Towards More Balanced Growth Strategies In Developing Countries: Issues Related To Market Size, Trade Balances And Purchasing Power

The global crisis has disrupted the favourable external environment that made export-led development strategies viable. Developing countries can compensate for the resulting decline in aggregate demand growth through domestic demand if their domestic markets are sufficiently large and if they avoid an import boom, which would cause balance of payments problems. Concentrating on household consumption, the paper shows that the sales potential in some large emerging economies is approaching that in developed countries but also that imports might meet most new domestic consumption demand. Sustaining a shift towards a more balanced growth path requires changes in the production structure, fostered by product innovation, to make domestic production patterns better correspond to newly emerging demand patterns. The associated new employment and wage opportunities would allow realizing emerging sales potentials through rising incomes, rather than rising household debt.