Growth: The south will rise | The Economist
Extrapolation is a tricky business, and perhaps it is likely that Chinas growth rates will slow to levels characteristic of richer nations before it actually passes the American economy. But as far as I can tell, the trajectories Mr Kedrosky calls unlikely are unlikely only in the sense that they lead to a different rank ordering of nations than the current one. Fifty years ago, a similar exercise that included Japan as the second largest economy, as it was until just recently, would probably have seemed just as absurd.
We can put things a different way. Is it realistic that Chinese per capita income will approach the levels seen in Malaysia and Mexico within the next 15 years that is, a level of wealth equivalent to about half that in South Korea? If you think the answer is yes, then you think China will catch America over that time period.
Or to put things another way still: shouldnt we expect a rank ordering of countries by wealth to converge toward a rank ordering of countries by population over time? Obviously, this happens in fits and starts and is occasionally interrupted by episodes of what Lant Pritchett called “Divergence, Big Time”. But the set of countries that have found a way to embark on sustained catch-up growth toward rich world levels continues to grow. Not all of the economies currently enjoying rapid growth will maintain their pace until convergence is largely complete, but many of them will.