Led by China... [some] developing countries have registered record-high growth rates over recent decades... [plus] advanced economies... such as Germany and Sweden. “Do as we do,” these countries’ leaders often say, “and you will prosper, too.” Look more closely, however, and you will discover that these countries’ vaunted growth models cannot possibly be replicated everywhere, because they rely on large external surpluses to stimulate the tradable sector and the rest of the economy... not all countries can run trade surpluses at the same time.
In fact, the successful economies’ superlative growth performance has been enabled by other countries’ choice not to emulate them. But one would never know that from listening, for example, to Germany’s finance minister, Wolfgang Sch甀戀氀攀, extolling his country’s virtues.... As the Financial Times’ Martin Wolf, among others, has pointed out, the German economy has been free-riding on global demand.

Other countries have grown rapidly in recent decades without relying on external surpluses... [via] excessive reliance on capital inflows, which... generate temporary growth... [leave them] vulnerable to financial-market sentiment and sudden capital flight....
The world’s current-account balances must ultimately sum up to zero. In an optimal world... surpluses of countries pursuing export-led growth would be willingly matched by the deficits of those pursuing debt-led growth. In the real world, there is no mechanism to ensure such an equilibrium.... When some countries want to run smaller deficits without a corresponding desire by others to reduce surpluses, the result is the exportation of unemployment and a bias toward deflation.... When some want to reduce their surpluses without a corresponding desire by others to reduce deficits, the result is a “sudden stop” in capital flows and financial crisis....
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2013/11/dani-rodrik-on-on-the-large-dangerous-external-imbalances-that-underpin-the-fastest-growing-economies-performance-project-syn-1.html