Scenarios for Future Global Growth to 2050

Extreme poverty could be eradicated globally by 2050. Higher growth should mean stable employment and wages, with low- and middle-income countries seeing biggest improvements. In this report, we develop scenarios for the shape of the global economy in 2050 building on a simple regression of the historic relationship between current income and lagged income, demographic features, climate, and education, using the coefficients to develop a “central” forecast and error terms to set high and low bounds on country outcomes. Scenarios examine combinations of low and high outcomes for different country groupings. “Central” forecasts suggest slowing per capita growth rates for high income countries as well as many upper middle income countries including China, with continued global income convergence. Scenario exercises suggest the potential for considerable variation in outcomes including global share of the economy and voting power in international institutions.