La mesure de la croissance pro-pauvres au Burkina Faso : espace de l'utilité ou des capacités ?

The research proposes to contribute to the debate on pro-poor growth, and presents a new empirical evidence for Burkina Faso, based at the same time on the spaces of utility and capabilities. Firstly, the comparative analysis of pro-poor growth shows that the monetary and non-monetary dimensions produce very similar results, independently of the implementations of « partial » or « full approach » measures. Thus, over the period 1994-2003, in spite of a small increase of poverty in terms of utility and capabilities, the national economic growth was pro-poor, insofar as the poor were proportionally less affected than the non-poor by the fall of the expenditures and capabilities. Correlatively, at the national level and in the rural sector, the assumption of a monetary pro-poor growth in absolute terms is not checked ? contrary to what certain studies have indicated ?, whereas a consensus seems to prevail as for the anti-poor monetary growth in the cities, in absolute and relative terms. These divergences are explained by different methodological options. Secondly, this dual approach of pro-poor growth makes it possible to test the robustness of certain postulated relations between poverty, economic growth and inequality. In this respect, the comparative analysis, mobilizing spatial econometrics, confirms two stylized facts. On the one hand, the provincial growth-elasticity of monetary or capabilities poverty is much lower when the initial index Gini (monetary or non-monetary) is high. In addition, whereas the evolution of the welfare indicator is an important determinant of the variation of poverty during the period, the changes of the expenditures and capacities? distribution also constitute a significant factor. Moreover, the comparative analysis shows that the effect of the growth on monetary or non-monetary poverty reduction, is stronger when the initial level of development is high. Ultimately, the approach of pro-poor growth in terms of capabilities can contribute not only to check the robustness of the stipulated dynamics of the process of monetary economic growth, but also to have a good proxy of this last in the absence of reliable information on the monetary living standard of households. JEL classification : I12, I32