Removing the anonymity axiom in assessing pro-poor growth
Abstract
The recent focus on ‘pro-poor growth’ led also to an intense debate on how exactly to define and to measure pro-poor growth. However, all suggested measures, irrespective whether they use the absolute or the relative definition of pro-poor growth have in common that they are based on the anonymity axiom, i.e. they do not distinguish between changes in horizontal and vertical inequality. That means usual assessments of pro-poor growth look at distributional changes over time and ignore how specific groups or households moved. Such a perspective may provide a very incomplete picture given that the common objective of most studies investigating the pro-poorness of growth is to test whether specific policy reforms where beneficial to the initially poor or not. Using panel data from Indonesia and Peru, this paper analyzes and illustrates empirically the implications of removing the anonymity axiom from measurements of pro-poor growth. It is shown that postulating anonymity, when assessing pro-poor growth can lead to misleading conclusions on how a specific policy affected the incomes of the initially poor. For both countries, the analysis shows substantial convergence to the mean, which is, at least for the case of Indonesia, robust to measurement error in the expenditure data.Download Info
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.Bibliographic Info
Paper provided by Ibero-America Institute for Economic Research in its series Ibero America Institute for Econ. Research (IAI) Discussion Papers with number 113.Length: 30 pages
Date of creation: 14 Jul 2005
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:got:iaidps:113
Contact details of provider:
Postal: Platz des Göttinger Sieben 3, 37073 Göttingen
Phone: 0049-551-39 81 72
Fax: 0049-551-39 81 73
Email:
Web page: http://www.iai.wiwi.uni-goettingen.de
More information through EDIRC
Related research
Keywords: Anonymity axiom; pro-poor growth; income mobility; horizontal equity; inequality; decomposition;Other versions of this item:
- Michael Grimm, 2007. "Removing the anonymity axiom in assessing pro-poor growth," Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer, vol. 5(2), pages 179-197, August.
- D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
- D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
- O15 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
- NEP-ALL-2005-09-29 (All new papers)
- NEP-DEV-2005-09-29 (Development)
References
References listed on IDEASPlease report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
- Carneiro, Pedro & Hansen, Karsten T. & Heckman, James J., 2002.
"Removing the Veil of Ignorance in Assessing the Distributional Impacts of Social Policies,"
IZA Discussion Papers
453, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
- Carneiro, Pedro & Hansen, Karsten T & Heckman, James J, 2002. "Removing the veil of ignorance in assessing the distributional impacts of social policies," Working Paper Series 2002:2, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
- Pedro Carneiro & Karsten T. Hansen & James J. Heckman, 2002. "Removing the Veil of Ignorance in Assessing the Distributional Impacts of Social Policies," NBER Working Papers 8840, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
- Stephen P. Jenkins & Philippe VanKerm, 2003.
"Trends in Income Inequality, Pro-Poor Income Growth and Income Mobility,"
Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin
377, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
- Stephen P. Jenkins & Philippe Van Kerm, 2006. "Trends in income inequality, pro-poor income growth, and income mobility," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 58(3), pages 531-548, July.
- Jenkins, Stephen P. & Van Kerm, Philippe, 2003. "Trends in Income Inequality, Pro-Poor Income Growth and Income Mobility," IZA Discussion Papers 904, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
- Jenkins, Stephen P. & Van Kerm, Philippe, 2003. "Trends in income inequality, pro-poor income growth and income mobility," IRISS Working Paper Series 2003-11, IRISS at CEPS/INSTEAD.
- de Vreyer, Philippe & Herrera, Javier & Mesplé-Somps, Sandrine, 2009.
"Consumption growth and spatial poverty traps : an analysis of the effect of social services and community infrastructures on living standards in rural Peru,"
Open Access publications from Université Paris-Dauphine
urn:hdl:123456789/776, Université Paris-Dauphine.
- Philippe De Vreyer & Javier Herrera & Sandrine Mesplé-Somps, 2002. "Consumption growth and spatial poverty traps: an analysis of the effects of social services and community infrastructures on living standards in rural Peru," Working Papers DT/2002/17, DIAL (Développement, Institutions et Mondialisation), revised Oct 2003.
- Philippe De Vreyer & Javier Herrera & Sandrine Mesplé-Somps, 2005. "Consumption growth and spatial poverty traps: an analysis of the effect of social services and community infrastructures on living standards in rural Peru," Ibero America Institute for Econ. Research (IAI) Discussion Papers 124, Ibero-America Institute for Economic Research.
- Lichtenberg, Frank R, 1994. "Testing the Convergence Hypothesis," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 76(3), pages 576-79, August.
- Foster, James & Greer, Joel & Thorbecke, Erik, 1984. "A Class of Decomposable Poverty Measures," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(3), pages 761-66, May.
- Hulme, David & Shepherd, Andrew, 2003. "Conceptualizing Chronic Poverty," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 403-423, March.
- Bound, John & Brown, Charles & Mathiowetz, Nancy, 2001. "Measurement error in survey data," Handbook of Econometrics, in: J.J. Heckman & E.E. Leamer (ed.), Handbook of Econometrics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 59, pages 3705-3843 Elsevier.
- Alan J. Auerbach & Kevin A. Hassett, 1999.
"A New Measure of Horizontal Equity,"
NBER Working Papers
7035, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
- Alan J. Auerbach & Kevin A. Hassett, 2002. "A New Measure of Horizontal Equity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(4), pages 1116-1125, September.
- Louis Kaplow, 1989. "Horizontal Equity: Measures in Search of a Principle," NBER Working Papers 1679, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
- Jean-Yves Duclos, 2009.
"What is “Pro-Poor”?,"
Social Choice and Welfare,
Springer, vol. 32(1), pages 37-58, January.
- Jean-Yves Duclos & Quentin Wodon, 2004. "What is "Pro-Poor"?," Cahiers de recherche 0425, CIRPEE.
- Javier Herrera & François Roubaud, 2003.
"Dynamique de la pauvreté urbaine au Pérou et à Madagascar 1997-1999: une analyse sur données de panel,"
Working Papers
DT/2003/03, DIAL (Développement, Institutions et Mondialisation).
- Javier Herrera & François Roubaud, 2005. "Dynamique de la pauvreté urbaine au Pérou et à Madagascar 1997-1999: Une Analyse sur données de panel," Ibero America Institute for Econ. Research (IAI) Discussion Papers 106, Ibero-America Institute for Economic Research.
- Stephan Klasen, 2004.
"In Search of the Holy Grail: How to Achieve Pro-Poor Growth?,"
Macroeconomics
0401005, EconWPA.
- Stephan Klasen, 2003. "In Search of The Holy Grail: How to Achieve Pro-Poor Growth ?," Ibero America Institute for Econ. Research (IAI) Discussion Papers 096, Ibero-America Institute for Economic Research.
- Gary Fields & Paul Cichello & Samuel Freije & Marta Menéndez & David Newhouse, 2003. "For Richer or for Poorer? Evidence from Indonesia, South Africa, Spain, and Venezuela," Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 67-99, April.
- Duclos, Jean-Yves & Lambert, Peter J., 1997.
"A Normative Approach to Measuring Classical Horizontal Inequity,"
Cahiers de recherche
9701, Université Laval - Département d'économique.
- Jean-Yves Duclos & Peter Lambert, . "A Normative Approach to Measuring Classical Horizontal Inequity," Discussion Papers 97/3, Department of Economics, University of York.
- Cowell, F.A., 2000. "Measurement of inequality," Handbook of Income Distribution, in: A.B. Atkinson & F. Bourguignon (ed.), Handbook of Income Distribution, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 2, pages 87-166 Elsevier.
- Ravallion, Martin, 2004. "Pro-poor growth : A primer," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3242, The World Bank.
- Atkinson, Anthony B., 1970. "On the measurement of inequality," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 2(3), pages 244-263, September.
- Stephen Jenkins & Peter Lambert, . "Horizontal Inequity Measurement: A Basic Reassessment," Discussion Papers 96/21, Department of Economics, University of York.
- Ravallion, Martin, 2004. "Competing concepts of inequality in the globalization debate," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3243, The World Bank.
- Plotnick, Robert, 1982. "The concept and measurement of horizontal inequity," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 373-391, April.
- Ravallion, Martin & Chen, Shaohua, 2003.
"Measuring pro-poor growth,"
Economics Letters,
Elsevier, vol. 78(1), pages 93-99, January.
- Ravallion, Martin & Shaohua Chen, 2001. "Measuring pro-poor growth," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2666, The World Bank.
- Fields, Gary S. & Ok, Efe A., 1996. "The Meaning and Measurement of Income Mobility," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 71(2), pages 349-377, November.
Citations
Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.Cited by:
This item has more than 25 citations. To prevent cluttering this page, these citations are listed on a separate page.
Lists
This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.Statistics
Access and download statisticsCorrections
When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:got:iaidps:113For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Sabine Jaep).
If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.
If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.
If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.
If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.
Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

