Publication:
World Development Report 2024: The Middle-Income Trap

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dc.contributor.authorWorld Bank
dc.date.accessioned2024-07-22T15:11:07Z
dc.date.available2024-07-22T15:11:07Z
dc.date.issued2024-08-01
dc.description.abstractMiddle-income countries are in a race against time. Many of them have done well since the 1990s to escape low-income levels and eradicate extreme poverty, leading to the perception that the last three decades have been great for development. But the ambition of the more than 100 economies with incomes per capita between US$1,100 and US$14,000 is to reach high-income status within the next generation. When assessed against this goal, their record is discouraging. Since the 1970s, income per capita in the median middle-income country has stagnated at less than a tenth of the US level. With aging populations, growing protectionism, and escalating pressures to speed up the energy transition, today’s middle-income economies face ever more daunting odds. To become advanced economies despite the growing headwinds, they will have to make miracles. Drawing on the development experience and advances in economic analysis since the 1950s, World Development Report 2024 identifies pathways for developing economies to avoid the “middle-income trap.” It points to the need for not one but two transitions for those at the middle-income level: the first from investment to infusion and the second from infusion to innovation. Governments in lower-middle-income countries must drop the habit of repeating the same investment-driven strategies and work instead to infuse modern technologies and successful business processes from around the world into their economies. This requires reshaping large swaths of those economies into globally competitive suppliers of goods and services. Upper-middle-income countries that have mastered infusion can accelerate the shift to innovation—not just borrowing ideas from the global frontiers of technology but also beginning to push the frontiers outward. This requires restructuring enterprise, work, and energy use once again, with an even greater emphasis on economic freedom, social mobility, and political contestability. Neither transition is automatic. The handful of economies that made speedy transitions from middle- to high-income status have encouraged enterprise by disciplining powerful incumbents, developed talent by rewarding merit, and capitalized on crises to alter policies and institutions that no longer suit the purposes they were once designed to serve. Today’s middle-income countries will have to do the same.en
dc.identifier.doi10.1596/978-1-4648-2078-6
dc.identifier.doihttps://doi.org/10.1596/978-1-4648-2078-6
dc.identifier.isbn978-1-4648-2078-6
dc.identifier.issn0163-5085
dc.identifier.otherLibrary of Congress Control Number: 2024941787
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10986/41919
dc.language.isoen_US
dc.publisherWashington, DC: World Bank
dc.rightsCC BY 3.0 IGO
dc.rights.holderWorld Bank
dc.rights.urihttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo/
dc.subjectMIDDLE-INCOME TRAP
dc.subjectINVESTMENT
dc.subjectINFUSION
dc.subjectINNOVATION
dc.subjectTECHNOLOGIES
dc.subjectCOMPETITIVE SUPPLIERS
dc.subjectECONOMIC FREEDOM
dc.titleWorld Development Report 2024en
dc.title.subtitleThe Middle-Income Trapen
dc.typeBook
dspace.entity.typePublication
okr.associatedcontenthttps://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2024/07/22/-middle-income-trap-hinders-progress-in-108-developing-countries Press Release
okr.associatedcontenthttps://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/wdr2024 WDR Website
okr.associatedcontenthttps://www.worldbank.org/en/news/video/2024/08/05/the-middle-income-trap-economic-growth-strategies-expert-answers?intcid=ecr_hp_headerC_2024-08-05-WDRExpertAnswers Expert Answers (video)
okr.crossref.titleWorld Development Report 2024: The Middle-Income Trap
okr.date.disclosure2024-08-01
okr.date.doiregistration2025-04-07T08:16:57.610488Z
okr.date.doiregistration2025-04-08T16:07:40.717036Z
okr.date.doiregistration2025-04-09T02:50:43.426942Z
okr.date.doiregistration2025-04-15T11:38:59.092367Z
okr.doctypePublications & Research::Publication
okr.docurlhttps://documents.worldbank.org/en/publication/documents-reports/documentdetail/099080824150522081/p18074517e3a6a04b183b616a4c92958417
okr.guid099080824150522081
okr.guid099080824150598470
okr.guid099080824150528673
okr.identifier.docmidP180745
okr.identifier.doi10.1596/978-1-4648-2078-6
okr.identifier.report192949
okr.identifier.report192949
okr.region.geographicalWorld
okr.statistics.combined104028
okr.statistics.dr099080824150522081
okr.statistics.drstats4010
okr.topicMacroeconomics and Economic Growth::Business Cycles and Stabilization Policies
okr.topicMacroeconomics and Economic Growth::Economic Growth
okr.topicPoverty Reduction::Achieving Shared Growth
okr.topicScience and Technology Development::Innovation
okr.unitDECWD
relation.isSeriesOfPublication47018b9f-dbfb-4ab1-a531-6a598c79a597
relation.isSeriesOfPublication.latestForDiscovery47018b9f-dbfb-4ab1-a531-6a598c79a597
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