How competitive is the Global Growth Game? Not very...the winners remain winners through time

The last few days I have blogged about the competitiveness of world soccer. I showed that national soccer teams actually change their rankings quite a bit through time. Even if most teams will never be really competitive in the world game. Especially poorer developing countries, who have seldom been high in the rankings and tend to struggle against the wealthier nations.

This pattern in the world of soccer reflects a bigger problem in the world of economics.

Consider the global growth game, where countries across the world are competing for economic growth--which is not infinite, given limits to the capital and talent and resources needed to promote economic activity. It is true that the world had grown a lot in the last generation, and most developing countries have grown a lot as well. But if one looks at the share of GDP in 1990 and that in 2017, it is apparent that various developing regions have  static share of the 'winnings'; Africa had about 1.7% of global GDP in 1990, and enjoys about 2% in 2016; Latin America and the Caribbean had about 7.6% of world GDP in 1990 and has pretty much the same now.

These regions have grown, but they have not increased their market share in this competition; winning regions (Europe, North America, and East Asia) remain dominant and take up most of the winnings. Indeed, the top 10 countries in 1990 accounted for about 65% of world GDP and the top 10 countries in 2016 still account for about 65% (see table of top 20 economies in 1990 and 2016).

The table shows that there are some new countries in the 2016 top 10 when compared with 1990 (China being the most obvious) but not many. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Countries that won in 1990 are still winning now.

Tomorrow I will offer some more thoughts and data on this theme. But right now it should be obvious and interesting that wealthy winners stay wealthy winners. And the relative share of the countries at the top of the global growth game tends to stay the same over time; as does the share of those at the bottom. 

It's like watching the same soccer teams win the league again and again, with one or two new teams emerging in a generation...