system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Why can't Czechia and Poland economically catch up their neighbor Germany?

the biggest reason for economic growth are the right instituons, but all of those countries are democratic countries with similar laws and opportunities, yet German people are like twice as rich. The only difference people give me on why Germany is richer is that they're more productive.

poorer countries should grow faster than rich countries, so what's stopping Czechia and Poland to adopt the technologies and working procedures that makes Germany more productive?
gpt
There isn't really an economic rationale for the statement that poorer countries should grow faster than richer countries. Countries with a lack of capital stock tend to grow faster than countries with stable capital, countries with higher savings rates also tend to grow faster, but beyond that, countries tend to stabilise at different income levels based on productivity.

What determines productivity is a bit trickier. It's generally not seen as the case that less productive countries have faster productivity growth than more productive countries. In fact, many leading theories of endogenous growth find that productivity growth increases the more productive you already are. Technology is particularly self-perpetuating, so economies with strong research/development institutions tend to grow even faster.