Looking at change

Ruchir Sharma, chief global strategist of Morgan Stanley Investment Management, examines in his new book the impact of 10 criteria on economic development. [BLOOMBERG/GETTY IMAGES/CHINA DAILY]

In his new book, which was released in June, the world's second-largest economy mostly fares well too on the 10 criteria he sets out to judge a country's performance.

These are: Demographics; whether a country is ready to embrace reform; wealth inequality; the role of government in the economy; whether a country is capitalizing on its location (its "geographic sweetspot"); manufacturing investment; inflation; whether its currency is over- or under-valued; the level of debt and the hype factor (how the country is portrayed by global opinion makers).

"Not all of them are original to me," says Sharma. " There is a body of work done on things like low inflation or high investment. It has just not all been strung together in this format and that is what I have tried to do here."

He deals with wealth inequality with a chapter, entitled, "Good billionaires, bad billionaires" and he believes on this criterion China has benefited from many of its wealthy tycoons like Alibaba's Jack Ma playing an influential role in the economy. He points out that the top 10 Chinese entrepreneurs control just 1 percent of GDP in China, compared to 12 percent in India.

"The share of billionaires in the (Chinese) economy is at a manageable level. It's not like Russia, India or Mexico where the share of wealth becomes just too large and sows the seeds of political resentment," he says.

Sharma, 42, says the way the government has retreated from many parts of the economy over the past 30 years has also been of benefit to China.

"It began from being a very big obtrusive, all-controlling state to one which has systematically reduced its share (in the economy) over time and that has done very well for China."