IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bwp/bwppap/9809.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Inequality and the Impact of Growth on Poverty: Comparative Evidence for Sub-Saharan Africa

Author

Listed:
  • Augustin Kwasi Fosu

Abstract

This study explores the extent to which inequality affects the impact of income growth on the rates of poverty changes in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) compared to non-SSA, based on a global sample of 1977-2004 unbalanced panel data. For both regions and all three measures of poverty – headcount, gap and squared gap – the paper finds the impact of GDP growth on poverty reduction to be a decreasing function of initial inequality. The impacts are similar in direction for SSA and non-SSA, so that within both regions there are considerable disparities in the responsiveness of poverty to income growth, depending on inequality. Nevertheless, income-growth elasticity is substantially less for SSA, implying relatively low poverty-reduction sensitivity to growth compared with the rest of the developing world. Furthermore, the paper uncovers a considerable variation in the predicted values of income-growth elasticity across a large number of SSA countries. This implies there is a need to understand country-specific inequality attributes for poverty-reduction strategies to be effective.

Suggested Citation

  • Augustin Kwasi Fosu, 2009. "Inequality and the Impact of Growth on Poverty: Comparative Evidence for Sub-Saharan Africa," Global Development Institute Working Paper Series 9809, GDI, The University of Manchester.
    • Handle: RePEc:bwp:bwppap:9809
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hummedia.manchester.ac.uk/institutes/gdi/publications/workingpapers/bwpi/bwpi-wp-9809.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ram, Rati, 1985. "The role of real income level and income distribution in fulfillment of basic needs," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 13(5), pages 589-594, May.
    2. Ravallion, Martin & Chen, Shaohua, 1997. "What Can New Survey Data Tell Us about Recent Changes in Distribution and Poverty?," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 11(2), pages 357-382, May.
    3. Dollar, David & Kraay, Aart, 2002. "Growth Is Good for the Poor," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 7(3), pages 195-225, September.
    4. Ravallion, Martin, 1997. "Can high-inequality developing countries escape absolute poverty?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 56(1), pages 51-57, September.
    5. Ali Abdel Gadir Ali & Erik Thorbecke, 2000. "The State and Path of Poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa: some Preliminary Results," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 9(Supplemen), pages 9-40.
    6. Augustin Kwasi Fosu, 2008. "Inequality and the growth-poverty nexus: specification empirics using African data," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(7), pages 563-566.
    7. Foster, James & Greer, Joel & Thorbecke, Erik, 1984. "A Class of Decomposable Poverty Measures," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(3), pages 761-766, May.
    8. Goldstein, Joshua S., 1985. "Basic human needs: The plateau curve," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 13(5), pages 595-609, May.
    9. Fosu, A. K., 2001. "Political instability and economic growth in developing economies: some specification empirics," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 70(2), pages 289-294, February.
    10. Kalwij, Adriaan & Verschoor, Arjan, 2007. "Not by growth alone: The role of the distribution of income in regional diversity in poverty reduction," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(4), pages 805-829, May.
    11. Hicks, Norman & Streeten, Paul, 1979. "Indicators of development: The search for a basic needs yardstick," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 7(6), pages 567-580, June.
    12. Adams, Richard Jr., 2004. "Economic Growth, Inequality and Poverty: Estimating the Growth Elasticity of Poverty," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 32(12), pages 1989-2014, December.
    13. Theo S Eicher & Cecilia Garcia Penalosa, "undated". "Inequality and Growth," Working Papers 0083, University of Washington, Department of Economics.
    14. repec:bla:revinw:v:39:y:1993:i:2:p:121-39 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Ms. Anne Epaulard, 2003. "Macroeconomic Performance and Poverty Reduction," IMF Working Papers 2003/072, International Monetary Fund.
    16. Adelman, Irma, 1975. "Development Economics-A Reassessment of Goals," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 65(2), pages 302-309, May.
    17. Nanak Kakwani, 1993. "Poverty And Economic Growth With Application To Côte D'Ivoire," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 39(2), pages 121-139, June.
    18. Ravallion, M. & Datt, G., 1991. "Growth and Redistribution Components of Changes in Poverty Measures," Papers 83, World Bank - Living Standards Measurement.
    19. Datt, Gaurav & Ravallion, Martin, 1992. "Growth and redistribution components of changes in poverty measures : A decomposition with applications to Brazil and India in the 1980s," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 275-295, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Fosu, Augustin Kwasi, 2017. "Growth, inequality, and poverty reduction in developing countries: Recent global evidence," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(2), pages 306-336.
    2. Fosu, Augustin Kwasi, 2010. "Does inequality constrain poverty reduction programs? Evidence from Africa," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 32(6), pages 818-827, November.
    3. Augustin Kwasi Fosu, 2010. "The Effect of Income Distribution on the Ability of Growth to Reduce Poverty: Evidence from Rural and Urban African Economies," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 69(3), pages 1034-1053, July.
    4. Augustin Kwasi Fosu, 2010. "Inequality, Income, and Poverty: Comparative Global Evidence," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1432-1446, December.
    5. Augustin Kwasi Fosu, 2010. "Inequality, Income, and Poverty: Comparative Global Evidence," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 91(s1), pages 1432-1446.
    6. Augustin Kwasi Fosu, 2010. "Income Distribution and Growth's Ability to Reduce Poverty: Evidence from Rural and Urban African Economies," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2010-092, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    7. Vincenzo Lombardo, 2011. "Growth and Inequality Effects on Poverty Reduction in Italy," Rivista italiana degli economisti, Società editrice il Mulino, issue 2, pages 241-280.
    8. Asongu, Simplice A. & Nwachukwu, Jacinta C., 2017. "Quality of Growth Empirics: Comparative gaps, benchmarking and policy syndromes," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 39(5), pages 861-882.
    9. Oasis Kodila-Tedika & Simplice A. Asongu & Julio Mukendi Kayembe, 2016. "Middle Class in Africa: Determinants and Consequences," International Economic Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(4), pages 527-549, October.
    10. Simplice A. Asongu & Jacinta C. Nwachukwu, 2017. "Recent finance advances in information technology for inclusive development: a survey," Research Africa Network Working Papers 17/009, Research Africa Network (RAN).
    11. Simplice Asongu, 2016. "Reinventing Foreign Aid For Inclusive And Sustainable Development: Kuznets, Piketty And The Great Policy Reversal," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(4), pages 736-755, September.
    12. Kalwij, Adriaan & Verschoor, Arjan, 2007. "Not by growth alone: The role of the distribution of income in regional diversity in poverty reduction," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(4), pages 805-829, May.
    13. Simplice A. Asongu & Jacinta C. Nwachukwu, 2016. "Mobile Phone Penetration, Mobile Banking and Inclusive Development in Africa," The African Finance Journal, Africagrowth Institute, vol. 18(1), pages 34-52.
    14. Asongu, Simplice, 2014. "Reinventing foreign aid for inclusive and sustainable development: a survey," MPRA Paper 65300, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Simplice A. Asongu & Jacinta C. Nwachukwu, 2018. "Recent finance advances in information technology for inclusive development: a systematic review," Netnomics, Springer, vol. 19(1), pages 65-93, October.
    16. Fabrizio Carmignani, 2011. "The Making of Pro‐Poor Growth," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 58(5), pages 656-684, November.
    17. Ngepah, Nicholas & Espoir, Delphin Kamanda, 2018. "Binding constraints of economic growth on poverty: A dynamic panel data analysis," MPRA Paper 92136, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 15 Oct 2018.
    18. Simplice A. Asongu & Lieven De Moor, 2015. "Recent advances in finance for inclusive development: a survey," Research Africa Network Working Papers 15/005, Research Africa Network (RAN).
    19. Desire Avom & Fabrizio Carmignani & Abdour Chowdhury, "undated". "Four Scenarios of Poverty Reduction and the Role of Economic Policy," MRG Discussion Paper Series 3109, School of Economics, University of Queensland, Australia.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bwp:bwppap:9809. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Rowena Harding (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/wpmanuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.