“China and India are poorer than we thought; rich countries produce even more than we realized. Those are the obvious conclusions from an unprecedented exercise, carried out by a World Bank-led coalition.

The International Comparison Program attempts to compare the size of the world’s disparate economies on the basis of purchasing power. … The total output share of developing economies is down by a sixth. These are huge revisions to the figures. …

The new information may influence the reform of voting power in the International Monetary Fund; China’s and India’s voting shares are …small; they had been pushing for their economic muscle – measured using purchasing power parity – to be taken into account. …

There are deeper implications in these figures. …The reality of life in poor countries has not been changed by the Bank’s bean-counters. But our understanding of it must now change dramatically.” [The Financial Times (UK)]