How Much Does Reducing Inequality Matter for Global Poverty?

Lakner, Christoph ; Mahler, Daniel Gerszon ; Negre, Mario ; Prydz, Espen Beer

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: POVERTY;    INEQUALITY;    INCLUSIVE GROWTH;    POVERTY REDUCTION;    SIMULATION;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-8869
RP-ID  :  WPS8869

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

The goals of ending extreme poverty by2030 and working toward a more equal distribution of incomeare prominent in international development and agreed uponin the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals 1and 10. Using data from 164 countries comprising 97 percentof the world's population, this paper simulates a setof scenarios for global poverty from 2018 to 2030 underdifferent assumptions about growth and inequality. Thisallows for quantifying the interdependence of the povertyand inequality goals. The paper uses different assumptionsabout growth incidence curves to model changes in inequalityand relies on the Model-based Recursive Partitioningmachine-learning algorithm to model how growth in GDP ispassed through to growth as observed in household surveys.When holding within-country inequality unchanged and lettingGDP per capita grow according to International Monetary Fundforecasts, the simulations suggest that the number ofextreme poor (living below $1.90/day) will remain above 550million in 2030, resulting in a global extreme poverty rateof 6.5 percent. If the Gini index in each country decreasesby 1 percent per year, the global poverty rate could reduceto around 5.4 percent in 2030, equivalent to 100 millionfewer people living in extreme poverty. Reducing eachcountry's Gini index by 1 percent per year has a largerimpact on global poverty than increasing each country'sannual growth 1 percentage point above the forecasts,suggesting an important role for inequality on the path toeliminating extreme poverty.