Growth & Convergence

The question

Why have some poor countries caught up to the rich-world frontier since 1950 (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, China, parts of Eastern Europe) while others have stagnated or fallen further behind (much of sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, the Middle East)? Is convergence the rule or the exception in modern growth?

Status

Planned. This debate is the modern-period analog of the Great Divergence — the same explanatory question, but for the post-1950 catch-up era when growth theory and detailed national accounts are both available. It is the central debate of development economics.

Lead figures and frameworks will include Solow / Swan (the original convergence prediction); Robert Barro (the empirical convergence-regression literature); Lant Pritchett (“Divergence, Big Time”); Dani Rodrik (heterogeneity and growth diagnostics); Acemoglu & Robinson (institutions, again); Justin Lin (new structural economics); Branko Milanović (global inequality decompositions); and the recent literature on the “middle-income trap.” Recurring positions: unconditional vs. conditional convergence; growth as a function of factor accumulation vs. TFP vs. institutions; the role of industrial policy and state-led development; the “China question” as exception or paradigm.

This page will be filled in following the Industrial Revolution template once that slice has been pressure-tested. See the Industrial Revolution debate for the position-mapping convention.