Growth without development: Looking beyond inequality - ODI Briefing Papers 47
ثبت نشده
چکیده
• Polarisation hinders both growth and human development • Measuring income polarisation provides a distinct insight into the link between growth and human development • Policy recommendations based on polarisation measures will differ from those based on conventional inequality measures, and are likely to be more nuanced S everal countries, particularly in Asia, have seen soaring economic growth over the last decade. But when it comes to social indicators, such as health and education, they have made more limited progress. Inequality is often blamed for the poor links between economic growth and human development, but data show that links between economic growth, inequality and human development are less robust than often assumed. Important features of income distribution are not easily captured by conventional measures of inequality such as the Gini coefficient, particularly the way in which income is distributed across society. It was the Wolfson polarisation measure, for example, that highlighted the phenomenon of the disappearing US middle class – missed by the Gini. Unlike the measurement of inequality, polarisation measures focus on the clustering of members of a society at more than one income level – referred to as poles – capturing convergence around these income levels. Polarisation measures help to clarify why economic growth does not always translate into human development. They provide a distinct and complementary insight into the link between growth and human development, capturing the distributional aspects missed by traditional inequality measures. They lead, therefore, to different policy recommendations.
منابع مشابه
Looking back, peering forward: what has been learned from the food-price spike of 2007–2008? - ODI Briefing 81 - Briefing papers;;Research reports and studies
متن کامل
Pro-poor growth and development - ODI Briefing Papers 33 - Briefing papers
• Economic growth is usually necessary for poverty reduction, but is far from sufficient • Poverty reduction through growth depends on access to markets • Blueprints for growth and poverty reduction do not exist – each country needs detailed and specific analysis The pursuit of pro-poor growth – sometimes called ‘shared’ or ‘inclusive’ growth – has been central to development thinking and pract...
متن کاملEconomic growth and the MDGs - ODI Briefing Papers 60
• The challenge for policymakers is to maximise the impact of growth on human development • What matters is how the opportunities presented by growth are distributed, and specific policies are needed to ensure that the poor gain their fair share • Equitable distribution of the benefits of growth, in the form of progressive taxation and pro-poor public spending on health, education and social pr...
متن کاملWhy Inequality Matters for Poverty - ODI Inequality Briefings 2
After around twenty years of neglect, inequality has been brought out of the cold. Inequality has re-entered the mainstream development policy agenda by featuring prominently in the World Bank’s World Development Report 2000/01. Inequality matters in its own right (see Inequality Briefing No 1) and it is key to reducing poverty. This paper draws on recent research to explore in what ways inequa...
متن کاملGender and the MDGs: A gender lens is vital for pro-poor results - ODI Briefing Papers 42
• Policy dialogue on the MDGs needs to recognise that the gender dynamics of power, poverty, vulnerability and care link all the goals • The achievement of the MDGs requires a coordinated policy approach that is sensitive to gender-specific discrimination and risks • Gender-sensitive social protection policies offer an opportunity to link gender equality and the MDGs G ender inequality causes a...
متن کامل