Ethiopia: Catching Up At Different Speeds

With weak demand in advanced countries now impeding growth in emerging economies, including major players in Asia and Latin America, many are arguing that the era of income convergence has come to an end. Nothing could be further from the truth.

As I have argued before, convergence of emerging countries' real average incomes, in the aggregate, with advanced countries' incomes is likely to continue into the 2020's. That process started in the late 1980's, and continued unabated, except in the years around the Asian financial crisis in 1997-1998. The pace of convergence accelerated further during, and just after, the global financial crisis of 2008-2009: the aggregate average differential in per capita income growth increased to more than four percentage points in the 2008-2012 period, from a little more than two percentage points in the two decades before. As the advanced economies recover, however weakly, the growth differential is likely to narrow again, perhaps to about two percentage points, which still implies steady convergence at a decent pace.

...

AllAfrica publishes around 400 reports a day from more than 100 news organizations and over 500 other institutions and individuals, representing a diversity of positions on every topic. We publish news and views ranging from vigorous opponents of governments to government publications and spokespersons. Publishers named above each report are responsible for their own content, which AllAfrica does not have the legal right to edit or correct.

Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica. To address comments or complaints, please Contact us.