After BRICs, Goldman Sachs Names the Next Eleven Promising Economies

In Global Economics Paper No. 134, “How Solid Are the BRICs?,” Goldman Sachs identifies another eleven economies that may emerge as important global players by 2050. Named the N-11, or Next Eleven, they are (in alphabetical order): Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Korea, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Turkey, and Vietnam.

The BRICs thesis—Brazil, Russia, India, China—had already been a decade in the making when this paper appeared. The N-11 extension applies the same demographic and productivity framework to a second tier of large, fast-growing economies whose combined weight will reshape the global economy by mid-century.

Two members of the N-11 stand out in the GS projections. Mexico is forecast to become the sixth-largest economy in the world by 2050, with GDP per capita reaching approximately $52,990. Korea is projected to surpass all current G7 members except the United States in per capita income terms, reaching roughly $81,462 by mid-century—compared to a projected U.S. figure of $89,663. Korea is currently on track to reach today’s U.S. per capita income level ($42,000–$43,000) somewhere between 2015 and 2020.

In an earlier post in this Bulletin, we discussed why Korea in particular has the institutional and demographic foundations to become an economic and geopolitical regional power. The N-11 classification adds formal GS endorsement to that view.

One omission worth noting: the Goldman paper makes no mention of the Hispanic population of the United States. By 2030, according to a separate GS report on the “Hispanization of the United States,” Latino/Hispanic population will reach 73 million, or 20% of the total U.S. population. As an economic unit, Latino America within the United States may itself qualify as an emerging economy of significant scale—a domestic N-11 candidate that the international framing of the BRICs exercise tends to miss.