主题：有人看过最近ECONOMIST的一篇关于新经济秩序的文章 -- 远航

The new titans

Sep 14th 2006

China, India and other developing countries are set to give the world economy its biggest

boost in the whole of history, says Pam Woodall. What will that mean for today's rich

countries?

LAST year the combined output of emerging economies reached an important milestone: it accounted for

more than half of total world GDP (measured at purchasing-power parity). This means that the rich

countries no longer dominate the global economy. The developing countries also have a far greater

influence on the performance of the rich economies than is generally realised. Emerging economies are

driving global growth and having a big impact on developed countries' inflation, interest rates, wages and

profits. As these newcomers become more integrated into the global economy and their incomes catch up

with the rich countries, they will provide the biggest boost to the world economy since the industrial

revolution.

Indeed, it is likely to be the biggest stimulus in history, because the industrial revolution fully involved

only one-third of the world's population. By contrast, this new revolution covers most of the globe, so the

economic gains—as well as the adjustment pains—will be far bigger. As developing countries and the

former Soviet block have embraced market-friendly economic reforms and opened their borders to trade

and investment, more countries are industrialising and participating in the global economy than ever

before. This survey will map out the many ways in which these economic newcomers are affecting the

developed world. As it happens, their influence helps to explain a whole host of puzzling economic

developments, such as the record share of profits in national income, sluggish growth in real wages, high

oil prices alongside low inflation, low global interest rates and America's vast current-account deficit.

Emerging countries are looming larger in the world economy by a wide range of measures (see chart 1).

Their share of world exports has jumped to 43%, from 20% in 1970. They consume over half of the

world's energy and have accounted for four-fifths of the growth in oil demand in the past five years. They

also hold 70% of the world's foreign-exchange reserves.

Of course there is more than one respectable way of doing the sums. So although measured at

purchasing-power parity (which takes account of lower prices in poorer countries) the emerging

economies now make up over half of world GDP, at market exchange rates their share is still less than

30%. But even at market exchange rates, they accounted for well over half of the increase in global

output last year. And this is not just about China and India: those two together made up less than one-quarter of the total increase in emerging economies' GDP last year.

There is also more than one definition of emerging countries,

depending on who does the defining (see article). Perhaps some

of these countries should be called re-emerging economies,

because they are regaining their former eminence. Until the late

19th century, China and India were the world's two biggest

economies. Before the steam engine and the power loom gave

Britain its industrial lead, today's emerging economies

dominated world output. Estimates by Angus Maddison, an

economic historian, suggest that in the 18 centuries up to 1820

these economies produced, on average, 80% of world GDP (see

chart 2). But they were left behind by Europe's technological

revolution and the first wave of globalisation. By 1950 their

share had fallen to 40%.

Now they are on the rebound. In the past five years, their

annual growth has averaged almost 7%, its fastest pace in

recorded history and well above the 2.3% growth in rich economies. The International Monetary Fund

forecasts that in the next five years emerging economies will grow at an average of 6.8% a year,

whereas the developed economies will notch up only 2.7%. If both groups continued in this way, in 20

years' time emerging economies would account for two-thirds of global output (at purchasing-power

parity). Extrapolation is always risky, but there seems every chance that the relative weight of the new

pretenders will rise.

Faster growth spreading more widely across the globe makes a

huge difference to global growth rates. Since 2000, world GDP

per head has grown by an average of 3.2% a year, thanks to

the acceleration in emerging economies. That would beat the

2.9% annual growth during the golden age of 1950-73, when

Europe and Japan were rebuilding their economies after the

war; and it would certainly exceed growth during the industrial

revolution. That growth, too, was driven by technological

change and by an explosion in trade and capital flows, but by

today's standards it was a glacial affair. Between 1870 and

1913 world GDP per head increased by an average of only

1.3% a year. This means that the first decade of the 21st

century could see the fastest growth in average world income in

the whole of history.