The Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP) hosted a Flagship Seminar on April 24, 2023 from 4:00 pm to 6:00 pm IST on “Economic Growth in Middle-Income Countries” with Indermit Gill, Chief Economist of the World Bank Group and Senior Vice President for Development Economics, Somik Lall, Staff Director, World Bank’s 2024 World Development Report, Bibek Debroy, Chairman, Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (EAC-PM), and Nitin Desai, Chairman – Governing Council, TERI and Former Under Secretary General for Economic and Social Affairs, UN. The discussion was moderated by Rakesh Mohan, President and Distinguished Fellow, CSEP.

The event was held online via Zoom. The seminar also streamed live on YouTube.

About the event

The talk will discuss the difficulties of economic growth in middle-income countries. Constituting about 75 percent of the world’s population, the 108 middle-income countries today account for about 40 percent of global economic activity, 50 percent of the world’s extremely poor people, and 60 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions. The existence of a “middle income trap” will be discussed, a notion that is popular in policy circles and debated by researchers. The talk will propose a refinement of “middle-income” as a stage of development instead of a level of income. Drawing on the ongoing World Development Report 2024, insights from advances in Schumpeterian Growth Theory will be brought to bear on the problems faced by middle-income countries today. These relate to competition among enterprises, social mobility among households, and the structural transformations needed for steady energy transitions. Finally, ideas for tailoring growth enhancing policies will be discussed.

Speakers

• Indermit Gill is Chief Economist of the World Bank Group and Senior Vice President for Development Economics. He brings to the role a broad combination of leadership, expertise, and practical experience working with governments on macroeconomic imbalances, growth, poverty, institutions, conflict, and climate change. Before starting this position on September 1, 2022, Gill served as the World Bank’s Vice President for Equitable Growth, Finance, and Institutions, where he played a key role in shaping the Bank’s response to the extraordinary series of shocks that have hit developing economies since 2020. Between 2016 and 2021, he was a professor of public policy at Duke University and non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Global Economy and Development program. Gill is widely regarded for his contributions to development economics. He spearheaded the influential 2009 World Development Report on economic geography. His pioneering work includes introducing the concept of the “middle-income trap” to describe how countries stagnate after reaching a certain level of income. He has published extensively on key policy issues facing developing countries — among other things, sovereign debt vulnerabilities, green growth and natural-resource wealth, labour markets, and poverty and inequality. Gill has also taught at Georgetown University and the University of Chicago. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago.

• Somik Lall is the Staff Director of the World Bank’s 2024 World Development Report, which examines economic growth challenges in middle-income countries. He is also an Economic Adviser in the Office of the World Bank Group Chief Economist. Previously, he headed the climate economics and policy team in the World Bank’s Equitable Growth, Finance and Institutions vice presidency. He developed and supervised high-quality research programs on resilience and economic development, macro-criticality of climate change, and innovations for the low carbon transition. His other roles include Global Lead for territorial and spatial development and Lead Economist for the Global Practice for Urban, Disaster Risk, Resilience, and Land. He teaches at Johns Hopkins University and has been a Visiting Professor at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy. He is widely published in academic and policy journals. His 2021 book, Place, Productivity, and Prosperity examines the spatial dimensions of productivity growth in developing nations and provides a new analytic framework to help policymakers arrive at a disciplined view of a place’s economic potential.

Discussants

• Bibek Debroy is an economist and was educated in Ramakrishna Mission School, Narendrapur; Presidency College, Kolkata; Delhi School of Economics and Trinity College, Cambridge. Presently, he is Chairman, Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (EAC-PM); and Chancellor, Deccan College Post Graduate and Research Institute, Pune, Government of Maharashtra. He has worked in Presidency College, Kolkata (1979-83); Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, Pune (1983-87); Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, Delhi (1987-93); as the Director of a Ministry of Finance/UNDP project on legal reforms (1993-98); Department of Economic Affairs (1994-95); National Council of Applied Economic Research (1995-96); Rajiv Gandhi Institute for Contemporary Studies (1997-2005); PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry (2005-06); Centre for Policy Research (2007-15); Member, NITI Aayog (2015-19); and President, Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) (2018-22). He has authored/edited several books, papers and popular articles and has also been a Consulting/Contributing Editor with several newspapers. He was awarded the Shriram Sanlam Award for Financial Journalism (in 2013); Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian award of India (in 2015); D.Litt. (Honoris Causa) by KIIT University (in 2015); D.Phil. (Honoris Causa) by Amity University (in 2016); D.Phil. (Honoris Causa) by Jagran Lakecity University (in 2017); D.Sc. (Honoris Causa) by University of Engineering and Management (in 2018); Lifetime Achievement Award by US-India Business Summit (in 2016); Skoch Challenger Golden Jubilee Award (in 2017); Lifetime Achievement Award by Prestige Institute of Management and Research (in 2018); and “Bharatiya Manavata Vikas Puraskar” by Power Brand (in 2018). He was conferred the title of “Vachaspati” by the Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri Rashtriya Sanskrit Vidyapeetha (in 2018).
• Nitin Desai was a national and international civil servant. He joined the Planning Commission as an Adviser in 1973, served as Secretary of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister and went on to become Secretary and Chief Economic Adviser in the Ministry of Finance in 1988. At the international level he was a Senior Adviser to the Brundtland Commission. He joined the UN in 1990 as Deputy Secretary General for the 1992 Rio Earth Summit and was appointed as Under Secretary General at the UN in New York in 1993 and stayed in that post till 2003. During this period, he led the work on sustainable development and in other economic and social areas. After his retirement he has been involved in a variety of public policy activities nationally and internationally. He is the Chairman of the Governing Council of The Energy & Resources Institute (TERI).

Moderator

• Rakesh Mohan is President and Distinguished Fellow at CSEP. He is a member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister. Previously, he was Senior Fellow at the Jackson Institute for Global Affairs, Yale University, Professor at Yale’s School of Management, and Distinguished Consulting Professor at Stanford University. Closely associated with the Indian economic reforms process since the late 1980s, he has served in senior roles including as the Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, Secretary, Economic Affairs, Chief Economic Adviser of the Indian Ministry of Finance, and Economic Adviser in the Indian Ministry of Industry. He has authored books on urban economics, urban development, monetary policy, and economic reforms.

Please contact Manmeet Ahuja at MAhuja@csep.org for event-related inquiries or Malvika Sharad at MSharad@csep.org for media inquiries.

All content reflects the individual views of the speakers. The Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP) does not hold an institutional view on any subject.