Until 2009, India was poorer than Pakistan on a per capita basis. India truly became richer than Pakistan after 2009 and since then it hasn’t looked back. If trends continue for a decade, India will be more than twice as rich as Pakistan soon…

So why has India pulled ahead in GDP per capita? The reason is simple. Pakistan’s high fertility has driven population growth faster than India’s. In 1952 Pakistan had about one-tenth of India’s population; by 2025 it had grown to nearly one-seventh.

In other words, many of the added Pakistanis have not started working yet, but they are on the books to lower the per capita esstimate.  There is much in this Rohit Shinde essay I disagree with, but it is a useful corrective to those who simply wish to sing “policy, policy, policy.”  Putting aside its per capita lag, Pakistan has done a better job keeping up with India than you might think at first.

In any case, I am not predicting that trend will continue in the future, I do not think so.  So someday this essay might look especially “off,” nonetheless it is worth a moment of ponder.