Breaking middle income traps in a post Covid-19 world: an introduction to the Special Issue

This Special Issue of Nova Economia presents papers from the workshop "Development, Lock-Ins, Traps and Catch Up: India, China, South Africa, South Korea and Latin America" that took place at Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG), Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, between 8 and 10 July 2019. This 2019 workshop was a continuation of another workshop – "Political Economy of The Middle Income Trap (MIT hereafter)", the 26th SJE International Symposium – that took place at the Seoul National University, 3 July 2018. The two workshops led to two special issues. The fi rst appeared in the Seoul Journal of Economics, with fi ve papers covering fi ve countries: Thailand, Malaysia, Turkey, Mexico, and Brazil (Lee, 2019a). The second is the present Special Issue, with six papers covering four countries (South Africa, India, China, Brazil), one region (Latin America) and experiences of successful cases of catch up (especially South Korea). This introduction draws on the insights gained from both workshops, as refl ected in the two special issues, to suggest an integrated reading of the current state of the research fi eld. Taken together, the eleven papers provide resources to evaluate different aspects of a wide range of countries that, in at least in one phase of their histories, faced an 'income' trap related to their levels of development. The middle income trap was discussed at both workshops, which, however, also, discussed related issues.1 It was seen that, on the one hand,