Number Theory: Bangladesh shows the limits of export led growth for large countries
Bangladesh has seen a rise in compound annual growth rate of its gross domestic product in every decade since it came into being in 1971.
Bangladesh is what a lot of countries in the global south aspire to become: a global leader in labour intensive exports. Its garment exports are the second largest in the world after China. But almost everything else about the country is worrying. It has massive economic inequality, volatile politics, a deeply divided society and what looks like prolonged civic unrest. The ongoing protests in the country which have seen around 200 deaths and thousands of people arrested, are yet another reminder of the fact that countries with large populations will do well to guard against seeing just export-led development as a silver bullet for all of their problems. An unequal growth which is creating a growing mismatch between aspirations and reality without boosting government finances in a democracy which is increasingly turning authoritarian is the recipe for a perfect storm. Its wider ramifications notwithstanding, Bangladesh should serve as a good reminder to development economists that exports alone cannot be a silver bullet for countries with large populations. Here are three charts which explain this argument in detail.
