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Economic Center of Gravity: 2,000-Year Round Trip
The world’s economic center of gravity has shifted further over the past decade than at any time in history and is set to accelerate further as more developing-world citizens leave rural farms for cities. From 2000 to 2010, the economic center of gravity — the geographic center of the world’s annual economic growth — moved about 140 km (87 miles) per year, according to this report from the McKinsey Global Institute. In 2010 it was over northern Russia, compared with somewhere over the Arctic Ocean in 2000. That eastward movement was the fastest jump since A.D. 1, and was particularly brisk from 2007 from 2010 ... (full story)