众所周知，一些国家人均收入在达到中等收入阶段后，经济增长缓慢甚至停滞，落入“中等收入陷阱”，而无法顺利进入高收入社会，拉美地区便是这样一个典型代表，具有滞留时间较长和地区普遍性等两大特征。本文总结了拉美地区“中等收入陷阱”的三个主要经济表现：从20世纪70年代后期开始拉美地区经济增长陷入衰退；从20世纪80年代以来拉美地区经济增长波动加剧，危机频发；拉美地区各经济体经济增长情况趋于分化。本文在分析可能造成拉美地区经济增长停滞的各类因素后，认为全要素生产率下降是拉美地区经济增长停滞的主要来源，明确指出长期以来区内各国普遍存在资源配置效率基础薄弱、研发和创新能力基础薄弱两大问题，从根本上限制了拉美地区市场机制的有效发挥，阻碍了技术进步以及企业的创新活力，从而导致资源调动和配置的低效趋于长期化。作者在全文的基础上，总结了拉美地区的基本教训，指出进入中等收入阶段的国家规避“陷阱”的四条重要启示：提高全要素生产率是经济长期可持续增长的唯一源泉；不断改善资源配置效率是提高全要素生产率的必然要求；快速提升人力资本存量是提高全要素生产率的基础条件；人才和研发投入向企业倾斜是提高全要素生产率的有效途径。
The history of contemporary world economy has revealed the fact that some countries, particularly in Latin America and the Caribbean, felled into the "middle income trap" mainly due to their slow growth rate or a long-term stagnation and thus were unable to accelerate to the high-income economies. This analysis first summarizes the characteristics of the "middle income trap", and then in retrospect, makes a systematic review of the negative developments of the LAC economies since the 1970s. Among all possible theoretical and practical elements that may account for this longstanding dilemma, the authors points out that the decline of total factor productivity proves to be the primary convincing reason, just as argued as the pitfalls in the resource allocation/reorganization, discontinued and unreasonable ratio of investment in R & D that are detrimental to the region's sustainable innovation capability. Based on the above analysis, the authors conclude that developing economies, even at their robust growing phases, should bear four lessons in mind to avoid "middle income trap" mistakes and take right measures to improve total factor productivity, such as to ensure the efficiency of resource allocation, to timely enhance the human capital stock, to initiate and attract massive talents and to shift investment gravity to an enterprise-centered R&D system.
