If India’s per capita income in constant PPP dollars grows 4.1% annually, a very realistic prospect, it will be in the advanced economies club in a quarter of a century
In his 2022 Independence Day speech, PM Modi outlined an ambitious (some might say even outlandish) goal for India in 2047 – the status of a developed country. Soon after, economists and other experts started to estimate the “realism” of this ambition. We do the same in this article via a two-stage discussion – definition and estimation of realism.
Definition
Definition
- Whether one is a developed country or not is a matter of definition.
- The go-to sources for answers to this basic question are World Bank, IMF, UN etc.
- There is a complete blank there and for a very good reason.
- The post-World War II period can correctly be described as the era of development – more accurately as the era of removal of absolute poverty.
- World Bank’s defining dream is of a world “free of poverty”.
- Hence, most of the concentration (make it all) of experts, economists has been on the subject of definition and estimation of absolute poverty.
- Different poverty lines have been defined for a range of countries (poor, middle income, rich) and the corresponding poor population estimated.
- Consequently, we have a near zero literature on the level of income associated with a “developed country”.
- The next go-to source is Wikipedia. It defines a developed economy in vague terms as a country with a high quality of life, and advanced technological infrastructure.
- It helpfully adds that this is with reference to “other less industrialised nations”.
- Perhaps ChatGPT will offer a good definition.