Hundreds of millions of people have benefited from this progress, with many millions lifted out of poverty.2 To be sure, the gap with the advanced economies remains substantial, but it has been narrowed significantly. These developments raise the question: How have the emerging market economies achieved such strong results in recent decades?
The answer is complex, of course, and I can only scratch the surface of these issues today; but I hope to lay out some key themes and provide some food for thought. Fostering growth in developing economies: the Washington Consensus Ironically, the rapid growth of the emerging market economies reflects in part the low levels of development at which they began.