Measuring Pro-Poor Growth in Egypt, Jordan, and Palestine

This paper examines the pro-poorness of economic growth in Egypt, Jordan, and Palestine in the first decade of the twenty-first century. Based on Ravallion and Chen(2003)’s poverty reducing definition of pro-poorness which only requires reduction in poverty and ignores the distributional impact of growth, we characterize economic growth in all three countries throughout the decade as pro-poor, with the exception of Palestine during the first half of the decade. On the other hand, using Kakwani and Pernia (2000)’s definition which includes both poverty reduction and distributional aspects and characterizes a growth pattern as pro-poor only if it favors the poor, we find that only Egypt’s growth can be characterized as pro-poor for most combinations of poverty measures and poverty lines. Jordan’s growth, although remained high throughout the decade, can only be characterized as pro-poor in the second half of this period. Finally, neither Palestine’s economic downturn in the first half of the decade nor its following economic recovery in the second half can be characterized as pro-poor.