Today, almost two-thirds of humanity lives in high-income or high-growth countries. That proportion is up from less than a fifth 30 years ago. Unfortunately, the remaining 2bn live in countries with stagnant, or even declining, incomes. What makes this even more important is the worrying fact that some two-thirds of the 3bn increase in global population expected by 2050 will live in countries today enjoying little or no growth.

The overriding challenge is to shift more poor countries into the high-growth category. This is addressed by the recently published Growth Report, product of a commission consisting mainly of policymakers from developing countries, under the chairmanship of Michael Spence, a Nobel-laureate economist at Stanford University*.