The world has quietly entered a new age characterized by the fast rise of large number of middle class, the rapid growth of middle-income countries, especially the emerging economies, and the concern of middle-income traps. All three middle's are interconnected in some perplex ways, posing serious challenges to the emerging economies, and indeed, to the world as a whole. To a large degree, the future of the world rely on how the challenges of these middle's are dealt with.Professor Sir David King has been a leading voice and thinker on the issues related to the rapid growth of the world middle class. Unlike the conventional perspective that treats the food, energy and water (FEW) problem as a problem of population growth, he sees the problem from the perspective of the growth of middle class in the world. In fact, most of world's environmental and resource problems seem to be related, one way or the other, to the growth of middle class. While a greater population of world enjoys the benefit of modernization, human beings for the first time is severely constrained by the limits of the resources and by the planetary boundaries. This paper will present a synthesis of the related thoughts and studies, and will try to put together the three middle's into a synthetic framework. It will take the case of emerging economies for analysis and demonstration.The paper is inspired by the work and teaching of Professor Sir David King to whom it is dedicated.

Facing the challenges of the "Middles"

248th National Meeting (2014)

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