Poverty and Economic Growth in Egypt, 1995-2000

El-Laithy, Heba ; Lokshin, Michael ; Banerji, Arup

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: POVERTY RATES;    ECONOMIC GROWTH;    HOUSEHOLD SURVEYS;    CONSUMPTION PATTERNS;    HOUSEHOLD CONSUMPTION;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-3068
RP-ID  :  WPS3068

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

After a decade of slow economic growthEgypt's rate of growth recovered in the late 1990s,averaging more than five percent a year. But the effect ofthis growth on poverty patterns has not been systematicallyexamined using consistent, comparable household datasets. Inthis paper, the authors use the rich set of unit-level datafrom the most recent Egyptian household surveys (1995-96 and1999-2000) to assess changes in poverty and inequalitybetween 1995 and 2000. Their analysis is based onhousehold-specific poverty lines that account for thedifferences in regional prices, as well as differences inthe consumption preferences and size and age composition ofpoor households. The results show that average householdexpenditures rose in the second half of the 1990s and thepoverty rate fell from 20 percent to less than 17 percent.But, in addition to the ongoing divide in the urban-ruralstandard of living, a new geographical/regional divideemerged in the late 1990s. Poverty was found predominantlyamong less-educated individuals, particularly those workingin agriculture and construction, and among seasonal andoccasional workers. These groups could suffer the most fromthe slowing economic growth evident after 1999-2000.