When is growth pro-poor? Cross-country evidence

Aart Kraay ()

No 3225, Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank

Abstract: Growth is pro-poor if the poverty measure of interest falls. According to this definition there are three potential sources of pro-poor growth: (1) a high rate of growth of average incomes; (2) a high sensitivity of poverty to growth in average incomes; and (3) a poverty-reducing pattern of growth in relative incomes. The author empirically decomposes changes in poverty in a large sample of developing countries during the 1980s and 1990s into these three components. In the medium to long run, most of the variation in changes in poverty can be attributed to growth in average incomes, suggesting that policies and institutions that promote broad-based growth should be central to the pro-poor growth agenda. Most of the remainder of the variation in poverty is due to poverty-reducing patterns of growth in relative incomes, rather than differences in the sensitivity of poverty to growth in average incomes. Cross-country evidence provides relatively little guidance as to the policies and institutions that promote these other sources of pro-poor growth.

Keywords: Health Monitoring&Evaluation; Public Health Promotion; Poverty Reduction Strategies; Economic Conditions and Volatility; Services&Transfers to Poor; Achieving Shared Growth; Inequality; Governance Indicators; Economic Conditions and Volatility; Health Monitoring&Evaluation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2004-03-01
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (105)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSC ... DF/wps3225growth.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:3225

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank 1818 H Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20433. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Roula I. Yazigi ().