All that Glitters Is Not Gold : Polarization Amid Poverty Reduction in Ghana

Clementi, Fabio ; Molini, Vasco ; Schettino, Francesco

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: consumption expenditure;    poverty and inequality;    polarization;    concentration;    distribution;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-7758
RP-ID  :  WPS7758

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Ghana is an exceptional case in theSub-Saharan Africa landscape. Together with a handful ofother countries, Ghana offers the opportunity to analyze thedistributional changes in the past two decades, since fourcomparable household surveys are available. In addition,different from many other countries in the continent,Ghana's rapid growth translated into fast povertyreduction. A closer look at the distributional changes thatoccurred in the same period, however, suggests lessoptimism. The present paper develops an innovativemethodology to analyze the distributional changes thatoccurred and their drivers, with a high degree of accuracyand granularity. Looking at the results from 1991 to 2012,the paper documents how the distributional changes hollowedout the middle of the Ghanaian household consumptiondistribution and increased the concentration of householdsaround the highest and lowest deciles; there was a clearsurge in polarization indeed. When looking at the drivers ofpolarization, household characteristics, educationalattainment, and access to basic infrastructure all tended toincrease over time the size of the upper and lower tails ofthe consumption distribution and, as a consequence, thedegree of polarization.