The Elusive Quest for Inclusive Growth: Growth, Poverty, and Inequality in Asia
IMF Working Papers, June 26, 2013
Source details
- Canonical URL
- The Elusive Quest for Inclusive Growth: Growth, Poverty, and Inequality in Asia
Other formats
Bibliographic details
- Authors: Ravi Balakrishnan, Chad Steinberg, Murtaza H Syed
- Published: June 26, 2013
- Series: IMF Working Papers
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.5089/9781475531169.001
Summary and main findings
- This paper assesses how pro-poor and inclusive Asia’s recent growth has been, and what factors have been driving these outcomes.
- It finds that while poverty has fallen across the region over the last two decades, inequality has increased, dampening the impact of growth on poverty reduction.
- As a result, relative to other emerging and developing regions and to Asia’s own past, the recent period of growth has been both less inclusive and less pro-poor.
Drivers and analytical emphasis
- Examination of the interaction between growth, poverty reduction, and rising inequality in Asia.
- Analysis highlighting how increased inequality has reduced the poverty-reducing effectiveness of economic growth.
Policy recommendations
- Fiscal policies to increase spending on health, education, and social safetynets.
- Labor market reforms to boost the labor share of total income.
- Reforms to make financial systems more inclusive.
Subject coverage and keywords
- Subject: Economic growth, Inclusive growth, Income, Income distribution, Income inequality, Labor, Minimum wages, National accounts, Personal income, Poverty, Poverty reduction
- Keywords: Asia, Asia and Pacific, cost of capital, East Africa, elasticities of poverty, financial market, Financial Markets, Fiscal Policy, Gini coefficient, Inclusive Growth, Income, income elasticity, income growth, Income inequality, Inequality, labor market, Middle East, Minimum wages, North Africa, Poverty, poverty headcount, Poverty reduction, South Asia, WP