There's certainly gross dysfunction in East Asia but they were always less developed than Europe and have been playing catch-up the whole time. Japan - razed in the war (much less of a baby boom than Anglosphere), very little resources. Korea, razed in the war, very little resources.
China makes up the bulk of East Asia and they're not done developing yet. How can they have high GDP when their capital base has only just started to pay dividends and they're still building it out?
Admittedly Germany is also resource-poor and was razed yet recovered very quickly, to a higher level compared to Japan. So not unreasonable for some kind of Europe-Asia gap but a much smaller gap than from GDP alone. Anglosphere countries have high resources/capita and were never razed, US especially enjoyed various privileges.
There's an economics literature on the impact of immigrants on institutions, cultural characteristics that may affect economic growth, and economic growth itself. It doesn't match your description of the work of economists and the findings are either null or positive, far from the gloomy picture you paint.
I think for the "baby boom pattern" you need to replace "declining and peaking" with "deteriorating and improving", otherwise it's confusing a decline in the stated metric with a peak in what's arguably desirable.
For example you describe the mid-century trough in foreign-born share as a peak, but it's the native-born share that's peaking.
Great rundown as always. I'm a little curious if you have any links on the Japanese retail system and/or anglo planning system, if these are really so disastrous?
Japanese retail system: Most of the service sector (a very substantial portion of the economy in a wealthy country) in Japan is in small, family owned businesses. There used to be laws that explicitly limited the size of for example supermarkets, although it is my understanding that most of these laws have by now been abolished.
Anglo planning system: Very strong zoning laws that makes it very difficult to build new housing, and especially new housing that isn't relatively low density suburbs. A strong cultural preference for low density in general and idealization of the countryside, rather than cities. Laws that protect large parts of the countryside from development.
I think there was an Aporia article recently arguing that non-suburban/rural housing is pretty bad for fertility rates, and protecting family-owned businesses doesn't sound especially harmful either. I'm a little skeptical these could be the factors explaining the anglo/japan/US income diffs, or at least the tradeoffs have to be considered.
There's certainly gross dysfunction in East Asia but they were always less developed than Europe and have been playing catch-up the whole time. Japan - razed in the war (much less of a baby boom than Anglosphere), very little resources. Korea, razed in the war, very little resources.
China makes up the bulk of East Asia and they're not done developing yet. How can they have high GDP when their capital base has only just started to pay dividends and they're still building it out?
Admittedly Germany is also resource-poor and was razed yet recovered very quickly, to a higher level compared to Japan. So not unreasonable for some kind of Europe-Asia gap but a much smaller gap than from GDP alone. Anglosphere countries have high resources/capita and were never razed, US especially enjoyed various privileges.
There's an economics literature on the impact of immigrants on institutions, cultural characteristics that may affect economic growth, and economic growth itself. It doesn't match your description of the work of economists and the findings are either null or positive, far from the gloomy picture you paint.
Fantastic work. Thank you.
I think for the "baby boom pattern" you need to replace "declining and peaking" with "deteriorating and improving", otherwise it's confusing a decline in the stated metric with a peak in what's arguably desirable.
For example you describe the mid-century trough in foreign-born share as a peak, but it's the native-born share that's peaking.
Great rundown as always. I'm a little curious if you have any links on the Japanese retail system and/or anglo planning system, if these are really so disastrous?
I don't have any links, but basically:
Japanese retail system: Most of the service sector (a very substantial portion of the economy in a wealthy country) in Japan is in small, family owned businesses. There used to be laws that explicitly limited the size of for example supermarkets, although it is my understanding that most of these laws have by now been abolished.
Anglo planning system: Very strong zoning laws that makes it very difficult to build new housing, and especially new housing that isn't relatively low density suburbs. A strong cultural preference for low density in general and idealization of the countryside, rather than cities. Laws that protect large parts of the countryside from development.
I think there was an Aporia article recently arguing that non-suburban/rural housing is pretty bad for fertility rates, and protecting family-owned businesses doesn't sound especially harmful either. I'm a little skeptical these could be the factors explaining the anglo/japan/US income diffs, or at least the tradeoffs have to be considered.