Benchmarking Global Poverty Reduction

Ravallion, Martin

关键词: ABSOLUTE POVERTY;    ANNUAL GROWTH;    ANNUAL GROWTH RATE;    ANNUALIZED CHANGE;    AVERAGE GROWTH;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-6205
RP-ID  :  WPS6205

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Against what standards should we judgethe developing world's overall performance againstpoverty going forward? The paper proposes two measures, eachwith both "optimistic" and "ambitious"targets for 2022, 10 years from the time of writing. Thefirst measure is absolute consumption poverty, as judged bywhat "poverty" means in the poorest countries. Thesecond is a new measure of global poverty combining absolutepoverty with country-specific social inclusion needs,consistently with national poverty lines. The optimisticbenchmark would entail an absolute poverty rate of 9 percentin 2022, and a combined poverty rate of 40 percent,including the allowance for social inclusion. The moreambitious targets would bring the absolute rate down to 3percent and the combined rate to 33 percent. The optimistictarget would maintain the (impressive) progress againstpoverty of the last 20 years, without global crises to stallthat progress. The ambitious target would require about a 1percentage point higher growth rate for the gross domesticproduct of the developing world, as long as this did notcome with a reduction in the household sector's shareor any further increase in overall inequality beyond itslevel in 2008. Alternatively, the 3 percent target could bereached at currently expected growth rates but at the lowerlevel of inequality found in 1999.