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The middle income trap is an economic development situation in which a country that attains a certain income (due to given advantages) gets stuck at that level. [1] The term was introduced by the World Bank in 2007 and is defined by them as the 'middle-income range' countries with gross national product per capita that has remained between $1,000 to $12,000 at constant (2011) prices. [2]
The term was coined by economists Indermit Gill and Homi Kharas in 2007 when they were working on the ground strategies for Eastern Asian economics in the World Bank report "An East Asian Renaissance: Ideas for Economic Growth". [3]
According to the concept, a country in the middle-income trap has lost its competitive edge in the export of manufactured goods due to rising wages, but is unable to keep up with more developed economies in the high-value-added market. As a result, newly industrialized economies such as South Africa and Brazil have not, for decades, left what the World Bank defines as the 'middle-income range' since their per capita gross national product has remained between $1,000 to $12,000 at constant (2011) prices. [1] They suffer from low investment, slow growth in the secondary sector of the economy, limited industrial diversification and poor labor market conditions and increasingly, aging populations. [4]
Sociologist Salvatore Babones and Political scientist Hartmut Elsenhans call the middle-income trap a "political trap" as economic methods to overcome it exist. However, few countries use them because of their political situation. They trace the causes of the trap to the structural problems and the inequalities generated in the early development process. According to them, the wealthy elites then follow their interests by bargaining for a strong currency which shifts the economy's structure towards the consumption of luxury goods and low-wage labor laws, which prevents the rise of mass consumption and mass income. They argue that countries can escape the middle-income trap by investing in physical and human infrastructure, enforcing social policies like higher minimum wages, and having a weak currency that makes exports competitive and stimulates domestic employment. [5] [6]
According to Asian Development Bank, avoiding the middle-income trap requires identifying strategies to introduce new processes and find new markets to maintain export growth. It is also essential to increase domestic demand because an expanding middle class can use its increasing purchasing power to buy high-quality, innovative products and help drive growth. [7] The biggest challenge is moving from resource-driven growth based on cheap labor and cheap capital to high productivity and innovation, which requires investments in infrastructure and education—building a high-quality education system that encourages creativity and supports breakthroughs in science and technology that can be applied back into the economy. [8]
From 1960 to 2010, only 15 out of 101 middle-income economies escaped the middle income trap, including Japan and the Four Asian Tigers: Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan. Diversifying exports is also considered important to escape the middle income trap. [9]
Significant debates exist regarding the empirical validity of the “middle-income trap.” [10]
Other economists either find that there is no middle income trap [11] or claim that debates about a “middle-income trap” appear anachronistic: middle-income countries have exhibited higher growth rates than all others since the mid-1980s. [12]
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is a regional development bank established on 19 December 1966, which is headquartered in the Ortigas Center located in the city of Mandaluyong, Metro Manila, Philippines. The bank also maintains 31 field offices around the world to promote social and economic development in Asia. The bank admits the members of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific and non-regional developed countries. From 31 members at its establishment, ADB now has 68 members.
In ancient times, Maldives were renowned for cowries, coir rope, dried tuna fish, ambergris (maavaharu) and coco de mer (tavakkaashi). Local and foreign trading ships used to load these products in the Maldives and bring them abroad.
The economy of Taiwan is a highly developed market economy. It is the 8th largest in Asia and 20th-largest in the world by purchasing power parity, allowing Taiwan to be included in the advanced economies group by the International Monetary Fund. It is gauged in the high-income economies group by the World Bank. Taiwan is one of the most technologically advanced computer microchip makers in the world.
The Four Asian Tigers are the developed East Asian economies of Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan. Between the early 1950s and 1990s, they underwent rapid industrialization and maintained exceptionally high growth rates of more than 7 percent a year.
The category of newly industrialized country (NIC), newly industrialized economy (NIE) or middle income country is a socioeconomic classification applied to several countries around the world by political scientists and economists. They represent a subset of developing countries whose economic growth is much higher than other developing countries; and where the social consequences of industrialization, such as urbanization, are reorganizing society.
The middle class refers to a class of people in the middle of a social hierarchy, often defined by occupation, income, education, or social status. The term has historically been associated with modernity, capitalism and political debate. Common definitions for the middle class range from the middle fifth of individuals on a nation's income ladder, to everyone but the poorest and wealthiest 20%. Theories like "Paradox of Interest" use decile groups and wealth distribution data to determine the size and wealth share of the middle class.
The economy of Africa consists of the trade, industry, agriculture, and human resources of the continent. As of 2019, approximately 1.3 billion people were living in 54 countries in Africa. Africa is a resource-rich continent. Recent growth has been due to growth in sales, commodities, services, and manufacturing. West Africa, East Africa, Central Africa and Southern Africa in particular, are expected to reach a combined GDP of $29 trillion by 2050.
BRIC is a grouping acronym referring to the developing countries of Brazil, Russia, India, and China, which are identified as rising economic powers. It is typically rendered as "the BRIC," "the BRIC countries," "the BRIC economies," or alternatively as the "Big Four." The name has since been changed to BRICS after the addition of South Africa in 2010.
The economy of India has transitioned from a mixed planned economy to a mixed middle-income developing social market economy with notable state participation in strategic sectors. It is the world's fifth-largest economy by nominal GDP and the third-largest by purchasing power parity (PPP). According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), on a per capita income basis, India ranked 139th by GDP (nominal) and 127th by GDP (PPP). From independence in 1947 until 1991, successive governments followed Soviet style planned economy and promoted protectionist economic policies, with extensive state intervention and economic regulation. This is characterised as dirigism, in the form of the Licence Raj. The end of the Cold War and an acute balance of payments crisis in 1991 led to the adoption of a broad economic liberalisation in India. Since the start of the 21st century, annual average GDP growth has been 6% to 7%. The economy of the Indian subcontinent was the largest in the world for most of recorded history up until the onset of colonialism in early 19th century. India account for 7.2% of global economy in 2022 in PPP terms, and around 3.4% in nominal terms in 2022.
The economy of the Middle East is very diverse, with national economies ranging from hydrocarbon-exporting rentiers to centralized socialist economies and free-market economies. The region is best known for oil production and export, which significantly impacts the entire region through the wealth it generates and through labor utilization. In recent years, many of the countries in the region have undertaken efforts to diversify their economies.
The Tiger Cub Economies collectively refer to the economies of the developing countries of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam, the five dominant countries in Southeast Asia.
The Chinese Century is a neologism suggesting that the 21st century may be geoeconomically or geopolitically dominated by the People's Republic of China, similar to how the "American Century" refers to the 20th century and the "British Centuries" to the 18th and 19th. The phrase is used particularly in association with the prediction that the economy of China may overtake the economy of the United States to be the largest in the world. A similar term is China's rise or rise of China.
The economy of East Asia comprises 1.6 billion people living in six different countries and regions. The region includes several of the world's largest and most prosperous economies: Japan, South Korea, Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau. It is home to some of the most economically dynamic places in the world, being the site of some of the world's most extended modern economic booms, including the Japanese economic miracle (1950–1990), Miracle on the Han River (1961–1996) in South Korea, the Taiwan miracle in Taiwan (1960–1996) and the Chinese economic miracle (1978–2015) in Mainland China.
VISTA is an acronym for Vietnam, Indonesia, South Africa, Turkey, Argentina, used in economics in grouping and discussing emerging markets. The concept was first proposed in 2006 by BRICs Economic Research Institute of Japan, but has not been significantly popularised in the academic and business world. This has led to economic experts proposing different definitions and implications of VISTA. While some see the economic potential of these emerging economies as individually promising, others challenge that the concept of economic acronyms is limiting as the countries' social and development factors are usually not taken into account. For investors, VISTA has been considered as an opportunity to enter into a newly–emerging market, particularly following the post-BRICS era.
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The Chinese economic reform or Chinese economic miracle, also known domestically as Reform and Opening-up refers to a variety of economic reforms termed "socialism with Chinese characteristics" and "socialist market economy" in the People's Republic of China (PRC) that began in the late 20th century. Guided by Deng Xiaoping, who is often credited as the "General Architect", the reforms were launched by reformists within the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on December 18, 1978, during the "Boluan Fanzheng" period. The reforms briefly went into stagnation after the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, but were revived after Deng Xiaoping's southern tour in 1992. The reforms led to significant economic growth for China within the successive decades; in 2010, China overtook Japan as the world's second-largest economy by nominal GDP and in the 2010s became the world's largest economy by GDP (PPP).
3G countries or Global Growth Generating countries are 11 countries which have been identified as sources of growth potential and of profitable investment opportunities.
MINT is an acronym referring to the economies of Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Turkey. The term was originally coined in 2014 by Fidelity Investments, a Boston-based asset management firm, and was popularized by Jim O'Neill of Goldman Sachs, who had created the term BRIC. The term is primarily used in the economic and financial spheres as well as in academia. Its usage has grown specially in the investment sector, where it is used to refer to the bonds issued by these governments. These four countries are also part of the "Next Eleven".
Salvatore Jason Babones is an American sociologist, and an associate professor at the University of Sydney.
Ajmal Ahmady is an Afghan-American economist and politician who formerly served as the Acting Governor of the Central Bank of Afghanistan, Da Afghanistan Bank, the Acting Minister of Commerce and Industry of Afghanistan, the Senior Economic Advisor to the President of Afghanistan, and represented Afghanistan on the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) natural gas pipeline.
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