China is the world’s fastest growing economy and is also the second largest. However, the official estimates of the Chinese National Bureau of Statistics exaggerate GDP growth and need adjustment to conform to international norms as set out in the 1993 System of National Accounts (SNA)....

This paper analyses the forces determining per capita income levels of nations over the past millennium and the prospects to 2030. In the year 1000 AD, Asian countries were in the lead. By 1820, per capita GDP in Western Europe and the US was twice the Asian average. The divergence had grown...