‘There are more things to alarm us than to harm us, and we suffer more often in apprehension than reality.’ –Seneca
The OECD has a new report out projecting what countries’ economic output, both total and per capita, will be in 2060. Unsurprisingly, the Chinese and Indian economies will have eclipsed the U.S. one, which will remain in third place.
But the per capita numbers are more striking, and encouraging. The report projects that between 2011 and 2060, real GDP per capita will increase sevenfold in India and China. In China, that means a jump from $8,387 in 2011 to almost $60,000 in 2060, in constant 2011 dollars. By contrast, U.S. GDP per capita in 2011 was $48,328.
OECD also projects declining inequality between countries over the next fifty years. The United States will still have a much bigger GDP per capita than China in 2060 — about $136,611, if the OECD is right. But that’s a little more than double China’s level, whereas today, U.S. GDP per capita is almost six times that of China’s.
