“Middle-income countries are home to three out of every four people — and nearly two-thirds of those who struggle in extreme poverty. They are responsible for 40 per cent of the world’s total economic output — and nearly two-thirds of global carbon emissions. In short, the global effort to end extreme poverty and spread prosperity and livability will largely be won or lost in these countries.” These words by Indermit Gill, the World Bank’s chief economist, appear in the World Development Report 2024, entitled “The Middle-Income Trap”, which is the idea that economies tend to get stuck on the road to the high incomes of the US, Canada, Europe, Japan, South Korea, Australia and quite a few others.
“全球四分之三的人——以及近三分之二的極端貧困人口——居住在中等收入國家。這些國家占到世界經濟總產值的40%——以及全球碳排放量的近三分之二。簡而言之，終結極端貧困、使更多人過上富足生活并享受宜居環境的全球努力是成是敗，很大程度上取決于這些國家?！边@是世界銀行(World Bank)首席經濟學家英德米特?吉爾(Indermit Gill)在《2024年世界發展報告》(World Development Report 2024)中說的一番話，今年報告的副標題是“中等收入陷阱”(The Middle-Income Trap)。這個概念是指經濟體往往會“卡”在邁向高收入——像美國、加拿大、歐洲、日本、韓國、澳大利亞還有其他很多個國家的那種收入水平——的道路上，裹足不前。