Comparative Economies: This just in from the International Monetary Fund: China could pass the United States as the world's largest economy as early as 2016. With all due respect, the IMF has it wrong again.
A new IMF report blithely forecasts that the "Age of America" will end as the U.S. economy is overtaken by China. And on the surface, it's tough to argue the point.
Officially, China's GDP is growing at 10% while ours is expanding at about 3%. At those rates, China's economy doubles every seven years, America's about every 24.
But such forecasts are based on a straight-line extrapolation from current trends: So if China's growing at 10% now, it'll always grow that fast.
One has to wonder, too, about a politically motivated IMF "report" that predicts U.S. decline. Our troubles are many, but we've heard all this before.
The fact is, China itself faces formidable hurdles that will make it tough to keep growing at current rates.
This was tacitly admitted by China just last month, when it announced it was lowering its targeted GDP growth rate to 7% a year — a full third slower than its recent growth rate.
Moreover, the IMF doesn't even use the correct data. It uses overall GDP, not per-capita GDP. Big difference. It would be surprising indeed if a nation of 1.3 billion — 20% of all people on earth — didn't eventually become the overall largest economy.
But real wealth and productivity are measured on a per-person basis. And based on that, China won't catch the U.S. anytime soon. In fact, it may never catch us.
As the chart shows, China is way behind the U.S. in per-person income. Per-capita GDP in the U.S. is $42,517 in 2005 dollars. In China, it's about $2,802. Even by 2030, China doesn't get close to U.S. per-person output, not even at current growth rates.
This is important, because per-capita GDP is a rough proxy for productivity. China has at most a few more years of rapid, productivity-driven growth as it transfers millions of people from rural poverty into its cities, where they instantly see their productivity increase by a factor of as much as 10.
But, as we've noted before, due to its notorious "one-child" policy, China is aging fast. By 2040, its elderly population will exceed the total population of Germany, France, Britain, Italy and Japan today.
The old saying among economists is that you have to get rich before you get old. China's losing that race.
Today, things aren't so bad: China has six workers for every elderly retiree, a manageable ratio. But in 2040, that will drop to two workers per retiree. Meanwhile, as of last year just 12% of China's population was over 60, but that will surge to 24% by 2040.
You get the picture. Demographically, China's best days are behind it. China's economic growth is based on its "productivity miracle." But elderly populations don't grow in productivity. They decline.
As a report a few years ago in Germany's Der Spiegel noted, China already uses roughly six times the resources the U.S. does to produce $10,000 worth of goods.
Why? China's state-run economy, while big and getting bigger, isn't innovative. Its economy may one day be as large as the U.S., but its citizens won't be as rich.
China's economy looming in our rearview mirror should be the least of our worries right now. America's problems may be serious, but they can be solved. China's? Not so much.
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