La Croissance A-T-Elle Été Favorable Aux Pauvres En Égypte Sur La Période 1990-2004 ?

In response to the severe economic crisis at the end of the 1980s, the Egyptian authorities were forced to implement macroeconomic stabilization and structural adjustment plans at the beginning of the next decade. The implementation of these adjustment programs led to the revival and speeding-up of growth during the 1990s, and a slowdown in the growth rate during the first half of the 2000s. Meanwhile, however, relative inequalities in the distribution of consumption expenditures evolved in a not uniform way during the process of growth. This article aims at assessing to what extent (this recovery of) economic growth has been really beneficial to the poor in Egypt during the 1990-2004 period. It will be shown that growth has not been strictly pro-poor in monetary terms in this country during the whole period. Consequently, as the estimations of the inequality-growth trade-off index suggest in this paper, a redistributive policy in favor of the poor might be an effective tool for poverty reduction in Egypt.