I'm not too impressed by this argument. You could easily compare China with South Korea or Taiwan and come to the opposite conclusion. This is why you should never trust an argument that relies on two data points.
In fact, don't trust macroeconomists in general: individual preferences cannot be aggregated, at least not with our present mathematical tools. As a result, micro-founded macro models (99% of them) are complete nonsense: that's why Caltech doesn't even bother teaching macro to its PhD students anymore. It also explains why DSGE models have no predictive power whatsoever. Rant over.
In fact, don't trust macroeconomists in general: individual preferences cannot be aggregated, at least not with our present mathematical tools. As a result, micro-founded macro models (99% of them) are complete nonsense: that's why Caltech doesn't even bother teaching macro to its PhD students anymore. It also explains why DSGE models have no predictive power whatsoever. Rant over.