Most Western businessmen think the middle class in emerging markets matters because of its spending potential. One day those billions of Chinese, Indians and Brazilians will be buying awesome quantities of toothpaste or computers. A global consumer society will be born.rnWalking around the stores of Sanlitun Village, a shopping mall in central Beijing, it is tempting to imagine that those dreams are already coming true. Young Chinese couples dressed to the nines ogle the latest computers and BMWS. The architecture looks like a collection of recent interna-rntional design-award winners: the Apple store a cool glass box, the Adidas one a jagged shard of orange and ochre, all arranged around the obligatory skating rink.rnIt's magnificent, but it is not the typical middle-class shopping experience. A more representative specimen can be found in central India, a five-hour drive from Hyderabad, on the outskirts of Gulbarga in Kar-nataka state. This shop, described by Abhi-jit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, is a dimly lit corner of a family house.
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