Debin Ma, London School of Economics and Political Science: By linking the new ongoing literature on the economic impact of automation with that of the middle-income trap the paper meshes two related but distinct lines of study to come up with an insightful overview paper. This paper discusses everything at an extremely general level because it covers a vast array of countries (mostly in Asia) and draws on a wide set of relevant indicators mostly from secondary sources.
There are, therefore, two major two problems with this paper. First, because of the obvious concern about the reliance on these highly aggregate indices from disparate sources, the paper should include some discussion on both the qualitative and quantitative aspect of these indicators and how comparable they might be across countries and periods.
Second, because the paper also discusses everything at a highly aggregated and abstract level, it would have been desirable...