NZ's business culture is very different from that of the US (which that FT article from the weekend was about). IMO, it's much more scelrotic and makes Australia's old boy's club look dynamic.
I read it this weekend. It was dumb then, and it's dumb now. Correlation does not imply causation - this is taught in the first week of high school statistics.
The significant amount of superfund sites also confounds with mass industry, which can make the epigenetic theory moot.
I recall these predictions 10-15 years ago. Since then, for all the advantages every other country had compared to the China, the other BRICS have gone nowhere relatively speaking.
(Don't get me started on BRICS)