IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/jecsur/v31y2017i3p771-791.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Caught In The Middle? The Economics Of Middle-Income Traps

Author

Listed:
  • Pierre-Richard Agénor

Abstract

This paper provides an overview of the recent analytical and empirical literature on middle-income traps. The first part examines the descriptive and statistical evidence on these traps. The second discusses the various arguments that have been put forward to explain the existence, and persistence, of middle-income traps. These arguments include diminishing returns to physical capital, exhaustion of cheap labor and imitation gains, insufficient quality of human capital, inadequate contract enforcement and intellectual property protection, distorted incentives and misallocation of talent, lack of access to advanced infrastructure, and lack of access to finance, especially in the form of venture capital. The third part considers public policies aimed at avoiding, and escaping from, middle-income traps. The concluding part identifies a number of directions in which the empirical and theoretical literature could fruitfully evolve.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Pierre-Richard Agénor, 2017. "Caught In The Middle? The Economics Of Middle-Income Traps," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(3), pages 771-791, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jecsur:v:31:y:2017:i:3:p:771-791
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/joes.2017.31.issue-3
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dinopoulos, Elias & Thompson, Peter, 2000. "Endogenous growth in a cross-section of countries," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 335-362, August.
    2. Philippe Aghion & Diego Comin & Peter Howitt & Isabel Tecu, 2016. "When Does Domestic Savings Matter for Economic Growth?," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 64(3), pages 381-407, August.
    3. Barry Eichengreen & Donghyun Park & Kwanho Shin, 2012. "When Fast-Growing Economies Slow Down: International Evidence and Implications for China," Asian Economic Papers, MIT Press, vol. 11(1), pages 42-87, Winter/Sp.
    4. Cecchetti, Stephen & Kharroubi, Enisse, 2015. "Why does financial sector growth crowd out real economic growth?," CEPR Discussion Papers 10642, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    5. Aiyar, Shekhar & Duval, Romain & Puy, Damien & Wu, Yiqun & Zhang, Longmei, 2018. "Growth slowdowns and the middle-income trap," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 22-37.
    6. Halmai Peter & Vasary Viktoria, 2009. "Economic Growth and Convergence in the European Union," Annals - Economy Series, Constantin Brancusi University, Faculty of Economics, vol. 1, pages 171-188, May.
    7. Fernando Gabriel Im & David Rosenblatt, 2015. "Middle-Income Traps: A Conceptual and Empirical Survey," Journal of International Commerce, Economics and Policy (JICEP), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 6(03), pages 1-39.
    8. Lee, Jong-Wha & Hong, Kiseok, 2012. "Economic growth in Asia: Determinants and prospects," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 101-113.
    9. Lustig, Nora & Lopez-Calva, Luis F. & Ortiz-Juarez, Eduardo, 2013. "Declining Inequality in Latin America in the 2000s: The Cases of Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 129-141.
    10. Gauti B. Eggertsson & Neil R. Mehrotra, 2014. "A Model of Secular Stagnation," NBER Working Papers 20574, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Alexander Chudik & Kamiar Mohaddes & M. Hashem Pesaran & Mehdi Raissi, 2017. "Is There a Debt-Threshold Effect on Output Growth?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 99(1), pages 135-150, March.
    12. Pierre‐Richard Agénor & Barış Alpaslan, 2018. "Infrastructure And Industrial Development With Endogenous Skill Acquisition," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 70(4), pages 313-334, October.
    13. Giovanni Andrea Cornia, 2012. "Inequality Trends and their Determinants: Latin America over 1990-2010," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2012-009, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    14. Yin-Chi Wang & Ping Wang, 2013. "Barriers to Health and the Poverty Trap," NBER Working Papers 19263, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Brown, James R. & Martinsson, Gustav & Petersen, Bruce C., 2012. "Do financing constraints matter for R&D?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(8), pages 1512-1529.
    16. Dani Rodrik, 2016. "Premature deindustrialization," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 21(1), pages 1-33, March.
    17. Commission on Growth and Development, 2008. "The Growth Report : Strategies for Sustained Growth and Inclusive Development," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 6507, December.
    18. Daron Acemoglu & Philippe Aghion & Fabrizio Zilibotti, 2006. "Distance to Frontier, Selection, and Economic Growth," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 4(1), pages 37-74, March.
    19. Philippe Aghion & Peter Howitt, 2009. "The Economics of Growth," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262012634, December.
    20. Perez-Sebastian, Fidel, 2007. "Public support to innovation and imitation in a non-scale growth model," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 31(12), pages 3791-3821, December.
    21. Lant Pritchett & Lawrence H. Summers, 2013. "Asia-phoria meet regression to the mean," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue Nov, pages 1-35.
    22. Redding, Stephen, 1996. "The Low-Skill, Low-Quality Trap: Strategic Complementarities between Human Capital and R&D," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 106(435), pages 458-470, March.
    23. Mary Amiti & Jozef Konings, 2007. "Trade Liberalization, Intermediate Inputs, and Productivity: Evidence from Indonesia," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(5), pages 1611-1638, December.
    24. Indermit Gill & Homi Kharas, 2007. "An East Asian Renaissance : Ideas for Economic Growth," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 6798, December.
    25. Reda Cherif & Fuad Hasanov, 2015. "The Leap of the Tiger: How Malaysia Can Escape the Middle-Income Trap," IMF Working Papers 2015/131, International Monetary Fund.
    26. repec:cup:jfinqa:v:46:y:2011:i:06:p:1545-1580_00 is not listed on IDEAS
    27. Aaron Flaaen & Ejaz Ghani & Saurabh Mishra, 2013. "How to Avoid Middle-Income Traps?," World Bank Publications - Reports 22602, The World Bank Group.
    28. Patrick Guillaumont, 2009. "Caught in a trap. Identifying the least developed countries," Post-Print hal-00436331, HAL.
    29. Mr. Il Houng Lee & Mr. Murtaza H Syed & Mr. Liu Xueyan, 2012. "Is China Over-Investing and Does it Matter?," IMF Working Papers 2012/277, International Monetary Fund.
    30. Jérôme Vandenbussche & Philippe Aghion & Costas Meghir, 2006. "Growth, distance to frontier and composition of human capital," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 11(2), pages 97-127, June.
    31. Pinelopi Koujianou Goldberg & Amit Kumar Khandelwal & Nina Pavcnik & Petia Topalova, 2010. "Imported Intermediate Inputs and Domestic Product Growth: Evidence from India," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(4), pages 1727-1767.
    32. Iwaisako, Tatsuro, 2002. "Technology choice and patterns of growth in an overlapping generations model," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 211-231, June.
    33. Canuto, Otaviano & Dutz, Mark & Reis, José Guilherme, 2010. "Technological Learning and Innovation: Climbing a Tall Ladder," World Bank - Economic Premise, The World Bank, issue 21, pages 1-8, July.
    34. Bénassy, Jean-Pascal & Brezis, Elise S., 2013. "Brain drain and development traps," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 15-22.
    35. Kasahara, Hiroyuki & Rodrigue, Joel, 2008. "Does the use of imported intermediates increase productivity? Plant-level evidence," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 106-118, August.
    36. Agenor, Pierre-Richard & Dinh, Hinh T., 2013. "Public policy and industrial transformation in the process of development," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6405, The World Bank.
    37. Been-Lon Chen & Angus Chu, 2010. "On R&D spillovers, multiple equilibria and indeterminacy," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 100(3), pages 247-263, July.
    38. Samargandi, Nahla & Fidrmuc, Jan & Ghosh, Sugata, 2015. "Is the Relationship Between Financial Development and Economic Growth Monotonic? Evidence from a Sample of Middle-Income Countries," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 66-81.
    39. Flaaen, Aaron & Ghani, Ejaz & Mishra, Saurabh, 2013. "How to avoid middle income traps ? evidence from Malaysia," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6427, The World Bank.
    40. Daron Acemoglu & Murat Ucer, 2015. "The Ups and Downs of Turkish Growth, 2002-2015: Political Dynamics, the European Union and the Institutional Slide," NBER Working Papers 21608, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    41. Law, Siong Hook & Singh, Nirvikar, 2014. "Does too much finance harm economic growth?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 36-44.
    42. Gancia, Gino & Zilibotti, Fabrizio, 2005. "Horizontal Innovation in the Theory of Growth and Development," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 3, pages 111-170, Elsevier.
    43. Agénor, Pierre-Richard & Aizenman, Joshua, 2010. "Aid volatility and poverty traps," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(1), pages 1-7, January.
    44. László Halpern & Miklós Koren & Adam Szeidl, 2015. "Imported Inputs and Productivity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(12), pages 3660-3703, December.
    45. Pierre-Richard Agénor & Karim El Aynaoui, 2015. "MOROCCO : Growth strategy for 2025 in an evolving international environment," Books & Reports, Policy Center for the New South, number 2, December.
    46. Jess Benhabib & Jesse Perla & Christopher Tonetti, 2014. "Catch-up and fall-back through innovation and imitation," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 19(1), pages 1-35, March.
    47. Felipe, Jesus, 2012. "Tracking the Middle-Income Trap: What is It, Who is in It, and Why? Part 2," ADB Economics Working Paper Series 307, Asian Development Bank.
    48. Akio Egawa, 2013. "Will income inequality cause a middle-income trap in Asia?," Working Papers 797, Bruegel.
    49. Quah, D., 1990. "Galton'S Fallacy And The Tests Of The Convergence Hypothesis," Working papers 552, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Department of Economics.
    50. Christian Daude, 2010. "Innovation, Productivity and Economic Development in Latin America and the Caribbean," OECD Development Centre Working Papers 288, OECD Publishing.
    51. Hanna Hottenrott & Bettina Peters, 2012. "Innovative Capability and Financing Constraints for Innovation: More Money, More Innovation?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 94(4), pages 1126-1142, November.
    52. repec:unu:wpaper:wp2012-09 is not listed on IDEAS
    53. Addison, Douglas M., 2003. "Productivity growth and product variety : gains from imitation and education," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3023, The World Bank.
    54. Eduardo Engel & Ronald Fischer & Alexander Galetovic, 2014. "Finance and Public-Private Partnerships," RBA Annual Conference Volume (Discontinued), in: Alexandra Heath & Matthew Read (ed.),Financial Flows and Infrastructure Financing, Reserve Bank of Australia.
    55. Felipe, Jesus, 2012. "Tracking the Middle-Income Trap: What is It, Who is in It, and Why? Part 1," ADB Economics Working Paper Series 306, Asian Development Bank.
    56. Susan Stone & Ben Shepherd, 2011. "Dynamic Gains from Trade: The Role of Intermediate Inputs and Equipment Imports," OECD Trade Policy Papers 110, OECD Publishing.
    57. Jesus Felipe & Arnelyn Abdon & Utsav Kumar, 2012. "Tracking the Middle-income Trap: What Is It, Who Is in It, and Why?," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_715, Levy Economics Institute.
    58. Milan Brahmbhatt & Albert Hu, 2010. "Ideas and Innovation in East Asia," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 25(2), pages 177-207, August.
    59. Jimenez, Emmanuel & Nguyen, Vy & Patrinos, Harry Anthony, 2012. "Stuck in the middle ? human capital development and economic growth in Malaysia and Thailand," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6283, The World Bank.
    60. Gianluca Grimalda & Marco Vivarelli, 2010. "Is inequality the price to pay for higher growth in middle-income countries?," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 20(2), pages 265-306, April.
    61. Ms. Era Dabla-Norris & Mr. Alun H. Thomas & Mr. Rodrigo Garcia-Verdu & Ms. Yingyuan Chen, 2013. "Benchmarking Structural Transformation Across the World," IMF Working Papers 2013/176, International Monetary Fund.
    62. Shiro Kuwahara, 2007. "The Mechanics Of Economic Growth Through Capital Accumulation And Technological Progress," The Japanese Economic Review, Japanese Economic Association, vol. 58(4), pages 504-523, December.
    63. Quah, Danny, 1993. " Galton's Fallacy and Tests of the Convergence Hypothesis," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 95(4), pages 427-443, December.
    64. Federico Cingano, 2014. "Trends in Income Inequality and its Impact on Economic Growth," OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers 163, OECD Publishing.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Pierre-Richard AGENOR, 2016. "Caught in the Middle? The Economics of Middle-Income Traps," Working Papers P142, FERDI.
    2. Agénor, Pierre-Richard & Canuto, Otaviano, 2015. "Middle-income growth traps," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(4), pages 641-660.
    3. Glawe, Linda & Wagner, Helmut, 2020. "China in the middle-income trap?," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    4. Linda Glawe & Helmut Wagner, 2016. "The Middle-Income Trap: Definitions, Theories and Countries Concerned—A Literature Survey," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 58(4), pages 507-538, December.
    5. Agénor, Pierre-Richard & Canuto, Otaviano, 2017. "Access to finance, product innovation and middle-income traps," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(2), pages 337-355.
    6. Mehmet Hanefi Topal, 2020. "The Middle Income Trap: Theory and Empirical Evidence," Bogazici Journal, Review of Social, Economic and Administrative Studies, Bogazici University, Department of Economics, vol. 34(1), pages 51-75.
    7. David Bulman & Maya Eden & Ha Nguyen, 2017. "Transitioning from low-income growth to high-income growth: is there a middle-income trap?," Journal of the Asia Pacific Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(1), pages 5-28, January.
    8. Riana Razafimandimby Andrianjaka & Eric Rougier, 2017. "What difference does it make? Revue de littérature et analyse empirique des déterminants de la Trappe à Revenu Intermédiaire," Cahiers du GREThA (2007-2019) 2017-16, Groupe de Recherche en Economie Théorique et Appliquée (GREThA).
    9. Fernando Gabriel Im & David Rosenblatt, 2015. "Middle-Income Traps: A Conceptual and Empirical Survey," Journal of International Commerce, Economics and Policy (JICEP), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 6(03), pages 1-39.
    10. Lim, King Yoong, 2019. "Industrial Transformation With Heterogeneous Labor And Foreign Experts," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 23(8), pages 3225-3266, December.
    11. Gill,Indermit S. & Kharas,Homi, 2015. "The middle-income trap turns ten," Policy Research Working Paper Series 7403, The World Bank.
    12. Vivarelli, Marco, 2018. "Globalisation, structural change and innovation in emerging economies: The impact on employment and skills," MERIT Working Papers 2018-037, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    13. Razafimandimby Andrianjaka, Riana & Rougier, Eric, 2019. "“What difference does it make (to be in the Middle Income Trap)?”: An empirical exploration of the drivers of growth slowdowns," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 225-236.
    14. Ajai Chopra, 2015. "Financing Productivity- and Innovation-Led Growth in Developing Asia: International Lessons and Policy Issues," Working Paper Series WP15-6, Peterson Institute for International Economics.
    15. Vivarelli, Marco, 2014. "Structural Change and Innovation as Exit Strategies from the Middle Income Trap," IZA Discussion Papers 8148, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    16. Marco Vivarelli, 2015. "Structural Change and Innovation in Developing Economies: A Way Out of the Middle Income Trap ?," LEM Papers Series 2015/09, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
    17. Marco Vivarelli, 2014. "The Middle Income Trap: A Way Out Based on Technological and Structural Change," DISCE - Quaderni del Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche e Sociali dises1403, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Dipartimenti e Istituti di Scienze Economiche (DISCE).
    18. Andrzej Wojtyna, 2016. "Kontrowersje teoretyczne wokół koncepcji pułapki średniego poziomu rozwoju," Gospodarka Narodowa. The Polish Journal of Economics, Warsaw School of Economics, issue 6, pages 5-22.
    19. Aiyar, Shekhar & Duval, Romain & Puy, Damien & Wu, Yiqun & Zhang, Longmei, 2018. "Growth slowdowns and the middle-income trap," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 22-37.
    20. Charles Gore, 2017. "Late industrialisation, urbanisation and the middle-income trap: an analytical approach and the case of Vietnam," Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 10(1), pages 35-57.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H54 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Infrastructures
    • O31 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives
    • O41 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - One, Two, and Multisector Growth Models

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:jecsur:v:31:y:2017:i:3:p:771-791. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0950-0804 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.