Prospects for global economic convergence under new Technologies by Dani Rodrik published by Brookings Institution’s Global Forum on Democracy and Technology in the report An inclusive future? technology, new dynamics, and policy challenges edited by Zia Qureshi (5/2022).
“Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, developing countries appeared to be generally on a converging path with income levels in the wealthiest countries. The good news on economic performance seemed to extend beyond the East Asian growth miracles and the phenomenal Chinese poverty reduction experience. Many nations in South Asia, Latin America, and, notably, sub-Saharan Africa witnessed growth spurts in the 1990s or early 2000s. For the first time since the end of World War II, developing nations as a group were growing more rapidly than the advanced nations (Figure 1). The evidence pointed to the presence of a robust, if slow, process of what economists call “unconditional convergence,” meaning that there was a systematic tendency for lower-income countries to grow more rapidly than richer economies regardless of their policies, institutions, or geographic circumstances (i.e., unconditionally)…”
