The Bangalore model: Could developing countries get rich by exporting services?

Companies from Amazon to Intel are relocating entire departments to developing countries, where they can tap into a rich seam of highly-skilled workers at much lower wages, to do everything from HR to microchip design. It's part of an accelerating trend since the covid-19 pandemic, which made clear to employers that tens of millions of service-sector jobs could potentially be done remotely from anywhere in the world. So what does this mean for developing countries? Could service exports be a way for the likes of India, the Philippines and South Africa to get rich in the 21st century, in the same way that Korea, Taiwan and China did with manufacturing exports over the last century? And if so, what will it mean for service-sector workers in the developed world? Hosts: Mike Bird, Alice Fulwood and Arjun Ramani. Guests: Vikram Ahuja, co-founder of ANSR, a company that sets up global capability centres in India; and Richard Baldwin, professor of international economics at the IMD Business School in Switzerland Transcripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts. Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to Economist Podcasts+.