$cirisme
December 31st 2007, 03:26 PM
Yep, you read that right. The GDP for China and India are both 40% smaller than estimated. (http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/sunday/commentary/la-op-mead30dec30,0,1035099.story) Africa's GDP is also 25% smaller than estimated.
The political consequences will be felt far and wide. To begin with, the U.S. will remain the world's largest economy well into the future. Given that fact, fears that China will challenge the U.S. for global political leadership seem overblown. Under the old figures, China was predicted to pass the United States as the world's largest economy in 2012. That isn't going to happen.
[...]
But don't pop the champagne corks. It is bad news that billions of people are significantly poorer than we thought. China and India are not the only countries whose GDP has been revised downward. The World Bank figures show sub-Saharan Africa's economy to be 25% smaller. One consequence is that the ambitious campaign to reduce world poverty by 2015 through the United Nations Millennium Development Goals will surely fail. We have underestimated the size of the world's poverty problem, and we have overestimated our progress in attacking it. This is not good.
If only they were using the BigMac (http://www.economist.com/markets/Bigmac/Index.cfm) index all along.
The political consequences will be felt far and wide. To begin with, the U.S. will remain the world's largest economy well into the future. Given that fact, fears that China will challenge the U.S. for global political leadership seem overblown. Under the old figures, China was predicted to pass the United States as the world's largest economy in 2012. That isn't going to happen.
[...]
But don't pop the champagne corks. It is bad news that billions of people are significantly poorer than we thought. China and India are not the only countries whose GDP has been revised downward. The World Bank figures show sub-Saharan Africa's economy to be 25% smaller. One consequence is that the ambitious campaign to reduce world poverty by 2015 through the United Nations Millennium Development Goals will surely fail. We have underestimated the size of the world's poverty problem, and we have overestimated our progress in attacking it. This is not good.
If only they were using the BigMac (http://www.economist.com/markets/Bigmac/Index.cfm) index all along.