GOLPEARSE CONTRA UN 'BRIC WALL'
"... the whole progress of improvement..." — Adam Smith

AM | @agumack

Ya tuve la oportunidad de mencionar la opinión de George Magnus, asesor económico de UBS, sobre la 'trampa de ingreso medio' [ver]. La idea es sencilla, y resume mucho de lo que venimos diciendo en el blog desde hace años: superar el nivel crítico de US$12/15 mil en PBI per capita no es posible sin reformas institucionales que promuevan el imperio de la ley y la seguridad de las pertenencias. En otras palabras: no hay prosperidad duradera sin ... frenos y contrapesos (checks and balances).

* * *

Ahora el Sr. Magnus ofrece una versión más detallada de su tesis (*). Por eso la cito in extenso. Desde 2004, cuando percibí el vínculo entre la liquidez global, la suba del precio de la soja y la popularidad de NK, vengo afirmando lo que hoy es una obviedad para todos: no había 'modelo', sino simplemente un surfing the wave de la liquidez global. (El único mérito de NK fue el de aceptar el cargo: nadie podía pronosticar el 'boom' de la soja, y todos los candidatos presentables se borraban).

En la visión de George Magnus, el nivel de US$15 mil per capita es un BRIC wall, una pared contra la que se toparán los países que no logren implantar un sistema de contrapesos institucionales. Implícita en la metáfora está una 'cargada' a Jim O'Neill, de Goldman Sachs, el creador de la idea de BRICs.

Of the 101 countries or territories that were classified as middle income in 1960, only 13 jumped the so-called BRIC Wall to become high income, successfully adapting their growth models as the gains from the physical deployment and organisation of labour and capital declined. These countries included Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan. All of these countries, in contrast for example, to Mexico, Venezuela, Argentina and Uruguay in Latin America, and the old Soviet Union, implemented political reforms, to produce desirable economic behaviour, more efficient organisation, and political checks and balances, penalties and importantly, incentives.

They built trust, rules, good macro, corporate and social governance, and property rights and the rule of law, into national institutions. And they successfully switched to ‘smarter’ economic development models, strengthening educational attainment levels at secondary and tertiary levels, which in turn facilitated their capacity to extend their technological frontiers. 

Countries that have experienced rapid growth and human development tend to stall, in terms of income per head, in a ‘middle income trap’. There is solid, empirical evidence that growth tends to slow down the more mature an economy becomes and, in particular, once its income per head reaches around $15,000. This isn’t the end of growth, so to speak, but to break out of the middle income trap, countries that have exploited more basic models of growth need to adopt ‘smarter’ economic models, designed to boost total factor productivity. This is what we mean by hitting the BRIC Wall.

We have to pay attention to politics, rules-based systems, and an array of economic and social institutions that re-energise economic growth, once things like labour transfer to urban manufacturing and gains from
importing foreign technology have been largely exhausted. Robust institutions create the appropriate conditions for more complex development models based around the intensity of competition, new technology and innovation, higher quality of education and human capital, inclusive growth, and lower income and opportunity inequalities.

(*) George Magnus: "Hitting a BRIC wall: the risk of the middle-income trap", UBS, 21 de enero de 2013. 
_____________