Otaviano Canuto on the Middle-Income Trap

May 19, 2021

Otaviano Canuto, Senior fellow, Policy Center for the New South The “middle-income trap” has become a broad designation trying to capture the many cases of developing countries that succeeded in evolving from low- to middle-levels of per capita income, but then appeared to stall, losing momentum along the route toward the higher income levels of advanced economies. We need to approach middle-income countries as being in a complex transition phase between accumulation and innovation-based economies. Individual middle-income country experiences of falling into a “trap” may be approached as cases of lack of or failing performance in footing the bill in terms of appropriate policies and institutions.

Speakers
Otaviano Canuto
Senior Fellow
Senior Fellow at the Policy Center for the New South, Affiliate Professor at Mohammed VI Polytechnic University and Non-Resident Senior Fellow at Brookings Institute. Former Vice President and Executive Director at the World Bank, Executive Director at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Vice President at the Inter-American Development Bank. ...

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