And I don't mean the whole economy, because to grow an economy of India to the size of U.K. that's a piece of cake, with one billion people.

HONG KONG For 250 years, technological innovation has driven economic development. But the economics of innovation are very different for those at the frontier versus those who are followers striving to catch up.

Coherent programs to promote economic catch up are relatively straightforward. But the transition from follower to leader at the frontier of the innovation economy is more challenging and elusive.

Catching Up at Different Speeds

They really caught up.

And after Second World War, United States is richer than U.K.

How Economic Superpowers Rise

..to surpass England and appropriate Persian oils.

Rapidly creeping up on draft beer.

The middle income countries, the emerging economy, they are catching up.

Japan slowed down after it had basically caught up. China, India, Brazil, Turkey, and others may have firms operating close to the world s technological frontier, but they still have a lot of unused catch up potential.

And why are democracy aspirants falling behind?

The emerging markets developed the institutions and the skills base needed to import and adapt technology, which is easier than generating new technology from scratch. The pace of catch up growth declines only gradually over time, as the less advanced economies slowly move closer to the technological frontier.

Jeremy Lin and the Political Economy of Superstars

But the long term economic prospects of the global economy as a whole look gloomy. As societies in many OECD countries age, and catch up growth in large emerging economies begins to wind down, global GDP growth is expected to fall from its annual average of 3.6 in the 2010 2020 period to an estimated 2.4 in 2050 2060.

But action against poverty needs to go beyond economic factors.

Some developing countries are set to match the economic size and growth, demographics, patterns of global demand and currency movements of the developed economies of today.

Of course, temporary disturbances, a worsening of global payments imbalances, or macroeconomic policy mistakes, including those made in advanced economies and affecting the entire world economy, could undermine global growth. But the underlying convergence differential, owing to catch up growth, is likely to continue to reduce the income gap between the old advanced economies and emerging market countries.

Germany had surpassed Britain in industrial production by 1900. Even at its current high rates of growth, China s economy is unlikely to equal that of the US for at least two more decades.

But China is a superstar in terms of economic growth.

Overall, the global economic condition was not keeping pace with a rapidly changing international context.

Chile's catching up!

The mule trains pass through here.

Hans Rosling was a young guest student in India when he first realized that Asia had all the capacities to reclaim its place as the world's dominant economic force. At TEDIndia, he graphs global economic growth since 1858 and predicts the exact date that India and China will outstrip the US.

The second thing is that the Chinese economy passes the U.S. economy in, let's say, 2030, which it may it, that will be a measure of total economic size, but not of per capita income won't tell you about the composition of the economy.

And the economic burden of asthma exceeds that of HIV and tuberculosis combined.

The scope of South South cooperation has also expanded beyond the traditional economic and technical areas.

Lets go.

We came back as fast as we could.

Economic growth for the continent is projected at over 5 per cent in 2005, reflecting improvements in economic and corporate management.

As the low hanging fruit from catch up growth is consumed, China, too, will be forced to choose between the economic and social freedom, innovation, and instability that only inclusive institutions can underpin and continued economic, political, and social control in the service of the elites who control the state.

Rapid progress in the emerging economies has contributed to economic pessimism in Europe and North America. After all, the developing economies combined GDP now exceeds that of the advanced economies a situation that would have been unimaginable a generation ago.

Girls outperform boys now at every level, from elementary school to graduate school.

Then come out.

Jefty's not coming. He's here.!

The problem goes beyond the military and disarmament domains it has humanitarian as well as socio economic consequences.

The countries that caught up with and eventually surpassed Britain, such as Germany, the United States, and Japan, all did so by building up their manufacturing industries. Following the Second World War, there were two waves of rapid economic convergence one in the European periphery during the 1950s and 1960s, and another in East Asia since the 1960s.

Look, I got a train to catch. Well, the train's gone.

I've come here as you asked.

Once they developed the basic institutions needed for a market economy and learned how to avoid serious macroeconomic policy mistakes, emerging countries started benefiting from catch up growth. Those with very high investment rates, mostly in East Asia, grew faster than those with lower investment rates but, overall, catch up growth probably has been adding 2 4 percentage points to many emerging and developing countries annual growth rates.

15. A number of the critical needs of communities in the affected territories exceed their economic resources.

A couple of weeks ago, I was looking at the latest projection by BNP Paribas for when China will have a larger economy than the United States.

Three publications would shortly be issued to support the strategy a report on productivity in developing countries the Industrial Development Report 2005 on capability building for catching up and a report on international public goods for economic development.

But this theory is not convincing. Germany has recently been overtaken in terms of per capita income by several EU countries, including Ireland, the UK, the Netherlands, and France, and is still growing more slowly than all of them.

It was above the GDP for three years in a row just before the crisis.