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Leaning against this force, however, is migration. Right now, the richest places are not the most populous.
但扭轉這股力量的因素是移民。現在，最富有的地方并非那些人口眾多的國家。
Should it become relatively easy to migrate, people will move from countries that are populous but poor to others that are rich.
如果移民變得相對容易，人們將從人口眾多但卻貧困的國家遷至富裕的國家。
As migration swells the population of rich places, their long-run dominance is assured because of the link between population size and innovation.
隨著移民涌入富裕國家，由于人口規模和創新之間的關系，他們的長期優勢得到了保證。
But if there is very little migration, then the populous but poor countries will out-innovate the small but rich ones,
但如果移民很少，那么人口眾多但貧窮的國家將在創新方面超過那些人口較少但卻富裕的國家，
and make their way up the income league table. The process is not quick; the authors reckon that convergence takes about 400 years.
并讓他們爬上收入排行榜。這個過程并不快；作者們認為這種趨同需要約400年。
In practice, rich places tend not to allow much migration from poor ones.
實際上，富裕國家不會允許過多貧困國家的移民。
That could change, but assuming that it does not, the model delivers a striking forecast: half a millennium from now,
這一點可能會改變，但假設其不改變，那么這一模型傳遞出了一個驚人的預測：自現在起半個世紀后，
Asia and sub-Saharan Africa will have become great engines of productivity.
亞洲和撒哈拉以南的非洲將成為巨大的生產力引擎。
Stranger things have happened. A millennium ago real output per person was significantly higher in China than in Britain.
更加奇怪的事情發生了。一千年前，中國的人均實際產出明顯高于英國。
To predict that a European backwater would lead the world into the most transformative economic epoch in history would have seemed like madness.
要預測歐洲停滯不前的狀態將引領世界走向歷史上最具變革性的經濟時代似乎很瘋狂。
Over very long time horizons the world's poorest places can indeed become the world's richest, even if it does not happen often.
在很長一段時間內，世界最貧窮的國家確實可以成為世界最富有的國家，雖然這種情況不常發生。
Still, if Britain did not have the upper hand over China 1,000 years ago, it did soon after, at least in terms of real output per person.
盡管如此，如果英國沒有在一千年前占得中國上風，那么在不久后也會如此，至少在人均實際產出上是如此。
By 1400 incomes in Britain were meaningfully larger than in China (and higher still in the Netherlands and Italy),
到1400年，英國收入明顯大于中國（且仍比荷蘭和意大利高），
according to work by Stephen Broadberry of Oxford University,
牛津大學的斯蒂芬·布勞德伯利
Hanhui Guan of Peking University and David Daokui Li of Tsinghua University.
北京大學的管漢暉以及清華大學的李稻葵的研究說如是。
By 1700 the diverging trajectories of China and north-west Europe were clear
到1700年，中國和歐洲西北部的分叉軌跡很明顯
(though it was anything but obvious just how much further apart they would become).
（雖然其只是表明兩者將會相隔多遠）。
In other words, population over the past millennium has not been destiny.
換言之，在過去一千年中，人口并不是命運。
If China's and India's masses did not raise them to prosperity during the past 600 years, what reason is there to believe the future will be different?
如果在過去600年里，中國和印度的人口并沒有帶領兩國走向繁榮，那還有什么理由相信未來會有所不同呢？
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