Pro-poor growth: the evidence beyond income.

Hague, Sarah, Gottschalk, Ricardo and Martins, Pedro (2008) Pro-poor growth: the evidence beyond income. In: The Sussex Economics Department and IDS ESRC Development Economics Conference., 17-18 September 2008, University of Sussex. . [Conference or Workshop Item]

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Abstract

It is widely agreed that economic growth is necessary for reducing poverty. It is also well-established that poverty is multi-dimensional and not fully explained by income levels alone. Therefore, this paper attempts to fill a relative gap in the pro-poor growth literature by examining the impact of income growth on non-income poverty, particularly child mortality. The results confirm that although changes in per capita income matter for non-income poverty outcomes, they may not matter as much as for income poverty or as much as other factors, particularly in low-income countries. For developing countries, we find that a 1 per cent increase in income per capita is associated with a 0.3 per cent decline in the child mortality rate, declining to just a 0.1 per cent reduction for Sub-Saharan Africa. In contrast, a country‟s level of literacy appears to have a larger impact on non-income poverty with a 1 per cent decline in illiteracy associated with as much as a 0.5 per cent decline in child mortality in low-income countries. Our results suggest that pro-poor growth policies must be more sensitive to the constraints that exist in poorer countries that reduce the impact of economic growth on poverty.

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