1/A follow-up thread on Nobel Prizes and Big Questions.

Branko asks: Why don& #39;t we award prizes for economists who work on the incredibly important question of how China grew so fast?

It& #39;s a very good question... https://twitter.com/BrankoMilan/status/1316573079074680834">https://twitter.com/BrankoMil...
2/Why DID China develop?

Many people who read the news think that the answer is perfectly obvious. Unfortunately, these "perfectly obvious" answers tend to be quite lacking: https://twitter.com/SnoozeButtonBen/status/1316471507812581376">https://twitter.com/SnoozeBut...
4/More broadly, in the mid-20th century, lots of countries did try a strategy called "import substitution industrialization".

The results were not as terrible as advertised, but they weren& #39;t great. They didn& #39;t produce a lot of Chinas. https://rodrik.typepad.com/dani_rodriks_weblog/2007/08/does-import-sub.html">https://rodrik.typepad.com/dani_rodr...
5/OK, so what do we really know about why countries develop?

It IS a huge important old ongoing area of research. Many people work on it. A number of Econ Nobel prizes have been given to people who work on it.
6/For example, in 1987, Robert Solow won for his growth model. While the Solow Model doesn& #39;t fully answer the question of why countries develop, it DOES explain why simply saving a lot and building roads and factories won& #39;t get you all the way there. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/1987/press-release/">https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/ec...
7/Paul Krugman followed up on the model& #39;s predictions, demonstrating that high savings rates and capital accumulation could lift countries like the USSR into the middle rank of development, but not to the top.

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/82fe/231630d3fb710db6c2843355b137f196b58a.pdf">https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/82fe/2316...
(hold on brb)
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