This paper investigates the economic growth experiences of middle‐income economies over the period 1960–2014 focusing on two groups of countries. The “convergence success” group includes middle‐income economies which have graduated to a high‐income status or have achieved rapid convergence progress. When an economy in the “nonsuccess” group experienced growth deceleration and failed to advance to a high‐income status, we defined such episodes as the “middle‐income trap.” We observe no clear pattern that the relative frequency of growth deceleration was higher for upper middle‐income economies, thereby refuting the “middle‐income trap hypothesis.” The probit regressions show that “convergence successes” tend to maintain strong human capital, a high working‐age population ratio, effective rule of law, low‐priced investment goods, and high levels of high‐tech exports and patents. Adding to unfavorable demographic, trade, and technological factors, rapid investment expansion, hasty deregulation, and hurried financial opening could cause the “nonsuccesses” to fall into the middle‐income trap.

中文翻译：

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融合成功与中等收入陷阱

本文主要针对两组国家，研究了1960-2014年间中等收入经济体的经济增长经验。“融合成功”组包括已经过渡到高收入状态或已取得快速融合进展的中等收入经济体。当“不成功”组中的经济增长减速并未能晋升为高收入状态时，我们将此类事件定义为“中等收入陷阱”。我们没有观察到清晰的模式，即中等偏上收入国家的经济增长减速的相对频率更高，从而驳斥了“中等收入陷阱假说”。概率回归表明，“融合成功”倾向于保持强大的人力资本，较高的劳动年龄人口比例，有效的法治，低价的投资商品，以及高水平的高科技出口和专利。除不利的人口，贸易和技术因素外，快速的投资扩张，草率的放松管制以及匆忙的金融开放可能导致“不成功”陷入中等收入陷阱。