/mohamed-morsi-death-sentence-overturned 11.Escaping the so-called middle-income trap has not been easy. See, for example, R. Cherif and F. Hasanov, The Leap of the Tiger: How Malaysia can escape from the middle income trap, IMF Working Paper WP/15/131, Washington, DC, June 2015, available at https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2015/wp15131.pdf 12.Hillary Clinton would have killed it off, too. 13.J. Darwin, After Tamerlane: The rise and fall of global empires, 1400–2000, Allen Lane, London, 2007. 14.IMF World Economic Outlook database. 15.R.

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That unease becomes more pronounced when China’s economic progress is compared with democratic India’s more measured advance. In the mid-1970s, per capita incomes in China overtook those in India. By 2010, the average Chinese citizen enjoyed an income more than double that of his or her Indian counterpart. Admittedly, China might prove to be yet another casualty of the so-called ‘middle-income trap’. Recent history is certainly not encouraging. In the second half of the twentieth century, only a handful of what might loosely be described as ‘non-Western’ countries successfully managed to achieve typical Western living standards: Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and, at a pinch, Israel.11 Despite huge progress, China’s per capita incomes in 2015 were still only 25 per cent of those in the US, less than the Soviet Union managed – relatively – in the 1930s and the 1970s.

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Kicking Away the Ladder: Development strategy in historical perspective, Anthem Press, London, 2002 Chang, Ha-Joon. Bad Samaritans: The myth of free trade and the secret history of capitalism, Bloomsbury, New York, 2008 Cherif, R. and F. Hasanov. The Leap of the Tiger: How Malaysia can escape from the middle income trap, IMF Working Paper WP/15/131, Washington, DC, June 2015, available at https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2015/wp15131.pdf Chetty, R., N. Hendren and L. Katz. ‘The effects of exposure to better neighborhoods on children: New evidence from the moving to opportunity experiment’, American Economic Review, forthcoming Chetty, R., N.

China's Disruptors: How Alibaba, Xiaomi, Tencent, and Other Companies Are Changing the Rules of Business by Edward Tse

3D printing, Airbnb, Airbus A320, Asian financial crisis, barriers to entry, bilateral investment treaty, business process, capital controls, commoditize, conceptual framework, corporate governance, creative destruction, crowdsourcing, currency manipulation / currency intervention, David Graeber, Deng Xiaoping, disruptive innovation, experimental economics, global supply chain, global value chain, Great Leap Forward, high net worth, high-speed rail, household responsibility system, industrial robot, Joseph Schumpeter, Lyft, Masayoshi Son, middle-income trap, money market fund, offshore financial centre, Pearl River Delta, reshoring, rising living standards, risk tolerance, Silicon Valley, Skype, Snapchat, SoftBank, sovereign wealth fund, special economic zone, speech recognition, Steve Jobs, thinkpad, trade route, wealth creators, working-age population

Support for this part of the economy will help the country tackle such challenges as navigating its way through the middle-income trap—the tricky stage of development that would raise per capita GDP from $10,000 to the high-income level of around $20,000—and transforming its disciplined, labor-intensive manufacturing industries that make low-priced export goods into ones with the flexibility, creativity, and skilled staff that are the prerequisites for building a developed nation. Relying on exports alone to overcome the middle-income trap is tricky. Instead, companies need to ride increasing sophistication in their home markets up the value chain, producing more complex goods as people in China become richer.

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Warren, 93–94 McGrath, Rita Gunther, 99 Manganese Bronze, 133 manufacturing, 109–10 Mao Zedong, 13, 42, 51 Cultural Revolution instigated by, 4, 42, 43 Marks and Spencer, 194 media, 157–62, 213 medical research, 109 Meituan.com, 53, 191 Metallurgical Corporation, 124 MG Rover, 136–37 Mi, 68 see also Xiaomi Miasolé, 123 Microsoft, 112 middle-income trap, 213–14 Mindray Medical International, 122–23, 178 mining, 119, 163 Mitchell, James, 136 motorcycles, 47, 76, 95, 100, 178 Motorola Mobility, 127, 128, 129, 136 Nan Fung, 224 Nanjing Auto, 136 Naspers, 86, 194 National People’s Congress, 43, 81 Navarro, Peter, 9 Nestlé, 194, 196 New Citizens Movement, 170 New York Stock Exchange, 33, 52, 159, 206 Nexen, 119–20 Nike, 195 Nissan, 180 Noah Wealth Management, 12, 150, 153, 212 Nokia, 102, 112 Nortel, 102 open markets, 71, 72–77, 83, 85, 88, 97 Panda W, 205–7, 208, 225 Pan Shiyi, 48 People’s Liberation Army, 101–2 Pepsi, 180 Pew Research Center, 219 piracy, 9, 75, 199 pollution, 115, 209, 212, 217, 221 Pope, Larry, 22 pride, 41, 55, 57, 61, 123 private-equity funds, 79 Procter & Gamble, 12, 175, 177 products, updating of, 97 property rights, 81, 170 Pudong New Area, 224 Putzmeister, 130 Qihoo 360, 84, 113 Qingdao Refrigerator Factory, 4–5 see also Haier Qingqi, 76 QQ, 85, 86, 160, 185, 201 Reckitt Benckiser, 194, 196 Red Packet, 88 Red Rice smartphone, 69 Renault/Nissan, 133 Renren, 52–53 Ren Zhengfei, 11, 43–44, 54, 60, 101–3, 175, 200 Rio Tinto, 119 robots, 110 Roche Diagnostics, 155 Roewe, 137 Russia, 13, 68 doctorates in, 108 oligarchs in, 17 SAIC Motor Corp, 136–37 Samsung, 67, 68, 89, 128 Sany, 178 Sanyo Electric, 7 Schumpeter, Joseph, 163 Sehgal, Aditya, 196 Sequoia Capital, 113, 150 SF Express, 100 shared heritage, 55, 61–64 Shen, Neil, 113 Shenzhen Stock Exchange, 156 Shunwei China, 112 Siemens, 102 Silicon Graphics, 112 Silicon Valley, 18 Silk Road, 57 Sina Weibo, 69, 87–88, 161, 170, 191 Singapore, 68, 100, 155 SingPost, 100 Sino Iron mine, 124 Sinovac Biotech, 109 Sky City, 217–18, 221 Skype, 129 smartphones, 9, 11, 67–70, 75, 89, 128, 135, 139 Smithfield Foods, 22, 120 Softbank, 37, 156, 194 SOHO China, 48 Sohu, 158, 159 sourcing networks, 188 South China Morning Post, 37 South Korea, 121, 141 special economic zones, 43 Standard Chartered, 151 State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film, and Television, 219 State Council, 215 state-owned enterprises, 9–10, 13–14, 36, 40, 76, 80, 119, 137, 158, 164, 176, 179–80, 209, 213 strategy+business, 49–50 Su, Sam, 196 subsidies, 9, 163 Surprise (series), 160 Sze Man Bok, 43, 176, 177 Tabarrok, Alex, 113 Taikang Life Insurance, 45, 55, 148 Taiwan, 68, 121, 214 Taizhou, 44 Tang dynasty, 28–29, 229 Tango, 135 Tan Wanxin, 13 Taobao, 34–35, 38, 40, 184 TCL, 76, 84, 148 Tedjarati, Shane, 190, 196 telecoms, 103–4, 122, 178 television, 76, 158, 178, 219 Tencent, 11, 18, 39, 52, 60, 80, 81, 83–84, 85–88, 90, 101, 135, 136, 151, 158, 159, 161, 162, 185, 191, 201, 222, 225 founding of, 49, 85 innovation by, 94, 113 Naspers’ purchase of stake in, 86, 194 overseas listing of, 89 revenue of, 87 Tenpay system of, 36 Tenpay, 36, 87 Tesco, 180 Tetra Pak, 196 ThinkPad, 128 Third Plenum of the 18th Party Congress, 211, 214, 215 Thomas Group, 177–78 3D printing, 110–11 360 Mobile Assistant, 84 Tian, Lawrence, 147–48 Tiananmen Square, 44 Tingyi, 180 Tmall, 36, 38, 87, 184, 195, 206 Tmall Global, 195 Toyota, 133, 180 TPG Capital, 225 transport, 115 Tsai, Joe, 37 Twitter, 87, 222 United Kingdom, doctorates in, 108 United States, 18 doctorates in, 108 R&D spending in, 107 technological supremacy of, 106 urbanization, 28, 115, 214 Uyghurs, 53 Vanke, 148 Vantone Holdings, 46, 148 vehicles, 115 venture capital, 79 Vipshop, 84, 113, 206 Volkswagen, 133, 137, 179, 180 Volvo, 123, 131, 132, 133, 134, 138, 185 wage pressure, 98 Wallerstein, David, 136 Wal-Mart, 96, 194 Wanda E-Commerce, 88 Wang, Diane, 12, 57 Wang, Victor, 145–47, 167, 168–69, 171 Wang Jianlin, 48, 88, 172 Wang Jingbo, 12, 150, 152 Wang Shi, 148 Wang Wei, 147–48 Wang Xing, 52–53 Wanxiang, 130, 134, 178 Ward, Stephen, 126 water, 6, 25, 106, 188 WeChat, 18–19, 84, 87, 88, 139, 160, 185, 191, 201, 212 Wen Jiabao, 147 WhatsApp, 18–19, 191 WH Group, 21–22, 120 Wong, Jessica, 205–7, 208, 210, 214, 225 World Economic Forum, 147 World Health Organization (WHO), 114 World Trade Organization, 6, 16, 37–38, 47, 122, 222 Xiangcai Securities, 150 Xiaomi, 11, 12, 57, 67–70, 75, 77, 89, 101, 128, 139, 162, 191–92, 197, 226 innovation by, 94, 112, 113 Xiaonei, 52–53 Xi Jinping, 78, 80, 152, 160, 165, 167, 168, 170, 181, 210–11, 213, 223, 229 Xu, William, 222 Xue, Charles, 161, 170 Xu Lianjie, 12, 43, 53, 175–78, 200 Yabuli, 145, 147, 149, 166 Yahoo, 194 Yang Yuanqing, 11, 125–26, 128, 148 Yao, Frank, 205–7, 210, 214, 225 Yihaodian, 11, 89, 95–97, 194 Yinlu, 194 Yoga IdeaPad, 127 Youku Tudou, 84, 114, 158–60, 161, 162, 209, 212, 218 YouTube, 158, 218 yuan, 9 Yu’e Bao, 39, 40, 153, 212 Yu Gang, 11, 94–96, 100, 112 Yum!

Breakout Nations: In Pursuit of the Next Economic Miracles by Ruchir Sharma

"World Economic Forum" Davos, 3D printing, affirmative action, Alan Greenspan, Albert Einstein, American energy revolution, anti-communist, Asian financial crisis, banking crisis, Berlin Wall, book value, BRICs, British Empire, business climate, business cycle, business process, business process outsourcing, call centre, capital controls, Carmen Reinhart, central bank independence, centre right, cloud computing, collective bargaining, colonial rule, commodity super cycle, corporate governance, creative destruction, crony capitalism, deindustrialization, demographic dividend, Deng Xiaoping, eurozone crisis, financial engineering, Gini coefficient, global macro, global supply chain, Goodhart's law, high-speed rail, housing crisis, income inequality, indoor plumbing, inflation targeting, informal economy, junk bonds, Kenneth Rogoff, knowledge economy, labor-force participation, land reform, low interest rates, M-Pesa, Mahatma Gandhi, Marc Andreessen, market bubble, Masayoshi Son, mass immigration, megacity, Mexican peso crisis / tequila crisis, middle-income trap, Nelson Mandela, new economy, no-fly zone, oil shale / tar sands, oil shock, open economy, Peter Thiel, planetary scale, public intellectual, quantitative easing, reserve currency, Robert Gordon, rolling blackouts, Shenzhen was a fishing village, Silicon Valley, software is eating the world, sovereign wealth fund, The Great Moderation, Thomas L Friedman, trade liberalization, Tyler Cowen, Watson beat the top human players on Jeopardy!, working-age population, zero-sum game

They have hit the “middle-income trap,” where they can idle for years, like unhappy residents of a lower-middle-class suburb. Typically the middle-income trap is said to spring at an income level equal to between 10 and 30 percent of the income level in the world’s “leading nation,” the one that sets the gold standard in technology and management. Today that nation is the United States, and 10 to 30 percent of the average U.S. income is $5,000 to $15,000, which clues you in to the problem with this academic concept. The range of incomes is so large that the middle-income trap is not terribly useful as a guide to which nations really have the potential to continue growing at a rapid pace.

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The range of incomes is so large that the middle-income trap is not terribly useful as a guide to which nations really have the potential to continue growing at a rapid pace. The middle-income trap also ignores the separate phenomenon of the middle-income deceleration. The economies of many nations have slowed down to a lower cruising speed, even if they did not stop catching up entirely. This has been the experience of even the most successful growth stories in modern history, including those of Japan, Korea, and Taiwan, which witnessed an early deceleration at an income level equivalent to where China is today. After adjustments are made for changes in the exchange rate, China is at roughly the same income level—of around $5,000—as Japan in the early 1970s, Taiwan in the late 1980s, and Korea in the early 1990s.

The End of Cheap China: Economic and Cultural Trends That Will Disrupt the World by Shaun Rein

business climate, credit crunch, Deng Xiaoping, Donald Trump, facts on the ground, glass ceiling, high net worth, high-speed rail, illegal immigration, income per capita, indoor plumbing, job-hopping, Maui Hawaii, middle-income trap, price stability, quantitative easing, Silicon Valley, Skype, South China Sea, Steve Jobs, thinkpad, trade route, trickle-down economics, upwardly mobile, urban planning, women in the workforce, young professional, zero-sum game

Factions within the government that want to lower China’s trade surplus with America and other nations, and to move China away from high-pollution manufacturing toward more sustainable service businesses, are pushing for higher consumption. They urge greater appreciation of the renminbi to allow everyday Chinese to buy more goods. Groups urging a stronger renminbi are motivated by the fear that China will fall into the “middle income trap,” as many developing countries, like Mexico, have done. The trap is a per capita GDP of about $6,000, at which point it is common for average salaries to stagnate, while the gap between the wealthy and the poor increases. To avoid the income gap and becoming a failed developing economy, Zhou Xiaochuan, the governor of the People’s Bank of China (the country’s central bank), has made it a priority to try and implement better social security and medical benefits, so that everyday Chinese feel more confident about their future well-being and are willing to spend more.

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See factories, Chinese Mao Zedong Marks & Spencer Mattel McDonald’s McGill University McGregor, James meat products Chinese demand for, increase in as luxury in 1990s China Walmart organic meat scandal media, Western anti-China headlines in on China, misinformation and stereotypes Chinese government, criticism of Chinese land protests, depiction of Chinese women, portrayals of rural China riots, depiction of social media, blocking of medical care, in China improvements to lack of pollution and medical devices industry melamine Melanie (young woman) memorization, in education Mengniu Dairy Mercedes-Benz Mexico, income gaps in microblogging sites Microsoft middle class, Chinese average living conditions of consumer spending, growth of luxury brands, desire for Western views of Middle East “middle income traps” migrant workers military actions, potential for milk scandal millionaires. See billionaires/millionaires, Chinese Mimi (Chinese student) Mindray Ministry of Education, China Ministry of Health, China Miranda (Australian student) morality campaign Motorola Mr. Zhou (billionaire) Mubarak, Hosni Mueller, Robert Musashi, Miyamoto Muslim uprisings Myanmar N Nanjing Road Nankai University National Association of Home Builders Nationalist Party, China natural resources in Africa in Australia in Canada China’s demand for, world affairs and China’s growth and depletion of China’s lack of, price increases and copper iron ore oil and gas Nazis Negishi, Ei-ichi Nestlé New Oriental New Weekly magazine New York City New York Stock Exchange New York Times NGOs Nike 9/11 attacks Ningbo, China Nobel Prize winners in chemistry in economics lack of Chinese scientists as nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) noninterference foreign policy nut farming O Obama, Barack anti-Chinese rhetoric by immigration policies of job creation bill Occupy Wall Street protests Ogilvy & Mather Ohio oil, Chinese demand for oil prices, increase in Okura Garden Hotel older generation, in China Cultural Revolution, views on marketing to retirement age rules and Omega watches On China (Kissinger) one-child policy aging population due to female empowerment and female infanticide and as human rights issue jobs and wages, rise in male-female imbalance sex-selective abortions and societal views on optimism, in China about future opportunities among Chinese women of Chinese entrepreneurs consumption patterns and Cultural Revolution and emphasis on in marketing reasons for of women of young people Oreo cookies Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development outsourcing, American support for Owens, William Oxford University P Pakistan Panamera sedan Paris, France patriotic pride, U.S.

Shutdown: How COVID Shook the World's Economy by Adam Tooze

2021 United States Capitol attack, air freight, algorithmic trading, Anthropocene, Asian financial crisis, asset-backed security, Ayatollah Khomeini, bank run, banking crisis, Basel III, basic income, Ben Bernanke: helicopter money, Benchmark Capital, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, bitcoin, Black Lives Matter, Black Monday: stock market crash in 1987, blue-collar work, Bob Geldof, bond market vigilante , Boris Johnson, Bretton Woods, Brexit referendum, business cycle, business process, business process outsourcing, buy and hold, call centre, capital controls, central bank independence, centre right, clean water, cognitive dissonance, contact tracing, contact tracing app, coronavirus, COVID-19, credit crunch, Credit Default Swap, cryptocurrency, currency manipulation / currency intervention, currency peg, currency risk, decarbonisation, deindustrialization, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, energy transition, eurozone crisis, facts on the ground, failed state, fake news, Fall of the Berlin Wall, fear index, financial engineering, fixed income, floating exchange rates, friendly fire, George Floyd, gig economy, global pandemic, global supply chain, green new deal, high-speed rail, housing crisis, income inequality, inflation targeting, invisible hand, It's morning again in America, Jeremy Corbyn, junk bonds, light touch regulation, lockdown, low interest rates, margin call, Martin Wolf, mass immigration, mass incarceration, megacity, megaproject, middle-income trap, Mikhail Gorbachev, Modern Monetary Theory, moral hazard, oil shale / tar sands, Overton Window, Paris climate accords, Pearl River Delta, planetary scale, Potemkin village, price stability, Productivity paradox, purchasing power parity, QR code, quantitative easing, remote working, reserve currency, reshoring, Robinhood: mobile stock trading app, Ronald Reagan, secular stagnation, shareholder value, Silicon Valley, six sigma, social distancing, South China Sea, special drawing rights, stock buybacks, tail risk, TikTok, too big to fail, TSMC, universal basic income, Washington Consensus, women in the workforce, yield curve

In a year in which according to the World Bank, around 100 million people worldwide were hurled back into abject poverty, no other state could boast of any similar achievement. As Xi put it to a full meeting of the Politburo Standing Committee in January 2021, “time and momentum” were on China’s side.31 Any idea of convergence with liberal norms once touted by Western modernization theory was clearly obsolete. Advocates of the middle-income trap—a negative version of modernization theory that highlights the great difficulties facing middle-income countries in making the leap to advanced economy status—might cling to their doxa.32 But as the Chinese like to point out, if social science is a matter of data, China’s modernization, through its sheer scale, generates more data points than any previous episode of economic growth.

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Richardson, “China’s Policy Dilemma: Raising Local Demand While Protecting Exports,” ICIS, September 13, 2020. 31. K. Lo and K. Huang, “Xi Jinping Says ‘Time and Momentum on China’s Side’ as He Sets Out Communist Party Vision,” South China Morning Post, January 12, 2021. 32. T. Taylor, “Will China Be Caught in the Middle-Income Trap?” Conversable Economist, October 26, 2020. 33. Jiang Shigong, “Philosophy and History: Interpreting the ‘Xi Jinping Era’ Through Xi’s Report to the Nineteenth National Congress of the CCP.” Introduction by David Ownby and Timothy Cheek; www.readingthechinadream.com/jiang-shigong-philosophy-and-history.html. 34.

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See also developing countries Luce, Edward, 85 Lunar New Year (China), 52 Ma, Jack, 201 Macron, Emmanuel, 12, 70, 82–84, 135, 182, 184–86, 242 Made in China 2025 program, 212, 235 Maduro, Nicolás, 169, 197 Magufuli, John, 77 Main Street Lending Program, 128 Maktoum, Mohammed bin Rashid Al, 248 Malaysia, 135 Malpass, David, 252, 256–57 Mao Zedong, 18 market failures, 34–37, 44 market revolution, 10–11, 14–15, 20, 145, 234 Marshall Plan with Africa, 264 Martin, Katie, 76 Marx, Karl, 18 Marxism, 298 Mattarella, Sergio, 285 May, Theresa, 277 McCain, John, 226 McConnell, Mitch, 222–23, 271, 300 McCulley, Paul, 146 Meng Wanzhou, 210–11 Mercator Institute for China Studies, 297 Merck, 236, 240 Merkel, Angela: and climate agenda, 190; and development of European recovery fund, 184–86; and early responses to pandemic, 82; and environmental agenda, 190–91; and EU-China Comprehensive Agreement on Investment, 296; and European sovereign debt crisis, 186; and fiscal responses to pandemic, 134; and global vaccine rollout, 243; and NextGen EU fiscal package, 280; and scope of 2020 challenges, 12 Messonnier, Nancy, 75 Mexico, 11, 13, 77, 82, 89, 122, 125, 133, 163, 165, 170–73, 206, 246 Michele, Bob, 124 microchip manufacturing, 211–12 Middle East, 295 Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), 36, 47, 53, 73, 237 middle-income trap, 298 migration and mobility, 9, 58, 96, 104–5, 141, 169, 265, 279, 298. See also travel restrictions and slowdowns minimum wage, 290, 299 Mnuchin, Steve, 68, 71, 76, 120, 151, 222, 252–53, 261, 271–72 Moderna, 238–41, 245–46, 249, 289 modernization, 298–99 Modi, Narendra, 11, 87–88, 104, 135, 208 monetary policy, 113–23; and central bank interventions, 123–26, 126–30; and early responses to pandemic, 111–12, 223–24; and lessons of 2020, 294; Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), 13, 146, 183; monetization of debt and deficits, 145–47, 149–50, 203–4 Monetary Policy Committee (of the Bank of England), 125 Money Market Mutual Fund Liquidity Facility (MMLF), 129 Moody’s rating agency, 166, 257–58, 270 Moore, Stephen, 76 Morawiecki, Mateusz, 280 Moreno, Lenín, 8, 168 Morin, Edgar, 6 mortality rates of coronavirus pandemic, 28, 36–37, 37–41, 169, 171 mortgage-backed securities, 14, 113–15, 117, 122, 129, 144 mRNA technology, 244, 246, 289 Müller, Gerd, 264, 265 Munich Security Conference, 2, 70 Municipal Liquidity Facility, 129 Musk, Elon, 86 mutation of viruses, 17, 44–46, 250, 266, 285 mutual funds, 115, 117–18, 125, 127, 129, 143, 150, 202 N95 masks, 196 Namibia, 268 National Audit Office (Britain), 69 National Bureau of Statistics, 61–62 National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, 75 National Congress (Brazil), 171 National Health Commission (China), 50 National Health Service (Britain), 39, 85 National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, 39 National Institute of Health (Peru), 248 nationalism, 6, 11, 16, 20–21, 47–48, 68, 162, 185, 193, 297–98 Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), 190 National People’s Congress (China), 49, 56, 204 National Security Strategy, 18, 210 Navalny, Alexei, 247 Navarro, Peter, 68, 220–21 neoliberalism, 6, 10–11, 13–17, 20, 22, 132, 160, 304 Netherlands, 33, 104, 134, 179, 181, 186 New Arrangements to Borrow, 162 New Deal, 20, 105 New York City, 71, 80–81, 83, 90, 105, 220, 229 New Zealand, 138 Next Generation (NextGen EU) program, 12, 186, 189, 279–80, 282, 284–85, 302 Nigeria, 28, 88, 100, 132–33, 156, 233, 268 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), 70, 295 Norway, 33, 140, 243 Novavax, 239 Obama, Barack, 18, 46–47, 136, 177, 206, 210, 253, 275, 287–89, 300, 302 O’Brien, Robert, 218 Ocasio-Cortez, Alexandria, 20 oil and gas resources, 18, 79–80, 140, 161, 164, 204–5, 295 Olympic Games, 73, 88 Operation Warp Speed, 239–40, 303 Orbán, Viktor, 279 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), 38, 138–40, 141–42, 144, 195, 281–82 Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), 79, 165 Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, 167 Overseas Private Investment Corporation, 263 Oxford University, 238, 239, 245–47 Pakistan, 83, 103, 197, 208–9, 256, 258, 263 Palin, Sarah, 226 Panama, 165 Pan American Health Organization, 167 Pandemic Emergency Purchase Programme (PEPP), 180–81 Paris Climate Agreement, 190, 193–94 Paris Club, 255, 255–56 Patrick, Dan, 39 Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), 140 Pearl River Delta, 198 Pegatron, 61 Pelosi, Nancy, 12, 222–23, 272–73, 276 Pence, Mike, 76 pension systems, 126, 266, 285 People’s Bank of China, 55, 160, 165, 188, 203–4 People’s Liberation Army, 247 People’s Political Consultative Conference, 49 personal protective equipment (PPE), 40, 66, 75, 135, 163, 196–97, 249 Peru, 158, 168–72, 198, 248, 268 Pfizer, 67, 234, 238–41, 244, 246, 248–49, 251, 289 Philippines, 11, 83, 106–7, 189 PIMCO, 146, 262 Piñera, Sebastián, 12 Poland, 279–80, 280–81, 283 polio, 30, 32, 235 “polycrisis” concept, 6, 81, 279, 288, 305 Pompeo, Mike, 68, 70, 218 populism, 3, 6, 12, 47–48, 77, 173, 179, 219, 269, 275, 280, 284 Portugal, 134, 177, 181 Powell, Jerome, 71, 76, 120–21, 123, 126–27, 130, 149, 220, 221, 272, 290, 291 Primary Market Corporate Credit Facility (PMCCF), 127 public health systems, 30, 45, 134 Putin, Vladimir, 11, 67, 295 Qatar, 267, 295 Quality-Adjusted Life Years (QALYS), 39 quantitative easing (QE), 126, 145–49, 154, 178, 203, 275 quarantines: and California wildfires, 189; in China, 52, 54, 57–59; and cruise ships, 106–7; and early responses to pandemic, 66; and economic impact of pandemic, 43; and influenza, 30; and “lockdown” term, 10; in Northern Italy, 71–72; and “polycrisis” concept, 7; “quarantine gate,” 58; and role of the WHO, 32; and short-time working, 103–4; in South Korea, 80; in Spain, 85; and Trump’s failures of leadership, 81; in UK, 84.

The Great Demographic Reversal: Ageing Societies, Waning Inequality, and an Inflation Revival by Charles Goodhart, Manoj Pradhan

asset-backed security, banks create money, Berlin Wall, bonus culture, Boris Johnson, Branko Milanovic, Brexit referendum, business cycle, capital controls, carbon tax, central bank independence, commodity super cycle, coronavirus, corporate governance, COVID-19, deglobalization, demographic dividend, demographic transition, Deng Xiaoping, en.wikipedia.org, Fall of the Berlin Wall, financial independence, financial repression, fixed income, full employment, gig economy, Gini coefficient, Greta Thunberg, housing crisis, income inequality, inflation targeting, interest rate swap, job automation, Kickstarter, long term incentive plan, longitudinal study, low interest rates, low skilled workers, manufacturing employment, Martin Wolf, mass immigration, middle-income trap, non-tariff barriers, offshore financial centre, oil shock, old age dependency ratio, open economy, paradox of thrift, Pearl River Delta, pension reform, Phillips curve, price stability, private sector deleveraging, quantitative easing, rent control, savings glut, secular stagnation, shareholder value, special economic zone, The Great Moderation, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, total factor productivity, working poor, working-age population, yield curve, zero-sum game

The main hindrance to development among emerging economies lies in their ability to execute a complex, coordinated and long-term economic strategy. We would go so far as to say that emerging economies that cannot transform themselves into advanced economies fail not because of the so-called middle-income trap but because of an administrative trap. The predictions of Desmet et al., while inspiring, are conditional on the development of the stock of administrative capital which these economies lack. © The Author(s) 2020 C. Goodhart, M. PradhanThe Great Demographic Reversalhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42657-6_11 11.

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Medicaid and Medicare, US Medical breakthrough Medical care Medical care costs Medical expenses Medical expenses, rising Medical, perspective on ageing Medical services, hard to raise productivity Medical support Medicare payments Melitz, J. Memories, short Mental decay Mercantilism METI white paper Metropolitan subway systems Mexico Miami, sinking below water line Mian, A. Middle cycle, of population growth Middle East ‘Middle-income trap’ Migration Migration, fear of enhanced Migration, internal Migration, inward into AEs, declining Migration, needed, but politically unpopular Migration, outward from EMEs, declining Migration, problems of mass Migration, within USA, reduced Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) Milanovic, B.

The Great Surge: The Ascent of the Developing World by Steven Radelet

Admiral Zheng, agricultural Revolution, Asian financial crisis, bank run, Berlin Wall, biodiversity loss, Boeing 747, Branko Milanovic, business climate, business process, call centre, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, clean water, colonial rule, creative destruction, demographic dividend, Deng Xiaoping, Dissolution of the Soviet Union, Doha Development Round, Erik Brynjolfsson, European colonialism, export processing zone, F. W. de Klerk, failed state, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, Gini coefficient, global pandemic, global supply chain, Great Leap Forward, income inequality, income per capita, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), invention of the steam engine, James Watt: steam engine, John Snow's cholera map, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Arrow, land reform, low interest rates, low skilled workers, M-Pesa, megacity, middle-income trap, Mikhail Gorbachev, Nelson Mandela, off grid, oil shock, out of africa, purchasing power parity, race to the bottom, randomized controlled trial, Robert Gordon, Robert Solow, Second Machine Age, secular stagnation, Shenzhen special economic zone , Sheryl Sandberg, Simon Kuznets, South China Sea, special economic zone, standardized shipping container, Steven Pinker, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, three-masted sailing ship, trade route, women in the workforce, working poor

Deeper global integration brings new ideas and technology, further supporting growth. At some point, many developing countries face a second major transition. Once most workers have switched to basic manufacturing and services, growth can get hung up again in what economists Homi Kharas of the Brookings Institution and Indermit Gill of the World Bank labeled the “middle-income trap”: the difficulty of shifting from low-skilled manufacturing and services (shoes and shirts) to higher-skilled products (electronics and call centers). Investments in education, training, health, and infrastructure can help, but some countries don’t make them. Income inequality can worsen if some workers move to high-skilled products but others remain stuck in lower-wage activities.

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., 46 Matela Weavers, 57 maternal mortality rates, 246 Mauritania, 281 Mauritius: aid to, 216 child mortality in, 84 as democracy, 98 growth in, 5, 37, 50, 126, 128 Mbasogo, Teodoro Obiang Nguema, 184 Mearsheimer, John, 290–91 measles, 92, 94, 161 Mecca, Zheng He’s trip to, 152 medical equipment, 20, 165 medicine, 21, 31 megacities, 277 Meiji Restoration, 25–26, 146 Melaka, 136 Menchú Tum, Rigoberta, 18 Mexico, 159, 162 default by, 101–2 democracy strengthening in, 115 demonstrations in, 281 emigration from, 284 growth in, 235 Micklethwait, John, 295 middle class, 20, 240–41 Middle East, 36, 184, 256, 265 conflict in, 146 democracy and, 265 financing in, 259 growth in, 50 life expectancy in, 82–83 oil from, 201 trade and, 159 middle-income trap, 261 Milanovic, Branko, 65, 70 Millennium Challenge Corporation, 216 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), 18, 30–31, 95, 217, 242 Millennium Summit, 217 Mills, John Atta, 189 minerals, 22, 152, 205–6 Ming China, 151–53 minimum wage, 165 mining, 278 Ministry of Finance, Gambia, The 190 Mitteri Bridge, 203 Mobarak, Mushfiq, 59 Mobile Alliance for Maternal Action (MAMA), 178 mobile devices, 47 mobile phones, 157, 175–78, 176 Mobilink-UNESCO, 179 Mobutu Sese Seko, 11, 100, 127, 141, 143, 145, 222 Moi, Daniel Arap, 103 Moldova, 6, 7, 36, 143 Mongolia, 108 aid to, 223 coal and iron ore exported by, 53 democracy in, 104, 122, 123, 144 growth in, 6, 7, 45, 128 Moran, Ted, 164–65 Moreira, Sandrina Berthault, 226 Morocco: demonstrations in, 281 growth in, 6, 50 individual leadership in, 187 inequality in, 67 poverty in, 36 Morrisson, Christian, 25, 27, 28 mosquitoes, 212 Moyo, Dambisa, 12 Mozal aluminum smelter, 44 Mozambique, 11, 18, 43–45, 159 aid to, 214, 216 aluminum exported by, 53 and democracy, 248 demonstrations in, 281 growth in, 6, 50, 261 inequality in, 67 infrastructure investment in, 216 reforms in, 192 state-owned farms in, 195 war in, 100, 145 M-Pesa, 47 Mubarak, Hosni, 113, 125, 185 Mugabe, Robert, 8, 106, 113, 127, 144, 181, 182, 185, 221 Mumbai, 287 Museveni, Yoweri, 112, 187 Musharraf, Pervez, 113 Mussolini, Benito, 104, 146 Myanmar, 9, 22, 112, 144, 184, 208, 263 child mortality in, 82 cyclones in, 281 health improvements in, 93 Namibia, ix, x, 37 democracy in, 135 growth in, 50 life expectancy in, 266 war in, 100, 145 National Academy of Sciences, US, 172 National Constituent Assembly, Tunisia, 124 National Institutes of Health, US, 302 natural capital, 62–63 Natural Resource Governance Institute, 306 Nazarbayev, Nursultan, 106 Nazism, 124, 146, 265, 309 Ndebele tribe, 180 Nepal, 37, 174, 203–4, 208 democracy in, 107, 122, 123 demonstrations in, 281 as landlocked, 202, 205 poverty in, 122 Netherlands, 47 Indonesian colonialism of, 136–37, 138, 139 New Development Bank, 259 New Orleans, La., 201 New York, N.Y., 201, 277 New York Times, 104, 176–77, 270 New Zealand, 25, 78, 167, 202, 231 Nicaragua, 11, 36 democracy in, 104 war in, 100, 145 Niger, 208 agriculture in, 204 democracy in, 124, 263 as landlocked, 202, 205 mobile phones in, 177–78 Nigeria, 115, 159, 243, 245, 287 dictatorship in, 99, 113 health technology in, 175 oil in, 285 per capita wealth in, 62 Nike, 165, 202 Nkomo, Joshua, 181 noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), 268 non-governmental organization (NGOs), 110, 221 Noriega, Manuel, 144 North Africa, 36 growth in, 50 life expectancy in, 82–83 trade and, 159 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), 156, 162 North Korea, 8, 9, 100, 144, 184, 192, 208, 243 nutrition, 232 Obama, Barack, 297 Obama administration, 297 O’Hanlon, Michael, 299 oil, 44, 53, 62, 67, 114–15, 201, 205, 285 in Equatorial Guinea, 223 in Indonesia, 138, 139 oil crises, 10 open markets, 131 Opium Wars, 153 oral rehydration therapy (ORT), 94, 173, 215 overfishing, 61 overtime regulations, 165 Paarlberg, Rob, 172 Pakistan, 37, 162, 243, 245, 285–86 conflict in, 118, 119 coup in, 113 and democracy, 263 emigration from, 284 factories in, 58 India’s wars with, 141, 145 terrorism in, 287 violence in, 146 Panama, 9 growth in, 50, 128, 238 US invasion of, 144 Panama Canal, 211 Panasonic, 202 Papua New Guineau, 50, 213 Paraguay, 50, 280 Park Chung-hee, 99, 122 patents, 157 Peace Corps, 75, 90, 202 pensions, 38, 241 People Power Revolution, 186 Perkins, Dwight, 235 pertussis, 94, 161 Peru, 159, 185, 285, 287 agriculture in, 56–57 copper exported by, 53 demonstrations in, 281 pharmaceuticals, 20, 165 Philippines, 7, 11, 17, 18, 100, 103, 121, 127, 184, 185, 201, 222, 289, 290, 297 call centers in, 178 corruption in, 264 democracy in, 104, 106, 109, 122, 123, 250, 263 growth in, 242 inequality in, 67 nickel exported by, 53 rice yields in, 215–16 transcribers in, 56 Piketty, Thomas, 68–69 Pinker, Steven, 115 Pinochet, Augusto, 107–8, 122, 141, 143–44, 187 Plano Real (“Real Plan”), 187 Plundered Planet, The (Collier), 292 pneumonia, 73 Poland, 6, 18, 36, 103, 143, 184, 186 protests in, 134 trade encouraged by, 155 universities in, 247 polio, 94, 119, 161, 215 Polity IV Project, 107, 109 pollution, 302 Population Bomb, The (Ehrlich), 274 population growth, 21, 80–81, 84, 95, 233, 234, 272, 273–77, 276 Portfolios of the Poor (Collins et al.), 32, 33–34 Port of Cotonou, 216 Portugal, 105, 123, 136 poverty, 94, 294 definitions and terminology of, 26–27 democracy and, 121 as exacerbated by conflicts, 119, 119 as man-made, 180 poverty, extreme, 5, 8, 25, 26, 27–30, 30, 31–35, 36, 41, 42, 118, 231, 232, 240, 241–45, 244, 256, 271 in China, 35, 36, 242 in Indonesia, 136 in South Africa, 183 poverty, reduction of, 3, 4, 5, 8, 17, 21, 27–31, 28, 30, 34–35 in Africa, 12 in China, 201 after global food crisis (2007), 12 ignorance of, 10 lack of attention to, 10 poverty traps, 14–16 pregnancy, 178 press, freedom of, 198–99 Preston, Samuel, 92 Preston curves, 92 Pritchett, Lant, 89, 235, 262 Programa Bolsa Família, 38, 67 progress in developing countries, x, 3–5, 45–53, 46, 49, 229, 237–39, 238 democratization and, see democracy factors for, 16–19 future of, 21–23 as good for West, 19–21 income growth in, 240–41, 240 investment in, 238 and long historical perspective, 13 and microlevel studies, 13–14 middle class emergence in, 240–41 pessimism about, 9–12 possible stalling of, 255–56 possible tripling of incomes in, 277–78 and poverty traps, 14–16 reduction of poverty in, see poverty, reduction of threats to, 291–92 transforming production in, 262–63 property rights, 142, 303 protein, 280 Protestant work ethic, 120–21 Publish What You Pay, 305 Punjab, 178–79 Putin, Vladimir, 224, 255 Radelet, John, 60 Rahman, Ziaur, 271 Rajan, Raghuram, 225, 237 Rajasthan, 33 Ramos, Fidel, 103 Ramos-Horta, José, 184 Ravallion, Martin, 27, 29, 64, 227, 243 Rawlings, Jerry, 188–89 Rebirth of Education, The (Pritchett), 89 recession (1980s), 10, 191 Reebok, 164 religion, freedom of, 198–99 religious bodies, 110 Reserve Bank, Zimbabwe, 181 resource curse, 54, 163, 206 resource demand, 21, 233, 272, 281 resource extraction, 162–63 resources, 275 in Africa, 261 resource wars, 284–86 retail trade, 37, 45 Return of History and the End of Dreams, The (Kagan), 253 Reuveny, Rafael, 272 Rhodes, Cecil, 180 Rhodesia, 43 rice, 139, 215–16 rickshaw drivers, 32–33 Ridley, Matt, 11 rights, 131, 161, 198–99 rinderpest, 215 Rio de Janeiro, 46, 58, 159, 201 river blindness, 214 roads, 169, 233, 235 aid for, 216 in South Africa, 202 Robinson, James, 13, 140, 249 robotics, 261, 301 Rockefeller Foundation, 170 Rodrik, Dani, 261, 263 Roll Back Malaria Partnership, 212 Romania, 36, 50, 134, 143 Romero, Óscar, 100 Roosevelt, Franklin, 100 Roosevelt, Theodore, 169 Ross, Ronald, 211 Royal Economic Society, 226 Russia, 47, 146, 222, 256 democracy in, 113, 263, 264 infrastructure financing in, 259–60 slowing of progress in, 250, 264 Ukraine invaded by, 192, 233 US aid banned by, 224 Rutagumirwa, Laban, 176–77 Rwanda, 144, 159 aid to, 214, 216, 224 China’s example followed by, 266 growth in, 6, 7, 45, 50, 125, 128, 261 individual leadership in, 187 as landlocked, 207 Sachs, Jeffrey, 14–15, 175, 205, 210, 213, 219 Safaricom, 47 salinity, 171, 215 Sall, Macky, 114 Samoa, 202 sanitation, 73, 77, 216, 303 Sargsyan, Vazgen, 113 Saudi Arabia, 115 savings rate, 201 schistosomiasis, 205 Schlesinger, Arthur, Jr., 121 Schumpeter, Joseph, 249 Second Machine Age, The (Brynjolfsson and McAfee), 166, 300 secular stagnation, 257 seed drill, 25 seeds, 171 semiconductors, 20 Sen, Amartya, 19, 123, 127, 128 Sendero Luminoso, 287 Senegal, 7, 37 aid to, 223, 224 corruption in, 114 democracy in, 123, 124, 263 demonstrations in, 281 growth in, 261 inequality in, 67 Senkaku islands, 288 Seoul, 201 September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks of, 269 services, 67, 260, 261–62 severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), 82, 267 Seychelles, 284 Shanghai, 201 Shenzhen, 91 Sherpas, 203 Shikha, 33–34 Shinawatra, Thaksin, 254–55, 264 Shinawatra, Yingluck, 255 Shining Path, 287 shipping, 202 shipping containers, 167–68 shock therapy, 219 shoes, 56, 139, 162, 262 Sierra Leone, 220, 285 democracy in, 104, 107 Ebola in, 82 growth in, 50 health system in, 266 violence in, 146, 206 Silk Road, 206 silks, 152 silver, 152 Simon, Julian, 294 Sin, Jaime, 18, 103 Singapore, 7, 16, 184 benign dictatorship in, 126 and democracy, 122, 248, 250 and globalization, 155 growth in, 125, 139, 147 universities in, 247 Singh, Manmohan, 192 Six-Day War, 285 skills and capabilities, 16, 190–92 slavery, 142, 156, 180, 206 smallpox, 214, 215 Smith, Adam, 151, 156, 200–201 Smith, David, 43 Smith, Marshall, 178–79 SMS text messages, 47, 178 Snow, John, 77 social safety net, 38, 39, 68, 164, 307 Sogolo, Nicéphore, 144 soil, 171, 215 Solow, Robert, 165 Somalia, 8, 9, 99, 119, 213, 243 aid to, 224 power vacuum in, 184 Zheng He’s trip to, 152 Somoza García, Anastasio, 100, 127 Song-Taaba Yalgré women’s cooperative, 178 South Africa, 7, 17, 18, 20, 22, 37, 43, 46, 127, 143, 145, 155, 182–83, 207 aid to, 223 apartheid in, 44, 57, 68, 100, 103, 135, 141, 180, 182 banks in, 56 corruption in, 264 economic growth in, 183, 235, 262 future of, 234 HIV in, 174 inequality in, 68 infrastructure financing in, 259–60 life expectancy in, 266 political turmoil in, 57 roads in, 202 universities in, 247 South Asia, 37, 50 Southeast Asia, 5, 12, 167 colonialism in, 140 growth in, 141 Southern Rhodesia, 180 South Jakarta, 286 South Korea, 36, 127, 159, 184, 201, 288, 290 aid to, 214, 216 benign dictatorship in, 126 democracy in, 104, 122, 126, 250 as dictatorship, 99, 122 and globalization, 155 growth in, 7, 16, 29, 71, 125, 139, 147, 236, 262 individual leadership in, 187 inequality in, 68 lack of resources in, 205 land redistribution in, 68 Soviet Union, x, 50, 126, 133–34, 145, 148, 298, 309 Afghanistan invaded by, 134, 146 collapse of, 16, 81, 103, 131, 135, 142, 156, 250, 251 countries controlled by, 141 dictatorships supported by, 100 malaria in, 210 Spain, 105, 123, 140 speech, freedom of, 198–99 Spence, Michael, 86, 165 Spratly Islands, 289 Sputnik, 147, 250 Sri Lanka, 11, 37 economic problems in, 255 engineers from, 56 malaria in, 211 Zheng He’s trip to, 152 Stalin, Joseph, 127 state-owned farms, 195 Stavins, Robert, 297 steam engine, 25, 300 Steinberg, James, 299 Stern, Nicholas, 213, 292 Stiglitz, Joseph, 213, 227 stock exchanges, 241 Strait of Malacca, 201 student associations, 110 Subic Bay Naval Station, 201 Subramanian, Arvind, 225 Sudan, 114, 115, 185, 206, 208, 285 aid to, 224 China’s example followed by, 266 violence in, 285 Suharto, 99, 112, 122, 126, 138–39, 144 Sumatra, 152 Summers, Lawrence, 88, 227, 235, 246, 257 Sustainable Development Goals, 217 Swaziland, life expectancy in, 266 sweatshops, 58 Sweden, 159 Switzerland, 27, 202 Sydney, 201 Syria, 8, 285 aid to, 224 conflict in, 118, 119, 146, 233, 255 in Six-Day War, 285 Taiwan, 29, 153, 201, 289, 290 aid to, 216 benign dictatorship in, 126 democracy in, 122, 126, 250 and globalization, 155 growth in, 125, 139, 147, 236, 262 individual leadership in, 187 lack of resources in, 205 Tajikstan, 205, 208 Tanzania: aid to, 214, 216 and democracy, 248 fruit markets in, 58 growth in, 45, 50, 238, 240, 261 purchasing power in, 27 reforms in, 192 Zheng He’s trip to, 152 tariffs, 44, 102, 155, 167, 193, 263, 305 Tarp, Finn, 226 tax revenues, 241, 247 Taylor, Charles, 99, 145 technology, x, 17, 19, 22, 94–96, 135, 150, 151–79, 183, 200, 206–7, 234, 245, 258, 294, 301 for agriculture, 170–71 for banking, 175, 179 in China, 154–55, 236 for education, 178–79 globalization and, 156, 166 for health, 173–75, 179, 293 terrorism and, 287–88 telecommunications, 158 Terai, 211 terms-of-trade ratio, 54 terrorism, 19, 20, 21, 146, 286–88 tetanus, 94, 161 textiles, 25, 56, 139, 152 Thailand, 9, 22, 36, 253–55, 265 benign dictatorship in, 126 child mortality in, 84 corruption in, 254, 264 and democracy, 248, 253–54, 255, 263 growth in, 139, 147, 262 protests in, 255, 263 Zheng He’s trip to, 152 Theroux, Paul, 12 Things Fall Apart (Achebe), 72 think tanks, 110 Third Wave, The (Huntington), 121 Thomas, Brendon, 90–91 Tiananmen Square, 148 Tibet, 203 Tigris, 285 timber, 61, 139, 206, 223, 285 Timbuktu, 206 Timor-Leste, 36, 139, 144, 184, 220 aid to, 223 democracy in, 106, 122 infrastructure investment in, 216 poverty in, 122 tin, 139 Tokyo, 201, 277 totalitarianism, 10–11, 16 tourism, 45 toys, 56, 139 trade, x, 6, 17, 20, 22, 52, 156, 157, 162–63, 193, 203, 204–5, 234, 257, 303 in agriculture, 273 Asian economic miracle and, 170, 201 growth of, 157, 158–59, 160 sea-based, 200–201 shipping containers and, 167–68 trade unions, 110 transportation, 166, 261 Truth and Reconciliation Commission, 182 T-shirts, 159, 164 Tuareg, 265 tuberculosis, 75, 94, 161, 205, 214 Tull, Jethro, 25 Tunisia: democracy in, 7, 106, 124, 255, 263 growth in, 50, 238 Turkey, 36, 127, 285 aid to, 223 authoritarian rule in, 255 demand in, 53 democracy in, 106, 123, 124, 263 future of, 234 growth in, 6, 7, 22, 235, 238 protests in, 263 trade encouraged by, 155 universities in, 247 Turkmenistan, 114, 266, 285 Tutu, Desmond, 18, 103, 185 Uganda, 106, 112, 144, 159, 287 aid to, 216 and democracy, 263, 264 growth in, 50 horticulture producers in, 169 individual leadership in, 187 inequality in, 67 infrastructure investment in, 216 mobile phones in, 176–77 Ukraine, 143, 192, 233 Ultimate Resource, The (Simon), 294 unemployment benefits, 38, 164 United Fruit Company, 223 United Nations, 79, 212, 217, 258, 275, 298, 309 United Nations’ International Labour Organization, 57 United States, 19, 47, 68, 148, 231, 292, 300 China’s relationship with, 298–99 countries controlled by, 141 coups supported by, 100 democracy criticized in, 126 democracy in, 112, 296 and dictatorships, 139, 222 Iraq invasion by, 8, 118, 124, 146 leadership needed by, 234 natural capital in, 63 Panama invaded by, 144 post–World War II boom in, 262 protection provided by, 289–90 in World War II, 137 universities, 247 urbanization, 4, 22, 233, 268, 276–77, 279 US Agency for International Development (USAID), 95, 170, 171, 216, 308 Uyuni Sal Flat, 205 Uzbekistan, 8, 145, 185, 281, 285 vaccines, 77, 94, 161, 214, 233, 302 Velvet Revolution, 103 Venezuela, 22, 47, 106, 115 and democracy, 248, 263, 264 economic problems in, 255 natural capital in, 63 Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC), 136–37 Vietnam, 36, 106, 144, 289 aid to, 214, 224 China’s example followed by, 266 growth in, 7, 45, 50, 125, 128, 147, 262 individual leadership in, 187 inequality in, 67 life expectancy in, 78 rice yields in, 215–16 textiles from, 56 Zheng He’s trip to, 152 Vietnam War, 100, 138, 141, 145, 289 Vincent, Jeffrey, 61 violence, 6, 20, 290 decline in, 4, 115–20, 116, 117, 119, 145–46 poverty deepened by, 119, 119 and poverty traps, 15 over resources, 284–86 Vitamin A deficiency, 173–74 Viviano, Frank, 152 Wade, Abdoulaye, 114, 224 Wałesa, Lech, 18, 103, 143, 149, 184, 186 Walls, Peter, 181 Walmart, 46 Wang Huan, 90–91 war, 5 attention to, 10 and poverty traps, 15 reduction of, 3, 4, 6 watchdog groups, 110 water, 77, 80, 161, 216, 275, 277–80, 307 water conservation, 233 water pollution, 8 water shortages, 22, 73 Watt, James, 25 Wealth and Poverty of Nations, The (Landes), 13 Wealth of Nations, The (Smith), 200–201 Weber, Max, 120 West Africa, 8, 10, 22, 205 colonialism in, 140 West Bengal, 31 Western Samoa, 75, 202 What We Know (AAAS report), 281–82 “When Fast Growing Economies Slow Down” (Eichengreen et al.), 236 White, Howard, 226 white supremacy, 124 “Why Isn’t the Whole World Developed?”

Bourgeois Dignity: Why Economics Can't Explain the Modern World by Deirdre N. McCloskey

"Friedman doctrine" OR "shareholder theory", Airbnb, Akira Okazaki, antiwork, behavioural economics, big-box store, Black Swan, book scanning, British Empire, business cycle, buy low sell high, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, classic study, clean water, Columbian Exchange, conceptual framework, correlation does not imply causation, Costa Concordia, creative destruction, critique of consumerism, crony capitalism, dark matter, Dava Sobel, David Graeber, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, deindustrialization, demographic transition, Deng Xiaoping, do well by doing good, Donald Trump, double entry bookkeeping, electricity market, en.wikipedia.org, epigenetics, Erik Brynjolfsson, experimental economics, Ferguson, Missouri, food desert, Ford Model T, fundamental attribution error, Garrett Hardin, Georg Cantor, George Akerlof, George Gilder, germ theory of disease, Gini coefficient, God and Mammon, Great Leap Forward, greed is good, Gunnar Myrdal, Hans Rosling, Henry Ford's grandson gave labor union leader Walter Reuther a tour of the company’s new, automated factory…, Hernando de Soto, immigration reform, income inequality, interchangeable parts, invention of agriculture, invention of writing, invisible hand, Isaac Newton, Islamic Golden Age, James Watt: steam engine, Jane Jacobs, John Harrison: Longitude, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Arrow, knowledge economy, labor-force participation, lake wobegon effect, land reform, liberation theology, lone genius, Lyft, Mahatma Gandhi, Mark Zuckerberg, market fundamentalism, means of production, middle-income trap, military-industrial complex, Naomi Klein, new economy, Nick Bostrom, North Sea oil, Occupy movement, open economy, out of africa, Pareto efficiency, Paul Samuelson, Pax Mongolica, Peace of Westphalia, peak oil, Peter Singer: altruism, Philip Mirowski, Pier Paolo Pasolini, pink-collar, plutocrats, positional goods, profit maximization, profit motive, public intellectual, purchasing power parity, race to the bottom, refrigerator car, rent control, rent-seeking, Republic of Letters, road to serfdom, Robert Gordon, Robert Shiller, Ronald Coase, Scientific racism, Scramble for Africa, Second Machine Age, secular stagnation, seminal paper, Simon Kuznets, Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits, spinning jenny, stakhanovite, Steve Jobs, tacit knowledge, TED Talk, the Cathedral and the Bazaar, The Chicago School, The Market for Lemons, the rule of 72, The Spirit Level, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, Thorstein Veblen, total factor productivity, Toyota Production System, Tragedy of the Commons, transaction costs, transatlantic slave trade, Tyler Cowen, Tyler Cowen: Great Stagnation, uber lyft, union organizing, very high income, wage slave, Washington Consensus, working poor, Yogi Berra

Yet Brazil, Russia, Indonesia, and South Africa have stuck with pre-Friedman ideas such as Argentinian self-sufficiency and 1960s British unionism and 1980s German labor laws and a misunderstanding of Korea’s “export-led” growth. The literature of the “middle-income trap,” which speaks in particular of Brazil and South Africa, presupposes a mercantilist notion that growth depends on exports, which are alleged to have a harder time growing when wages rise.5 The theory is defective, since the absolute “advantage” of low wages is irrelevant to the pattern of trade. The mercantist policies adopted by Brazil and South Africa to encourage this or that export depend, in other words, on denying comparative advantage. And anyway the literature on the middle-income trap focuses on externals when what matters mainly to the income of the poor is domestic productivity.

…

Therefore countries such as South Africa with trade-denying laws, such as those that obstruct entry to new business and overregulate old business, drag along at growth rates of less than 3 percent per year per person—at which rate a mere doubling takes a quarter of a century and a transformative quadrupling fifty years. Slow growth yields envy, as the economist Benjamin Friedman has argued, and envy yields populism, which in turn yields slow growth.6 In 2014 Venezuela ranked 182nd out of 189 countries in the world in the ease of doing business, Brazil 120th.7 That’s the real “middle-income trap.” Here are the data on the transformative, quadrupling rates of growth of China and India, and the nontransformative rates of the rest. Note the italicized years to quadruple: Table 2. Annual rates of growth and years to quadruple in gross domestic product per person at purchasing power parity in constant 2005 international dollars of the BRIICS and the USA at the rates of growth experienced 1992–2002, 2002–2012, and over the entire twenty years, 1992–2012 Periods China India Brazil Indonesia Russia South Africa USA 1992–2002 ×4 in 8.42% 16 yrs 3.38% 36 1.31% 100 1.87% 74 –0.682% n.a. 0.593% 230 2.18% 63 2002–2012 ×4 in 9.40% 15 yrs 5.98% 23 2.49% 55 4.15% 33 4.64% 30 2.26% 61 0.934% 150 1992–2012 ×4 in 8.92% 15 yrs 4.92% 28 1.90% 73 3.01% 46 1.98% 70 1.43% 98 1.56% 88 Methods and sources: I used continuous compounding instead of simple interest, so at 1.0 percent per year the rule to double is 69 years instead of 72, and so the rule to quadruple is 138 years instead of 144.

…

See also Polanyi, Karl Mestieri, Martí: lag of technologies, 78 Metzel, Truman, 589 Miceli, Thomas: Islam and governance, 483; reading, 390 Michaels, Walter Benn: free labor, 571 Michie, Elsie: Austen and Smith, 168–169, 172 Mickey Mouse Protection Act: mercantilism, 175 middle class: terminology, xvi. See also bourgeois middle-income trap, 75 Mielants, Eric: Baechler, 107; egalitarianism, 364 Mikesell, John L.: US states’ corruption, 665n4 Mill, John Stuart, 648; Great Enrichment, 536, 648; ideas in history, 518; Malthusian pessimism, 35; materialism, 642, 643; moralized economy, 645; Scottish equality and contractual liberty, xxix, xxxi–xxxiii, 39, 409 Miller, Arthur: bourgeois virtues, xxx Mills, C.

The Economics of Inequality by Thomas Piketty, Arthur Goldhammer

affirmative action, basic income, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, collective bargaining, conceptual framework, deindustrialization, endogenous growth, Gini coefficient, income inequality, low skilled workers, means of production, middle-income trap, moral hazard, Pareto efficiency, purchasing power parity, Robert Solow, Simon Kuznets, Tax Reform Act of 1986, The Bell Curve by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, very high income, working-age population

All these studies have found much higher elasticities (ranging from 0.7 to 1.2) for these groups than for those already employed (Blundell, 1995, p. 59; for a study of recent French data, compare Piketty, 1998). In other words, the prospect of earning a decent living seems to be more of an incentive for low-income people than the prospect of a still-higher income for those who are already well off: “poverty traps” are likely to be more important than “middle-income traps.” The evolution of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) in the United States since the early 1990s has done much to invigorate this debate. The Earned Income Tax Credit in the United States The EITC, first introduced in 1975, is a tax credit that benefits people at the low end of the wage spectrum.

Connectography: Mapping the Future of Global Civilization by Parag Khanna

"World Economic Forum" Davos, 1919 Motor Transport Corps convoy, 2013 Report for America's Infrastructure - American Society of Civil Engineers - 19 March 2013, 9 dash line, additive manufacturing, Admiral Zheng, affirmative action, agricultural Revolution, Airbnb, Albert Einstein, amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics, Amazon Mechanical Turk, Anthropocene, Asian financial crisis, asset allocation, autonomous vehicles, banking crisis, Basel III, Berlin Wall, bitcoin, Black Swan, blockchain, borderless world, Boycotts of Israel, Branko Milanovic, BRICs, British Empire, business intelligence, call centre, capital controls, Carl Icahn, charter city, circular economy, clean water, cloud computing, collateralized debt obligation, commoditize, complexity theory, continuation of politics by other means, corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, credit crunch, crony capitalism, crowdsourcing, cryptocurrency, cuban missile crisis, data is the new oil, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, deglobalization, deindustrialization, dematerialisation, Deng Xiaoping, Detroit bankruptcy, digital capitalism, digital divide, digital map, disruptive innovation, diversification, Doha Development Round, driverless car, Easter island, edge city, Edward Snowden, Elon Musk, energy security, Ethereum, ethereum blockchain, European colonialism, eurozone crisis, export processing zone, failed state, Fairphone, Fall of the Berlin Wall, family office, Ferguson, Missouri, financial innovation, financial repression, fixed income, forward guidance, gentrification, geopolitical risk, global supply chain, global value chain, global village, Google Earth, Great Leap Forward, Hernando de Soto, high net worth, high-speed rail, Hyperloop, ice-free Arctic, if you build it, they will come, illegal immigration, income inequality, income per capita, industrial cluster, industrial robot, informal economy, Infrastructure as a Service, interest rate swap, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Internet of things, Isaac Newton, Jane Jacobs, Jaron Lanier, John von Neumann, Julian Assange, Just-in-time delivery, Kevin Kelly, Khyber Pass, Kibera, Kickstarter, LNG terminal, low cost airline, low earth orbit, low interest rates, manufacturing employment, mass affluent, mass immigration, megacity, Mercator projection, Metcalfe’s law, microcredit, middle-income trap, mittelstand, Monroe Doctrine, Multics, mutually assured destruction, Neal Stephenson, New Economic Geography, new economy, New Urbanism, off grid, offshore financial centre, oil rush, oil shale / tar sands, oil shock, openstreetmap, out of africa, Panamax, Parag Khanna, Peace of Westphalia, peak oil, Pearl River Delta, Peter Thiel, Philip Mirowski, Planet Labs, plutocrats, post-oil, post-Panamax, precautionary principle, private military company, purchasing power parity, quantum entanglement, Quicken Loans, QWERTY keyboard, race to the bottom, Rana Plaza, rent-seeking, reserve currency, Robert Gordon, Robert Shiller, Robert Solow, rolling blackouts, Ronald Coase, Scramble for Africa, Second Machine Age, sharing economy, Shenzhen special economic zone , Shenzhen was a fishing village, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, six sigma, Skype, smart cities, Smart Cities: Big Data, Civic Hackers, and the Quest for a New Utopia, South China Sea, South Sea Bubble, sovereign wealth fund, special economic zone, spice trade, Stuxnet, supply-chain management, sustainable-tourism, systems thinking, TaskRabbit, tech worker, TED Talk, telepresence, the built environment, The inhabitant of London could order by telephone, sipping his morning tea in bed, the various products of the whole earth, Tim Cook: Apple, trade route, Tragedy of the Commons, transaction costs, Tyler Cowen, UNCLOS, uranium enrichment, urban planning, urban sprawl, vertical integration, WikiLeaks, Yochai Benkler, young professional, zero day

The wrenching side effects of rapid urbanization—a mass of marginalized migrant workers, high local government debt, and an oversupply of housing in many cities—are all germane to becoming a collection of 350 million urban consuming households. Many believe the future of the Chinese economy hinges on whether it can escape the “middle-income trap.” As it transforms from a command to a market economy, it must move sufficiently up the value chain, raise productivity, and rebalance toward consumption so that most of its citizens can command higher wages. Can China’s economic master planning and urbanization strategy come together to elevate its vast civilization toward the “Chinese Dream” of national prosperity?

…

China is not yet so confident that it doesn’t need more free zones to boost its international credibility—which is why it has so many that they practically blanket the whole country. Alibaba has even taken charge of an entire pilot zone on Hainan Island where it will provide its cloud computing and e-government platforms, as well as a branch of its e-commerce-focused Taobao University. If China ultimately succeeds in overcoming the middle-income trap, strategic urbanization will have been a big reason why. MASTER PLANNING FOR MEGACITIES The more advanced SEZs China builds, the more even rich countries are picking up on what was once considered a poor state’s model—both to stay ahead of and to connect to China’s key new hubs. South Korea’s Songdo International Business District is the most advanced such “smart city” effort.

Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World by Fareed Zakaria

"there is no alternative" (TINA), 15-minute city, AlphaGo, An Inconvenient Truth, anti-fragile, Asian financial crisis, basic income, Bernie Sanders, Boris Johnson, butterfly effect, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, car-free, carbon tax, central bank independence, clean water, cloud computing, colonial rule, contact tracing, coronavirus, COVID-19, Credit Default Swap, David Graeber, Day of the Dead, deep learning, DeepMind, deglobalization, Demis Hassabis, Deng Xiaoping, digital divide, Dominic Cummings, Donald Trump, Edward Glaeser, Edward Jenner, Elon Musk, Erik Brynjolfsson, failed state, financial engineering, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, future of work, gentrification, George Floyd, gig economy, Gini coefficient, global pandemic, global reserve currency, global supply chain, green new deal, hiring and firing, housing crisis, imperial preference, income inequality, Indoor air pollution, invention of the wheel, Jane Jacobs, Jeff Bezos, Jeremy Corbyn, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, John Snow's cholera map, junk bonds, lockdown, Long Term Capital Management, low interest rates, manufacturing employment, Marc Andreessen, Mark Zuckerberg, Martin Wolf, means of production, megacity, Mexican peso crisis / tequila crisis, middle-income trap, Monroe Doctrine, Nate Silver, Nick Bostrom, oil shock, open borders, out of africa, Parag Khanna, Paris climate accords, Peter Thiel, plutocrats, popular capitalism, Productivity paradox, purchasing power parity, remote working, reserve currency, reshoring, restrictive zoning, ride hailing / ride sharing, Ronald Reagan, secular stagnation, Silicon Valley, social distancing, software is eating the world, South China Sea, Steve Bannon, Steve Jobs, Steven Pinker, Suez crisis 1956, TED Talk, the built environment, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, The inhabitant of London could order by telephone, sipping his morning tea in bed, the various products of the whole earth, The Spirit Level, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas L Friedman, Tim Cook: Apple, trade route, UNCLOS, universal basic income, urban planning, Washington Consensus, white flight, Works Progress Administration, zoonotic diseases

But it is also true that Beijing faces increasing pressure to undertake even more reforms. Many Chinese economists and senior policymakers have argued that doing so is the only way for the country to modernize and grow its economy. Avoiding reform, they have warned, will leave the country floundering in the “middle-income trap”—a common fate in which countries escape poverty, only to hit a wall at a per capita GDP somewhere around $10,000, having refused to modernize their economic, regulatory, and legal systems any further. China passed the $10,000 milestone in 2019, but it could still get stuck. Even before the pandemic slashed its growth, China was resisting further reforms.

Refuge: Transforming a Broken Refugee System by Alexander Betts, Paul Collier

Alvin Roth, anti-communist, centre right, charter city, corporate social responsibility, Donald Trump, failed state, Filter Bubble, global supply chain, informal economy, it's over 9,000, Kibera, mass immigration, megacity, middle-income trap, mobile money, Mohammed Bouazizi, mutually assured destruction, open borders, Peace of Westphalia, peer-to-peer, race to the bottom, randomized controlled trial, rising living standards, risk/return, school choice, special economic zone, structural adjustment programs, tail risk, trade route, urban planning, zero-sum game

Might this offer a way to simultaneously benefit refugees, contribute to Jordan’s own nationaldevelopment strategy, and incubate the post-conflict recovery in Syria? Jordan is a middle-income country. As such, one of the key priorities of its national-development strategy is to make the leap to manufacturing. Yet transitioning to manufacturing is hard. Jordan is in a ‘middle-income trap’: unable to compete with low-income countries on cheap labour and unable to compete with advanced industrialized countries on technology and innovation. Much of the world’s manufacturing is today concentrated in China. For example, most of the world’s buttons are manufactured in just one city, colloquially known as ‘Buttonopolis’.

The Age of Stagnation: Why Perpetual Growth Is Unattainable and the Global Economy Is in Peril by Satyajit Das

"there is no alternative" (TINA), "World Economic Forum" Davos, 9 dash line, accounting loophole / creative accounting, additive manufacturing, Airbnb, Alan Greenspan, Albert Einstein, Alfred Russel Wallace, Anthropocene, Anton Chekhov, Asian financial crisis, banking crisis, Bear Stearns, Berlin Wall, bitcoin, bond market vigilante , Bretton Woods, BRICs, British Empire, business cycle, business process, business process outsourcing, call centre, capital controls, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, carbon tax, Carmen Reinhart, Clayton Christensen, cloud computing, collaborative economy, colonial exploitation, computer age, creative destruction, cryptocurrency, currency manipulation / currency intervention, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, declining real wages, Deng Xiaoping, deskilling, digital divide, disintermediation, disruptive innovation, Downton Abbey, Emanuel Derman, energy security, energy transition, eurozone crisis, financial engineering, financial innovation, financial repression, forward guidance, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, full employment, geopolitical risk, gig economy, Gini coefficient, global reserve currency, global supply chain, Goldman Sachs: Vampire Squid, Great Leap Forward, Greenspan put, happiness index / gross national happiness, high-speed rail, Honoré de Balzac, hydraulic fracturing, Hyman Minsky, illegal immigration, income inequality, income per capita, indoor plumbing, informal economy, Innovator's Dilemma, intangible asset, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), it is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it, It's morning again in America, Jane Jacobs, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, junk bonds, Kenneth Rogoff, Kevin Roose, knowledge economy, knowledge worker, Les Trente Glorieuses, light touch regulation, liquidity trap, Long Term Capital Management, low interest rates, low skilled workers, Lyft, Mahatma Gandhi, margin call, market design, Marshall McLuhan, Martin Wolf, middle-income trap, Mikhail Gorbachev, military-industrial complex, Minsky moment, mortgage debt, mortgage tax deduction, new economy, New Urbanism, offshore financial centre, oil shale / tar sands, oil shock, old age dependency ratio, open economy, PalmPilot, passive income, peak oil, peer-to-peer lending, pension reform, planned obsolescence, plutocrats, Ponzi scheme, Potemkin village, precariat, price stability, profit maximization, pushing on a string, quantitative easing, race to the bottom, Ralph Nader, Rana Plaza, rent control, rent-seeking, reserve currency, ride hailing / ride sharing, rising living standards, risk/return, Robert Gordon, Robert Solow, Ronald Reagan, Russell Brand, Satyajit Das, savings glut, secular stagnation, seigniorage, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, Slavoj Žižek, South China Sea, sovereign wealth fund, Stephen Fry, systems thinking, TaskRabbit, The Chicago School, The Great Moderation, The inhabitant of London could order by telephone, sipping his morning tea in bed, the various products of the whole earth, the market place, the payments system, The Spirit Level, Thorstein Veblen, Tim Cook: Apple, too big to fail, total factor productivity, trade route, transaction costs, uber lyft, unpaid internship, Unsafe at Any Speed, Upton Sinclair, Washington Consensus, We are the 99%, WikiLeaks, Y2K, Yom Kippur War, zero-coupon bond, zero-sum game

Private-sector counterparts in both countries earn more. In contrast, a US worker at a fast-food outlet in Los Angeles receives the minimum wage of US$11 an hour plus a mandatory US$5 for healthcare benefits, for a total of US$16. This equates to an annual income of around US$33,000. Many emerging markets are caught in the middle-income trap, a phenomenon where countries experience a slowdown in economic growth when GDP per capita reaches around US$15,000. The necessary rebalancing to shift to the next level of development is difficult. China, which needs to move away from investment to greater consumption to drive economic activity, provides an example of the policy dilemmas.

The Dawn of Eurasia: On the Trail of the New World Order by Bruno Macaes

active measures, Berlin Wall, Brexit referendum, British Empire, computer vision, deep learning, Deng Xiaoping, different worldview, digital map, Donald Trump, energy security, European colonialism, eurozone crisis, failed state, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, gentrification, geopolitical risk, global value chain, illegal immigration, intermodal, iterative process, land reform, liberal world order, Malacca Straits, mass immigration, megacity, middle-income trap, open borders, Parag Khanna, savings glut, scientific worldview, Silicon Valley, South China Sea, speech recognition, Suez canal 1869, The Brussels Effect, trade liberalization, trade route, Transnistria, young professional, zero-sum game, éminence grise

Transport and communication networks are no doubt a precondition for the development of global value chains, but the crucial element is the set of industrial policy decisions by which different countries strive to move into new chains or new segments within an already occupied value chain. In order to avoid getting trapped in a middle-income trap – a situation in which a country becomes stuck with its previous growth model after attaining a certain level of income – and speed up the process of moving into higher-value segments, China wants its industrial policy to be sufficiently articulated with those countries occupying other segments and chains.

Reimagining Capitalism in a World on Fire by Rebecca Henderson

"Friedman doctrine" OR "shareholder theory", Airbnb, asset allocation, behavioural economics, benefit corporation, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, business climate, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, carbon footprint, carbon tax, circular economy, collaborative economy, collective bargaining, commoditize, corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, crony capitalism, dark matter, decarbonisation, disruptive innovation, double entry bookkeeping, Elon Musk, Erik Brynjolfsson, export processing zone, Exxon Valdez, Fall of the Berlin Wall, family office, fixed income, George Akerlof, Gini coefficient, global supply chain, greed is good, Greta Thunberg, growth hacking, Hans Rosling, Howard Zinn, Hyman Minsky, impact investing, income inequality, independent contractor, index fund, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), joint-stock company, Kickstarter, Lyft, Marc Benioff, Mark Zuckerberg, Max Levchin, means of production, meta-analysis, microcredit, middle-income trap, Minsky moment, mittelstand, Mont Pelerin Society, Neil Armstrong, Nelson Mandela, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, Paris climate accords, passive investing, Paul Samuelson, Philip Mirowski, plant based meat, profit maximization, race to the bottom, ride hailing / ride sharing, Ronald Reagan, Rosa Parks, Salesforce, scientific management, Second Machine Age, shareholder value, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, Snapchat, sovereign wealth fund, Steven Pinker, stocks for the long run, Tim Cook: Apple, total factor productivity, Toyota Production System, uber lyft, urban planning, Washington Consensus, WeWork, working-age population, Zipcar

World Economic Forum, Feb. 12, 2015, www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/02/are-family-firms-damaging-europes-growth/ and the stream of work by Nicholas Bloom and his collaborators referenced above. For more on the governance of family firms and their role in shaping the broader economy see Randall K. Morck, ed., A History of Corporate Governance Around the World (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2005) and Richard F. Doner and Ben Ross Schneiderm “The Middle-Income Trap: More Politics Than Economics,” World Politics 68, no. 4 (2016): 608–644. 50. Robert S. Harris, Tim Jenkinson, and Steven N. Kaplan, “How Do Private Equity Investments Perform Compared to Public Equity?” Journal of Investment Management 14 no. 3 (2016): 1–24; Robert S. Harris, Tim Jenkinson, and Steven N.

MegaThreats: Ten Dangerous Trends That Imperil Our Future, and How to Survive Them by Nouriel Roubini

"World Economic Forum" Davos, 2021 United States Capitol attack, 3D printing, 9 dash line, AI winter, AlphaGo, artificial general intelligence, asset allocation, assortative mating, autonomous vehicles, bank run, banking crisis, basic income, Bear Stearns, Big Tech, bitcoin, Bletchley Park, blockchain, Boston Dynamics, Bretton Woods, British Empire, business cycle, business process, call centre, carbon tax, Carmen Reinhart, cashless society, central bank independence, collateralized debt obligation, Computing Machinery and Intelligence, coronavirus, COVID-19, creative destruction, credit crunch, crony capitalism, cryptocurrency, currency manipulation / currency intervention, currency peg, data is the new oil, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, debt deflation, decarbonisation, deep learning, DeepMind, deglobalization, Demis Hassabis, democratizing finance, Deng Xiaoping, disintermediation, Dogecoin, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, en.wikipedia.org, energy security, energy transition, Erik Brynjolfsson, Ethereum, ethereum blockchain, eurozone crisis, failed state, fake news, family office, fiat currency, financial deregulation, financial innovation, financial repression, fixed income, floating exchange rates, forward guidance, Fractional reserve banking, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, full employment, future of work, game design, geopolitical risk, George Santayana, Gini coefficient, global pandemic, global reserve currency, global supply chain, GPS: selective availability, green transition, Greensill Capital, Greenspan put, Herbert Marcuse, high-speed rail, Hyman Minsky, income inequality, inflation targeting, initial coin offering, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Internet of things, invention of movable type, Isaac Newton, job automation, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, junk bonds, Kenneth Rogoff, knowledge worker, Long Term Capital Management, low interest rates, low skilled workers, low-wage service sector, M-Pesa, margin call, market bubble, Martin Wolf, mass immigration, means of production, meme stock, Michael Milken, middle-income trap, Mikhail Gorbachev, Minsky moment, Modern Monetary Theory, money market fund, money: store of value / unit of account / medium of exchange, moral hazard, mortgage debt, Mustafa Suleyman, Nash equilibrium, natural language processing, negative equity, Nick Bostrom, non-fungible token, non-tariff barriers, ocean acidification, oil shale / tar sands, oil shock, paradox of thrift, pets.com, Phillips curve, planetary scale, Ponzi scheme, precariat, price mechanism, price stability, public intellectual, purchasing power parity, quantitative easing, race to the bottom, Ralph Waldo Emerson, ransomware, Ray Kurzweil, regulatory arbitrage, reserve currency, reshoring, Robert Shiller, Ronald Reagan, Salesforce, Satoshi Nakamoto, Savings and loan crisis, Second Machine Age, short selling, Silicon Valley, smart contracts, South China Sea, sovereign wealth fund, Stephen Hawking, TED Talk, The Great Moderation, the payments system, Thomas L Friedman, TikTok, too big to fail, Turing test, universal basic income, War on Poverty, warehouse robotics, Washington Consensus, Watson beat the top human players on Jeopardy!, working-age population, Yogi Berra, Yom Kippur War, zero-sum game, zoonotic diseases

China is still growing at about 4-5 percent, more than twice the rate of growth by the United States (except for 2021). China will become the largest economy in the world, there’s no doubt about that—it’s only a question of when. As China transitions from low income to middle income and from there possibly to high income and thus avoids the “middle income trap,” it will become increasingly innovative in technology. China is economically dynamic, especially in industries for the future. We may not like their state capitalist model but guess what: it has worked so far even if at the cost of creating some economic inefficiencies. Americans must adjust their mindset.

Postcapitalism: A Guide to Our Future by Paul Mason

air traffic controllers' union, Alan Greenspan, Alfred Russel Wallace, bank run, banking crisis, banks create money, Basel III, basic income, Bernie Madoff, Bill Gates: Altair 8800, bitcoin, Bletchley Park, Branko Milanovic, Bretton Woods, BRICs, British Empire, business cycle, business process, butterfly effect, call centre, capital controls, carbon tax, Cesare Marchetti: Marchetti’s constant, Claude Shannon: information theory, collaborative economy, collective bargaining, commons-based peer production, Corn Laws, corporate social responsibility, creative destruction, credit crunch, currency manipulation / currency intervention, currency peg, David Graeber, deglobalization, deindustrialization, deskilling, discovery of the americas, disinformation, Downton Abbey, drone strike, en.wikipedia.org, energy security, eurozone crisis, factory automation, false flag, financial engineering, financial repression, Firefox, Fractional reserve banking, Frederick Winslow Taylor, fulfillment center, full employment, future of work, game design, Glass-Steagall Act, green new deal, guns versus butter model, Herbert Marcuse, income inequality, inflation targeting, informal economy, information asymmetry, intangible asset, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Internet of things, job automation, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, John Perry Barlow, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Arrow, Kevin Kelly, Kickstarter, knowledge economy, knowledge worker, late capitalism, low interest rates, low skilled workers, market clearing, means of production, Metcalfe's law, microservices, middle-income trap, Money creation, money: store of value / unit of account / medium of exchange, mortgage debt, Network effects, new economy, Nixon triggered the end of the Bretton Woods system, Norbert Wiener, Occupy movement, oil shale / tar sands, oil shock, Paul Samuelson, payday loans, Pearl River Delta, post-industrial society, power law, precariat, precautionary principle, price mechanism, profit motive, quantitative easing, race to the bottom, RAND corporation, rent-seeking, reserve currency, RFID, Richard Stallman, Robert Gordon, Robert Metcalfe, scientific management, secular stagnation, sharing economy, Stewart Brand, structural adjustment programs, supply-chain management, technological determinism, The Future of Employment, the scientific method, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Transnistria, Twitter Arab Spring, union organizing, universal basic income, urban decay, urban planning, vertical integration, Vilfredo Pareto, wages for housework, WikiLeaks, women in the workforce, Yochai Benkler

In the cities, many will join the world’s slum-dwelling population, which already stands at a billion – and increasing numbers will attempt illegal migration to the rich world.20 The World Bank economist Branko Milanovic, surveying the huge and growing inequality in developing countries, calls this a ‘non-Marxian world’ in which location, not class, is responsible for two-thirds of all inequality.’21 His conclusion: ‘either poor countries will become richer or poor people will migrate to rich countries’. But for poor countries to become richer, they must break out of the so-called ‘middle-income trap’ – where countries typically develop to a certain point and then stall; both because they have to compete with the old imperial powers and because their corrupt elites strangle the emergence of functional modern institutions. Only thirteen countries out of 100 labelled ‘middle-income’ in 1960 had become high-income by 2012.

Billion Dollar Whale: The Man Who Fooled Wall Street, Hollywood, and the World by Tom Wright, Bradley Hope

"World Economic Forum" Davos, Asian financial crisis, Bear Stearns, Bernie Madoff, Boeing 747, collapse of Lehman Brothers, colonial rule, corporate social responsibility, Credit Default Swap, Donald Trump, failed state, family office, financial engineering, forensic accounting, Frank Gehry, Global Witness, high net worth, junk bonds, low interest rates, Michael Milken, middle-income trap, Nick Leeson, offshore financial centre, Oscar Wyatt, Ponzi scheme, Right to Buy, risk tolerance, Savings and loan crisis, Snapchat, South China Sea, sovereign wealth fund, Virgin Galactic

Prime Minister Najib boasted the country would attain developed-world living standards by 2020. But the leaders of the country, as they enriched themselves, were failing to achieve this. With national income of $10,000 per person, a fifth of the United States’s level, Malaysia was stuck in the middle-income trap, no longer poor but not yet rich. In an earlier era, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan had reached developed-world status. Now, rampant corruption was condemning Malaysia, as well as Brazil, Russia, and a number of other nations, to mediocrity. But the elite—and those serving them—continued to thrive.

A Small Farm Future: Making the Case for a Society Built Around Local Economies, Self-Provisioning, Agricultural Diversity and a Shared Earth by Chris Smaje

agricultural Revolution, Airbnb, Alfred Russel Wallace, back-to-the-land, barriers to entry, biodiversity loss, Black Lives Matter, Boris Johnson, carbon footprint, circular economy, clean water, climate change refugee, collaborative consumption, Corn Laws, COVID-19, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, decarbonisation, degrowth, deindustrialization, dematerialisation, demographic transition, Deng Xiaoping, Donald Trump, energy transition, European colonialism, Extinction Rebellion, failed state, fake news, financial deregulation, financial independence, Food sovereignty, Ford Model T, future of work, Gail Bradbrook, garden city movement, Garrett Hardin, gentrification, global pandemic, Great Leap Forward, green new deal, Hans Rosling, hive mind, intentional community, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), invisible hand, Jevons paradox, land reform, mass immigration, megacity, middle-income trap, Murray Bookchin, Naomi Klein, Peace of Westphalia, peak oil, post-industrial society, precariat, profit maximization, profit motive, rent-seeking, rewilding, Rutger Bregman, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley billionaire, Steven Pinker, Stewart Brand, Ted Nordhaus, the scientific method, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Tragedy of the Commons, transaction costs, vertical integration, Washington Consensus, Wolfgang Streeck, zero-sum game

Eastern Europe did better once it quit being a dependent periphery of the Soviet Union, and better still once it attached itself to Group 1 by becoming a dependent periphery of the European Union (bear in mind that Figure 1.2 makes convergence look greater than it truly is because I’ve distinguished the Eastern European countries as a separate group, despite their small populations). The high-growth Asian countries of Group 4 are pulling away from the large pack of Group 5 countries to which they once belonged and may someday match the richer groups if they can avoid the ‘middle-income trap’, though they have a long way to go to reach the level of Group 1. So arguably there’s a slight geographic drift in global economic power away from the northwest and towards the southeast. But more than a ‘great convergence’, the data in Figure 1.2 seem suggestive of a ‘great persistence’ or even a ‘great augmentation’ of inequalities grounded historically in the colonial and world system dynamics of the capitalist political economy.

What Would the Great Economists Do?: How Twelve Brilliant Minds Would Solve Today's Biggest Problems by Linda Yueh

3D printing, additive manufacturing, Asian financial crisis, augmented reality, bank run, banking crisis, basic income, Bear Stearns, Ben Bernanke: helicopter money, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, bike sharing, bitcoin, Branko Milanovic, Bretton Woods, BRICs, business cycle, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, clean water, collective bargaining, computer age, Corn Laws, creative destruction, credit crunch, Credit Default Swap, cryptocurrency, currency peg, dark matter, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, debt deflation, declining real wages, deindustrialization, Deng Xiaoping, Doha Development Round, Donald Trump, endogenous growth, everywhere but in the productivity statistics, export processing zone, Fall of the Berlin Wall, fear of failure, financial deregulation, financial engineering, financial innovation, Financial Instability Hypothesis, fixed income, forward guidance, full employment, general purpose technology, Gini coefficient, Glass-Steagall Act, global supply chain, Great Leap Forward, Gunnar Myrdal, Hyman Minsky, income inequality, index card, indoor plumbing, industrial robot, information asymmetry, intangible asset, invisible hand, job automation, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, joint-stock company, Joseph Schumpeter, laissez-faire capitalism, land reform, lateral thinking, life extension, low interest rates, low-wage service sector, manufacturing employment, market bubble, means of production, middle-income trap, mittelstand, Money creation, Mont Pelerin Society, moral hazard, mortgage debt, negative equity, Nelson Mandela, non-tariff barriers, Northern Rock, Occupy movement, oil shale / tar sands, open economy, paradox of thrift, Paul Samuelson, price mechanism, price stability, Productivity paradox, purchasing power parity, quantitative easing, RAND corporation, rent control, rent-seeking, reserve currency, reshoring, road to serfdom, Robert Shiller, Robert Solow, Ronald Coase, Ronald Reagan, school vouchers, secular stagnation, Shenzhen was a fishing village, Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, special economic zone, Steve Jobs, technological determinism, The Chicago School, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, too big to fail, total factor productivity, trade liberalization, universal basic income, unorthodox policies, Washington Consensus, We are the 99%, women in the workforce, working-age population

This is why there is so much focus on a country’s foreign exchange reserves, so that vulnerable economies can show that they possess foreign currency sufficient to pay for their imports and debt and are less affected by currency and capital movements. Such crises can derail economic growth for years. A currency or financial crisis can and has prevented emerging economies from becoming rich, since an extended period of growth is a necessary trait of the countries that have overcome the middle-income trap discussed earlier. South Korea and Taiwan both grew strongly for over two decades, for example. If developing countries can grow for sustained periods, not only would poverty end in those countries, but also they might even be propelled into the ranks of the rich. When it comes to sustained high growth rates, there is another concern.

The Great Economists: How Their Ideas Can Help Us Today by Linda Yueh

3D printing, additive manufacturing, Asian financial crisis, augmented reality, bank run, banking crisis, basic income, Bear Stearns, Ben Bernanke: helicopter money, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, bike sharing, bitcoin, Branko Milanovic, Bretton Woods, BRICs, business cycle, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, clean water, collective bargaining, computer age, Corn Laws, creative destruction, credit crunch, Credit Default Swap, cryptocurrency, currency peg, dark matter, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, debt deflation, declining real wages, deindustrialization, Deng Xiaoping, Doha Development Round, Donald Trump, endogenous growth, everywhere but in the productivity statistics, export processing zone, Fall of the Berlin Wall, fear of failure, financial deregulation, financial engineering, financial innovation, Financial Instability Hypothesis, fixed income, forward guidance, full employment, general purpose technology, Gini coefficient, Glass-Steagall Act, global supply chain, Great Leap Forward, Gunnar Myrdal, Hyman Minsky, income inequality, index card, indoor plumbing, industrial robot, information asymmetry, intangible asset, invisible hand, job automation, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, joint-stock company, Joseph Schumpeter, laissez-faire capitalism, land reform, lateral thinking, life extension, low interest rates, manufacturing employment, market bubble, means of production, middle-income trap, mittelstand, Money creation, Mont Pelerin Society, moral hazard, mortgage debt, negative equity, Nelson Mandela, non-tariff barriers, Northern Rock, Occupy movement, oil shale / tar sands, open economy, paradox of thrift, Paul Samuelson, price mechanism, price stability, Productivity paradox, purchasing power parity, quantitative easing, RAND corporation, rent control, rent-seeking, reserve currency, reshoring, road to serfdom, Robert Shiller, Robert Solow, Ronald Coase, Ronald Reagan, school vouchers, secular stagnation, Shenzhen was a fishing village, Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, special economic zone, Steve Jobs, technological determinism, The Chicago School, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, too big to fail, total factor productivity, trade liberalization, universal basic income, unorthodox policies, Washington Consensus, We are the 99%, women in the workforce, working-age population

This is why there is so much focus on a country’s foreign exchange reserves, so that vulnerable economies can show that they possess foreign currency sufficient to pay for their imports and debt and are less affected by currency and capital movements. Such crises can derail economic growth for years. A currency or financial crisis can and has prevented emerging economies from becoming rich, since an extended period of growth is a necessary trait of the countries that have overcome the middle-income trap discussed earlier. South Korea and Taiwan both grew strongly for over two decades, for example. If developing countries can grow for sustained periods, not only would poverty end in those countries, but also they might even be propelled into the ranks of the rich. When it comes to sustained high growth rates, there is another concern.

The Innovation Illusion: How So Little Is Created by So Many Working So Hard by Fredrik Erixon, Bjorn Weigel

Airbnb, Alan Greenspan, Albert Einstein, American ideology, asset allocation, autonomous vehicles, barriers to entry, Basel III, Bernie Madoff, bitcoin, Black Swan, blockchain, Blue Ocean Strategy, BRICs, Burning Man, business cycle, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, Cass Sunstein, classic study, Clayton Christensen, Colonization of Mars, commoditize, commodity super cycle, corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, creative destruction, crony capitalism, dark matter, David Graeber, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, discounted cash flows, distributed ledger, Donald Trump, Dr. Strangelove, driverless car, Elon Musk, Erik Brynjolfsson, Fairchild Semiconductor, fear of failure, financial engineering, first square of the chessboard / second half of the chessboard, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, general purpose technology, George Gilder, global supply chain, global value chain, Google Glasses, Google X / Alphabet X, Gordon Gekko, Greenspan put, Herman Kahn, high net worth, hiring and firing, hockey-stick growth, Hyman Minsky, income inequality, income per capita, index fund, industrial robot, Internet of things, Jeff Bezos, job automation, job satisfaction, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, joint-stock company, Joseph Schumpeter, Just-in-time delivery, Kevin Kelly, knowledge economy, laissez-faire capitalism, low interest rates, Lyft, manufacturing employment, Mark Zuckerberg, market design, Martin Wolf, mass affluent, means of production, middle-income trap, Mont Pelerin Society, Network effects, new economy, offshore financial centre, pensions crisis, Peter Thiel, Potemkin village, precautionary principle, price mechanism, principal–agent problem, Productivity paradox, QWERTY keyboard, RAND corporation, Ray Kurzweil, rent-seeking, risk tolerance, risk/return, Robert Gordon, Robert Solow, Ronald Coase, Ronald Reagan, savings glut, Second Machine Age, secular stagnation, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, Skype, sovereign wealth fund, Steve Ballmer, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, subprime mortgage crisis, technological determinism, technological singularity, TED Talk, telemarketer, The Chicago School, The Future of Employment, The Nature of the Firm, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, too big to fail, total factor productivity, transaction costs, transportation-network company, tulip mania, Tyler Cowen, Tyler Cowen: Great Stagnation, uber lyft, University of East Anglia, unpaid internship, Vanguard fund, vertical integration, Yogi Berra

At http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/03/nokia-reinvention/. Luttwak, Edward, Turbo-capitalism: Winners and Losers in the Global Economy. Harper-Collins, 1999. Maddison, Angus, “Confessions of a Chiffrephile.” PSL Quarterly Review, 47.189 (1994). Magnus, George, “Hitting a BRIC Wall: The Risk of the Middle-Income Trap.” UBS Investment Research, Jan. 21, 2013. Magnus, George, The Age of Aging: How Demographics Are Changing the Global Economy and Our World. Wiley, 2012. Mahbubani, Kishore, “The Case Against the West.” Foreign Affairs, May 3, 2008. At https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/asia/2008-05-03/case-against-west.

Destined for War: America, China, and Thucydides's Trap by Graham Allison

9 dash line, anti-communist, Berlin Wall, borderless world, Bretton Woods, British Empire, capital controls, Carmen Reinhart, conceptual framework, cuban missile crisis, currency manipulation / currency intervention, Deng Xiaoping, disruptive innovation, Donald Trump, Dr. Strangelove, escalation ladder, facts on the ground, false flag, Flash crash, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, game design, George Santayana, Great Leap Forward, guns versus butter model, Haber-Bosch Process, Herman Kahn, high-speed rail, industrial robot, Internet of things, Kenneth Rogoff, liberal world order, long peace, Mark Zuckerberg, megacity, megaproject, middle-income trap, Mikhail Gorbachev, Monroe Doctrine, mutually assured destruction, Nelson Mandela, one-China policy, Paul Samuelson, Peace of Westphalia, public intellectual, purchasing power parity, RAND corporation, Ronald Reagan, Scramble for Africa, selection bias, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, South China Sea, special economic zone, spice trade, Suez canal 1869, synthetic biology, TED Talk, the rule of 72, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, too big to fail, trade route, UNCLOS, Washington Consensus, zero-sum game

At its current position on the development spectrum, China needs many more years of high growth rates to catch up to the living standards of the world’s most advanced economies. China’s per capita income is still less than one-third that of South Korea or Spain, and one-fifth that of Singapore or the US. As it steadily moves from the manufacture of basic goods to higher-value products and services, incomes should increase. But Xi is wary of the middle-income trap that has ensnared many developing countries as rising wages erase their competitive edge in manufacturing. This is the impetus for what he calls “supply-side reforms,” which aim to rebalance China’s export-led economy with domestic consumption and services. In fact, China’s service sector grew by 8 percent in 2015, and for the first time accounted for over 50 percent of GDP.49 To reduce inefficiency in state-owned enterprises, Beijing has promised to “ruthlessly bring down the knife on zombie enterprises”—companies that operate despite being technically insolvent—cutting four million jobs in the process.50 Meanwhile, the “Made in China 2025” plan calls for raising the quality and technological sophistication of Chinese products.

The Billionaire Raj: A Journey Through India's New Gilded Age by James Crabtree

"World Economic Forum" Davos, accounting loophole / creative accounting, Asian financial crisis, behavioural economics, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Branko Milanovic, business climate, call centre, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, centre right, colonial rule, commodity super cycle, Cornelius Vanderbilt, corporate raider, creative destruction, crony capitalism, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, Deng Xiaoping, Donald Trump, facts on the ground, failed state, fake news, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, global supply chain, Gunnar Myrdal, income inequality, informal economy, Joseph Schumpeter, land bank, liberal capitalism, Mahatma Gandhi, McMansion, megacity, Meghnad Desai, middle-income trap, New Urbanism, offshore financial centre, open economy, Parag Khanna, Pearl River Delta, plutocrats, Ponzi scheme, post-truth, public intellectual, quantitative easing, rent-seeking, Rubik’s Cube, Shenzhen special economic zone , Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, smart cities, special economic zone, spectrum auction, tech billionaire, The Great Moderation, Thomas L Friedman, transaction costs, trickle-down economics, vertical integration, Washington Consensus, WikiLeaks, yellow journalism, young professional

Perversely, the closer India comes to its ambitions of near-double-digit growth, the faster this will happen. It is unfair to blame these trends on Modi, although he has done little to reverse them. Yet there will be grim consequences if they continue unabated. Those Latin American economies with the widest social divides have proved less economically stable and more likely to get stuck in the “middle-income trap,” in which poorer nations achieve moderate prosperity but fail to become rich.3 The more successful countries of east Asia, by contrast, grew prosperous while managing to stay broadly egalitarian, partly by building basic social safety nets. Of the two models, it seems clear which India should want to follow.

The Future Is Asian by Parag Khanna

3D printing, Admiral Zheng, affirmative action, Airbnb, Amazon Web Services, anti-communist, Asian financial crisis, asset-backed security, augmented reality, autonomous vehicles, Ayatollah Khomeini, barriers to entry, Basel III, bike sharing, birth tourism , blockchain, Boycotts of Israel, Branko Milanovic, British Empire, call centre, capital controls, carbon footprint, cashless society, clean tech, clean water, cloud computing, colonial rule, commodity super cycle, computer vision, connected car, corporate governance, CRISPR, crony capitalism, cross-border payments, currency peg, death from overwork, deindustrialization, Deng Xiaoping, Didi Chuxing, Dissolution of the Soviet Union, Donald Trump, driverless car, dual-use technology, energy security, European colonialism, factory automation, failed state, fake news, falling living standards, family office, financial engineering, fixed income, flex fuel, gig economy, global reserve currency, global supply chain, Great Leap Forward, green transition, haute couture, haute cuisine, illegal immigration, impact investing, income inequality, industrial robot, informal economy, initial coin offering, Internet of things, karōshi / gwarosa / guolaosi, Kevin Kelly, Kickstarter, knowledge worker, light touch regulation, low cost airline, low skilled workers, Lyft, machine translation, Malacca Straits, Marc Benioff, Mark Zuckerberg, Masayoshi Son, megacity, megaproject, middle-income trap, Mikhail Gorbachev, money market fund, Monroe Doctrine, mortgage debt, natural language processing, Netflix Prize, new economy, off grid, oil shale / tar sands, open economy, Parag Khanna, payday loans, Pearl River Delta, prediction markets, purchasing power parity, race to the bottom, RAND corporation, rent-seeking, reserve currency, ride hailing / ride sharing, Ronald Reagan, Salesforce, Scramble for Africa, self-driving car, Shenzhen special economic zone , Silicon Valley, smart cities, SoftBank, South China Sea, sovereign wealth fund, special economic zone, stem cell, Steve Jobs, Steven Pinker, supply-chain management, sustainable-tourism, synthetic biology, systems thinking, tech billionaire, tech worker, trade liberalization, trade route, transaction costs, Travis Kalanick, uber lyft, upwardly mobile, urban planning, Vision Fund, warehouse robotics, Washington Consensus, working-age population, Yom Kippur War

This process is crucial in adjusting the rapid automation of factory labor. Asia’s developing urbanization is evidence of one important strategy for confronting the threat of premature deindustrialization—the theory that not enough high-wage jobs are being created by the services economy to propel countries out of the so-called middle-income trap. But Asian industry is hardly disappearing, either. There may be fewer jobs in industry relative to the size of the labor force than a generation ago, but there are still more than 100 million manufacturing workers across Asia. Countries climbing toward middle-income status such as India and the Philippines are grabbing all possible industrial activity for their workers.

Good Economics for Hard Times: Better Answers to Our Biggest Problems by Abhijit V. Banerjee, Esther Duflo

3D printing, accelerated depreciation, affirmative action, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, air traffic controllers' union, Airbnb, basic income, behavioural economics, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, business cycle, call centre, Cambridge Analytica, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, carbon credits, carbon tax, Cass Sunstein, charter city, company town, congestion pricing, correlation does not imply causation, creative destruction, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, decarbonisation, Deng Xiaoping, Donald Trump, Edward Glaeser, en.wikipedia.org, endowment effect, energy transition, Erik Brynjolfsson, experimental economics, experimental subject, facts on the ground, fake news, fear of failure, financial innovation, flying shuttle, gentrification, George Akerlof, Great Leap Forward, green new deal, high net worth, immigration reform, income inequality, Indoor air pollution, industrial cluster, industrial robot, information asymmetry, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Jane Jacobs, Jean Tirole, Jeff Bezos, job automation, Joseph Schumpeter, junk bonds, Kevin Roose, labor-force participation, land reform, Les Trente Glorieuses, loss aversion, low skilled workers, manufacturing employment, Mark Zuckerberg, mass immigration, middle-income trap, Network effects, new economy, New Urbanism, no-fly zone, non-tariff barriers, obamacare, off-the-grid, offshore financial centre, One Laptop per Child (OLPC), open economy, Paul Samuelson, place-making, post-truth, price stability, profit maximization, purchasing power parity, race to the bottom, RAND corporation, randomized controlled trial, restrictive zoning, Richard Thaler, ride hailing / ride sharing, Robert Gordon, Robert Solow, Ronald Reagan, Savings and loan crisis, school choice, Second Machine Age, secular stagnation, self-driving car, shareholder value, short selling, Silicon Valley, smart meter, social graph, spinning jenny, Steve Jobs, systematic bias, Tax Reform Act of 1986, tech worker, technology bubble, The Chicago School, The Future of Employment, The Market for Lemons, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, total factor productivity, trade liberalization, transaction costs, trickle-down economics, Twitter Arab Spring, universal basic income, urban sprawl, very high income, War on Poverty, women in the workforce, working-age population, Y2K

When China was at the same level of per capita GDP as India is today, it was growing at 12 percent per year, whereas India thinks of 8 percent as something to aspire to. If we were to extrapolate from that, India will plateau at a much lower level of per capita GDP than China. The growth tide does raise all boats, but it doesn’t lift all boats to the same level—many economists worry that there may be such a thing as the middle-income trap, an intermediate-level GDP where countries get stuck or nearly stuck. According to the World Bank, of 101 middle-income economies in 1960, only 13 had become high income by 2008.122 Malaysia, Thailand, Egypt, Mexico, and Peru all seem to have trouble moving up. Of course, there are many pitfalls in any such extrapolation, and India should treat it as what it is: no more than a warning.

The New Map: Energy, Climate, and the Clash of Nations by Daniel Yergin

"RICO laws" OR "Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations", 3D printing, 9 dash line, activist fund / activist shareholder / activist investor, addicted to oil, Admiral Zheng, Albert Einstein, American energy revolution, Asian financial crisis, autonomous vehicles, Ayatollah Khomeini, Bakken shale, Bernie Sanders, BRICs, British Empire, carbon tax, circular economy, clean tech, commodity super cycle, company town, coronavirus, COVID-19, decarbonisation, deep learning, Deng Xiaoping, Didi Chuxing, disruptive innovation, distributed generation, Donald Trump, driverless car, Edward Snowden, Elon Musk, energy security, energy transition, failed state, Ford Model T, geopolitical risk, gig economy, global pandemic, global supply chain, green new deal, Greta Thunberg, hydraulic fracturing, Indoor air pollution, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), inventory management, James Watt: steam engine, John Zimmer (Lyft cofounder), Kickstarter, LNG terminal, Lyft, Malacca Straits, Malcom McLean invented shipping containers, Masayoshi Son, Masdar, mass incarceration, megacity, megaproject, middle-income trap, Mikhail Gorbachev, mutually assured destruction, new economy, off grid, oil rush, oil shale / tar sands, oil shock, open economy, paypal mafia, peak oil, pension reform, power law, price mechanism, purchasing power parity, RAND corporation, rent-seeking, ride hailing / ride sharing, rolling blackouts, Ronald Reagan, Russian election interference, self-driving car, Silicon Valley, smart cities, social distancing, South China Sea, sovereign wealth fund, Suez crisis 1956, super pumped, supply-chain management, TED Talk, trade route, Travis Kalanick, Twitter Arab Spring, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, ubercab, UNCLOS, UNCLOS, uranium enrichment, vertical integration, women in the workforce

Beijing’s “Made in China” 2025 strategy, enunciated in 2017, aims to make China a leader in ten high-tech industries. The Chinese point out that their per capita income is only about one-sixth that of the United States and that it needs to move up the value chain to avoid the stagnation of the “middle income trap.” The goal is also to “catch up” with the United States. In his speech, Pence responded that “the Communist Party” of China could end up “controlling 90 percent of the world’s most advanced industries,” which would enable it “to win the commanding heights of the 21st century economy.”22 The battle over technology has already been joined over 5G connectivity and, specifically, the Chinese company Huawei.

The Alchemists: Three Central Bankers and a World on Fire by Neil Irwin

"World Economic Forum" Davos, Alan Greenspan, Ayatollah Khomeini, bank run, banking crisis, Bear Stearns, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, break the buck, Bretton Woods, business climate, business cycle, capital controls, central bank independence, centre right, collapse of Lehman Brothers, collateralized debt obligation, credit crunch, currency peg, eurozone crisis, financial engineering, financial innovation, Flash crash, foreign exchange controls, George Akerlof, German hyperinflation, Google Earth, hiring and firing, inflation targeting, Isaac Newton, Julian Assange, low cost airline, low interest rates, market bubble, market design, middle-income trap, Money creation, money market fund, moral hazard, mortgage debt, new economy, Nixon triggered the end of the Bretton Woods system, Northern Rock, Paul Samuelson, price stability, public intellectual, quantitative easing, rent control, reserve currency, Robert Shiller, Robert Solow, rolodex, Ronald Reagan, Savings and loan crisis, savings glut, Socratic dialogue, sovereign wealth fund, The Great Moderation, too big to fail, union organizing, WikiLeaks, yield curve, Yom Kippur War

In Zhou’s decade as governor of the Chinese central bank, there was remarkable progress made toward creating a more liberal, market-oriented national financial system. In the early 2000s, China was at a crossroads. It didn’t want to get stuck being merely the factory for the rest of the world and providing only middling wages for its citizens (a situation known as the middle-income trap). A modern financial system would be required to fund the industries of the future and allow China to assert its influence across Asia and the world. The nation’s old system, however, had worked marvelously to bring hundreds of millions of people out of dire poverty since the 1980s. It’s difficult to turn away from a system that’s working, whatever its limitations.

The Long Game: China's Grand Strategy to Displace American Order by Rush Doshi

"World Economic Forum" Davos, American ideology, anti-communist, Asian financial crisis, autonomous vehicles, Black Lives Matter, Bretton Woods, capital controls, coronavirus, COVID-19, crony capitalism, cross-border payments, cryptocurrency, defense in depth, deindustrialization, Deng Xiaoping, deplatforming, disinformation, Dissolution of the Soviet Union, Donald Trump, drone strike, energy security, European colonialism, eurozone crisis, financial innovation, George Floyd, global pandemic, global reserve currency, global supply chain, global value chain, Great Leap Forward, high-speed rail, Internet Archive, Internet of things, Kickstarter, kremlinology, Malacca Straits, middle-income trap, Mikhail Gorbachev, MITM: man-in-the-middle, Monroe Doctrine, Network effects, Nixon triggered the end of the Bretton Woods system, offshore financial centre, positional goods, post-truth, purchasing power parity, RAND corporation, reserve currency, rolodex, Ronald Reagan, South China Sea, special drawing rights, special economic zone, TikTok, trade liberalization, transaction costs, UNCLOS, UNCLOS, undersea cable, zero-sum game

And when those payments are combined with mandatory non-discretionary spending, a large and growing share of GDP that is difficult to adjust through public policy, the fiscal space for strategic competition shrinks further. It is true that China faces disadvantages—a demographic slowdown, the middle-income trap, high levels of public debt, a problematic financial system—and that the openness of the US system buttresses the dollar’s dominance and enables Washington to raise significant resources in debt markets. But overall, while the United States remains a large, young, and growing country, it is still a smaller one than China, and one that faces democratic limits on resource mobilization for long-term competition as well as significant fiscal headwinds.