Chart of the week: China’s great leap forward

Worldwide patent applications jumped from around 800,000 to 1.8 million between 2000 and 2015. And there has been a major change in the distribution of the filings, says the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

In 2000 Japan, the US and the EU accounted for 47%, 20% and 14% of all global filings; by 2015 this figure had shrunk to a combined 34%. Now China tops the charts, comprising 51% of worldwide claims, up sharply from 32% in 2011. It looks as though the Middle Kingdom's greater emphasis on stimulating innovation as well as growth over the past five years is paying off.

Viewpoint

"The dreaded word stagflation cannot yet be applied to the British economy, but it may not be long before it is. Inflation remains persistently high while GDP growth is slowing to a point well below the long-run trend. Wages are growing at a sluggish pace and business investment has almost evaporated the fall in the pound that has generated much of the increase in prices has done little to improve the trade deficit. It all adds up to the average British worker putting in a 40-hour week for a salary that will be worth once prices are taken into account less than it was the month before. No wonder discount supermarkets Aldi and Lidl are cleaning up."

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