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Was Pro-Poor Economic Growth in Australia for the Income-Poor? And for the Multidimensionally-Poor?

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  • Francisco Azpitarte

Abstract

We investigate the pro-poorness of Australia’s strong economic growth in the first decade of the twenty-first century using anonymous and non-anonymous approaches to the measurement of pro-poor growth. The sensitivity of pro-poor growth evaluations to the definition of poverty is evaluated by comparing the results for the standard income-poverty measure with those based on a multidimensional definition of poverty. We find that Australian growth in this period can be only categorized as pro-poor according to the weakest concept of pro-poorness that does not require any bias of growth towards the poor. In addition, our results indicate that growth was clearly more pro-income poor than pro-multidimensionally poor. Counterfactual distribution analysis reveals that differences in the distribution of health between these two groups is the non-income factor that most contributes to explain this result. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

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  • Francisco Azpitarte, 2014. "Was Pro-Poor Economic Growth in Australia for the Income-Poor? And for the Multidimensionally-Poor?," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 117(3), pages 871-905, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:soinre:v:117:y:2014:i:3:p:871-905
    DOI: 10.1007/s11205-013-0378-8
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    2. Ali Hashemi, 2016. "Measuring Pro-Poor Growth in Egypt, Jordan, and Palestine," Working Papers 1008, Economic Research Forum, revised Jun 2016.
    3. Francisco Azpitarte & Olga Alonso-Villar & Felipe Hugo-Rojas, 2019. "On the Changing Spatial Distribution of Human Capital and Occupation Groups: An Analysis of Recent Trends in Australia’s Main Capital Cities," Working Papers 1903, Universidade de Vigo, Departamento de Economía Aplicada.
    4. Anton Michálek & Ján Výbošťok, 2019. "Economic Growth, Inequality and Poverty in the EU," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 141(2), pages 611-630, January.

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