Avoiding the middle-income trap

In order to transition to true prosperity, middle-income countries need to invest heavily in human capital and improve the quality of education

More than 100 developing countries have successfully made the transition from low-income to middle-income status. Unfortunately, most of them have got stuck in the middle-income trap. When middle-income countries are just about to get their first whiff of prosperity, they revert to a slow growth trajectory. The frequency of such slow growth episodes has increased in middle-income countries. The impact of the recent global downturn is being felt more acutely in middle-income countries. The large number of countries, including China and India, getting caught in the middle-income trap is a worrying trend, as a large share of poor and near-poor