Despite the vast research covering the relationship between economic growth, poverty and inequality, little is known about national perspectives on pro-poor growth. The overall picture described by the literature on the topic almost unanimously highlights positive linkages produced by globalisation in terms of growth and poverty. This research recovers some of the proposals that due to lack of data did not go beyond the theoretical speculation. Our main concern is to put to the test the hypothesis that 'on average growth is good for the poor' for one country. The empirical approach followed consisted in a series of intermediate methodological steps: to clarify what is pro-poor growth, to build comparable panel from a series of national income and expenditure surveys, to measure poverty, to identify pro-poorness, and then to test the one-to-one hypothesis. They all in the end served one single purpose, to find out whether the income of the poor grows at the same pace than the average income. Our findings offer little support to orthodox views, and suggest that the elasticity of the income of the poor to the average income is about half a percentage point, and the extreme poor's is about a third. These findings have several implications at different levels: at theoretical level this research emphasises that the topic of pro-poor growth has several angles that need further exploration. At the empirical level, this research offers a methodological alternative to scrutinise the issue of growth and poverty at national level.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:551206 |
| Date | January 2011 |
| Creators | Ramirez-Rodriguez, Baruch |
| Publisher | University of East Anglia |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
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