How covid-19 could impede the catch-up of poor countries with rich ones

IT ONCE SEEMED possible that covid-19 might deliver a softer blow to poor economies than rich ones. Instead, the virus seems likely to set the emerging world back in its quest to attain advanced-economy incomes. Real GDP per person in America shrank by about 4% in 2020, only about half a percentage point more than the average across emerging markets, in purchasing-power-parity terms. But projections made by the IMF in April suggest that American growth is set to outpace that in the emerging world this year; with the pandemic still ravaging places like Brazil and India, poor-country growth will probably lag even further behind. More worrying still, the pandemic may reshape the global economy in ways that make continued convergence towards rich-world incomes a tougher slog. Worse prospects for poor countries will in turn make managing future crises, from pandemics to climate change, harder. The rich world should take note.