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Emerging Markets: The New Spenders of the 21st Century

An excellent blog for China is run by Michael Pettis - a current article includes a discussion of consumption and related challenges:

Should China raise wages?

There is a very interesting graph on page 14 of the World Bank’s December 2008 Quarterly Update on China. I am not smart enough to figure out how to reproduce the graph but I will describe it. It shows private consumption and wage share in China as a function of China’s GDP, from 1993 to 2007. From 1993 to 1996, wages rose from 50% of GDP to 54%. During that same period private consumption rose from 47% to 49% of GDP.

Both remained more or less stable for the next three years
mpettis.com/2008/11/sh.../