Balancing Growth with Equity: The View from Development

The title of this session assumes a trade-off between growth and equity, and a need to choose a point on that trade-off. Indeed, a recurring issue in development circles is whether countries should focus their development strategies on growth or on poverty reduction strategies. The trade-off could come from a possible influence of growth on the distribution of wealth; or from a possible influence of the distribution of wealth on growth (presumably through an investment channel). A third possibility for a trade-off is that some policies that favor growth could have an increase in inequality as a direct byproduct; or that policies that favor equity could have a decrease in growth as a direct byproduct.