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On the Existence of a Middle-Income Trap

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  • Longfeng Ye
  • Peter E. Robertson

Abstract

The term "middle income trap" has been widely used in the literature, without having been clearly de ned or formally tested. We propose a statistical de nition of a middle income trap and derive a simple time-series test. We nd that the concept survives a rigorous scrutiny of the data, with the growth patterns of 19 countries being consistent with our de nition of a middle income trap..
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  • Longfeng Ye & Peter E. Robertson, 2016. "On the Existence of a Middle-Income Trap," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 92(297), pages 173-189, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ecorec:v:92:y:2016:i:297:p:173-189
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