Poor Results and Poorer Policy: A Comparative Analysis of Estimates of Global Inequality and Poverty

Surjit Bhalla

CESifo Economic Studies, 2004, vol. 50, issue 1, 85-132

Abstract: This paper examines the data and methods used to estimate world inequality and world poverty since 1950. It was found that regardless of method used, world inequality reversed a more than a century old trend during the globalization period, loosely defined as the post 1980 years. Consumption growth of the poor also accelerated during globalization, and such growth was in excess of that of the average person. Poverty declined at close to 1.5 percentage points a year, a statistic not affected much by use of different PPP data, or use of different methods, including the method adopted by the official "keeper" of world poverty statistics, the World Bank. Indeed, a striking result obtained is that world poverty, according to the World Bank method, data, and definitions, was close to 15 percent in 2002, a level that is meant to be the millennium development goal target for 2015. (JEL O15, O20, O47,O5)

Date: 2004
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