Shifting Wealth and the New Geography of Growth

The resilience of the developing world during the worst financial crisis of the postwar era highlights the importance of the economic activity taking place outside the core OECD countries. In fact, growth in the advanced economies has been outpaced by that of the developing world for more than a decade. The traditional split between North and South makes little sense in an increasingly multi-polar world where the largest and most dynamic economies may no longer be the richest, nor the world’s technological leaders. This chapter describes the new geography of global growth. Evident in this is the heterogeneity of the South: many developing countries are beginning to catch up with the living standards of the affluent, others are struggling to break through a middle-income “glass ceiling” and some continue to suffer under the weight of extreme poverty.