IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/undpar/267648.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Income Inequality Trends in sub-Saharan Africa: Divergence, determinants and consequences: The Dynamics of Income Inequality in a Dualistic Economy: Malawi over 1990-2011

Author

Listed:
  • CORNIA, GIOVANNI ANDREA
  • MARTORANO, BRUNO

Abstract

Malawi is a small country located in Southern Africa. It has a surface area of 118,000 km2, a total length of 540 miles and a maximum width of 150 miles. The country is landlocked and the nearest harbours, Beira and Nacala (both located in Mozambique), are around 1,000 km from Lilongwe, Malawi’s capital. The country became a British colony in 1893 and gained independence in 1964. In 2011, the last year with inequality data, the total population was 15.5 million and its growth rate was around 3.0 per cent (UN DESA, Population Division, 2015). The population density is high, at 182.6 people per km2, against an average of 37 for sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The mainstay of the economy is agriculture, which currently employs 65.0 per cent of the workforce and generates about 36.0 per cent of GDP and 90.0 per cent of foreign exchange earnings. This sector is characterised, historically, by the dualism between small subsistence farms versus large estates run by white settlers during colonial times and by domestic elites after independence.

Suggested Citation

  • Cornia, Giovanni Andrea & Martorano, Bruno, 2017. "Income Inequality Trends in sub-Saharan Africa: Divergence, determinants and consequences: The Dynamics of Income Inequality in a Dualistic Economy: Malawi over 1990-2011," UNDP Africa Reports 267648, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:undpar:267648
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.267648
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/267648/files/Chapter%2012.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/267648/files/Chapter%2012.pdf?subformat=pdfa
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.267648?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Pryor, F.L., 1988. "Income Distribution And Economic Development In Malawi - Some Historical Statistics," World Bank - Discussion Papers 36, World Bank.
    2. Giovanni Cornia & Bruno Martorano, "undated". "Building the integrated inequality database and the seven sins of inequality measurement in Sub-Saharan Africa," UNDP Africa Policy Notes 2016-01, United Nations Development Programme, Regional Bureau for Africa.
    3. Durevall, Dick. & Mussa, Richard., 2010. "Employment diagnostic analysis : Malawi," ILO Working Papers 994614443402676, International Labour Organization.
    4. Richard Mussa, 2015. "Do the Poor Pay More for Maize in Malawi?," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(4), pages 546-563, 05-27.
    5. Giovanni Andrea Cornia & Laura Deotti & Maria Sassi, "undated". "Food Price Volatility over the Last Decade in Niger and Malawi: Extent, Sources and Impact on Child Malnutrition," UNDP Africa Policy Notes 2012-002, United Nations Development Programme, Regional Bureau for Africa.
    6. repec:ilo:ilowps:461444 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Pauw, Karl & Beck, Ulrik & Mussa, Richard, 2014. "Did rapid smallholder-led agricultural growth fail to reduce rural poverty? Making sense of Malawi's poverty puzzle," WIDER Working Paper Series 123, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    8. Jonathan Said & Khwima Singini, 2014. "The political economy determinants of economic growth in Malawi," Global Development Institute Working Paper Series esid-040-14, GDI, The University of Manchester.
    9. Lerman, Robert I & Yitzhaki, Shlomo, 1985. "Income Inequality Effects by Income," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 67(1), pages 151-156, February.
    10. Wan, Guang Hua, 2001. "Changes in regional inequality in rural China: decomposing the Gini index by income sources," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 45(3), pages 1-21.
    11. Pryor, F.L., 1988. "Income Distribution And Economic Development In Madagascar - Some Historical Statistics," World Bank - Discussion Papers 37, World Bank.
    12. Katia Covarrubias & Benjamin Davis & Paul Winters, 2012. "From protection to production: productive impacts of the Malawi Social Cash Transfer scheme," Journal of Development Effectiveness, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 4(1), pages 50-77, March.
    13. Léonce Ndikumana & James Boyce, 2010. "Measurement of Capital Flight: Methodology and Results for Sub-Saharan African Countries," African Development Review, African Development Bank, vol. 22(4), pages 471-481.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Maria Sassi, 2020. "Evidence of Between- and Within-Household Child Nutrition Inequality in Malawi: Does the Gender of the Household Head Matter?," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 32(1), pages 28-50, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. UNDP Regional Bureau for Africa & Bruno Martorano & Giovanni Andrea Cornia, "undated". "The Dynamics of Income Inequality in a Dualistic Economy: Malawi over 1990-2011," UNDP Africa Policy Notes 2017-13, United Nations Development Programme, Regional Bureau for Africa.
    2. repec:rac:ecchap:2017-13 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Giovanni Andrea Cornia & Bruno Martorano, "undated". "The dynamics of income inequality in a dualistic economy – Malawi," UNDP Africa Policy Notes 2017-01, United Nations Development Programme, Regional Bureau for Africa.
    4. Reinhard Schiel & Murray Leibbrandt & David Lam, 2016. "Assessing the Impact of Social Grants on Inequality: A South African Case Study," International Economic Association Series, in: Timothy Besley (ed.), Contemporary Issues in Development Economics, chapter 8, pages 112-135, Palgrave Macmillan.
    5. Schiel, Reinhard & Leibbrandt, Murray & Lam, David, 2014. "Assessing the impact of social grants on inequality: A South African case study," WIDER Working Paper Series 160, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    6. Julie A. Silva, 2013. "Rural Income Inequality in Mozambique: National Dynamics and Local Experiences?," The Review of Regional Studies, Southern Regional Science Association, vol. 43(1), pages 23-50, Summer.
    7. De Maio, Lorenzo & Stewart, Frances & van der Hoeven, Rolph, 1999. "Computable General Equilibrium Models, Adjustment and the Poor in Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 453-470, March.
    8. Barrett, Christopher B., 1997. "Liberalization and food price distributions: ARCH-M evidence from Madagascar," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 155-173, April.
    9. Michele Giammatteo, 2007. "The bidimensional decomposition of inequality: A nested Theil approach," LIS Working papers 466, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    10. Smale, Melinda, 1995. ""Maize is life": Malawi's delayed Green Revolution," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 23(5), pages 819-831, May.
    11. Contreras, Dante & Ffrench-Davis, Ricardo, 2012. "Policy Regimes, Inequality, Poverty and Growth: The Chilean Experience, 1973-2010," WIDER Working Paper Series 004, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    12. Higgins, Nathaniel & Hintermann, Beat & Brown, Molly E., 2015. "A model of West African millet prices in rural markets," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 33-43.
    13. Francesca Gastaldi & Paolo Liberati & Elena Pisano & Simone Tedeschi, 2014. "Progressivity-Improving VAT Reforms in Italy," Working papers 6, Società Italiana di Economia Pubblica.
    14. Anna Fräßdorf & Markus M. Grabka & Johannes Schwarze, 2008. "The impact of household capital income on income inequality: A factor decomposition analysis for Great Britain, Germany and the USA," Working Papers 89, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    15. Odusola, Ayodele & Bandara, Amarakoon & Dhliwayo, Rogers & Diarra, Becaye, 2017. "Inequalities and Conflict in Africa: An empirical investigation," UNDP Africa Reports 267040, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
    16. Guanghua Wan & Zhangyue Zhou, 2005. "Income Inequality in Rural China: Regression‐based Decomposition Using Household Data," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 9(1), pages 107-120, February.
    17. Giovanni Andrea Cornia, "undated". "An econometric analysis of the bifurcation of within-country inequality trends in Sub-Saharan Africa, 1990–2011," UNDP Africa Policy Notes 2016-04, United Nations Development Programme, Regional Bureau for Africa.
    18. Michele Giammatteo, 2006. "Inequality in Transition Countries: The Contributions of Markets and Government Taxes and Transfers," LIS Working papers 443, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    19. Paolo Liberati & Shlomo Yitzhaki, 2012. "GDP and beyond: an implementation of welfare considerations to the distribution of earnings in Italy," Departmental Working Papers of Economics - University 'Roma Tre' 0146, Department of Economics - University Roma Tre.
    20. Timm Bönke & Markus M. Grabka & Carsten Schröder & Edward N. Wolff & Lennard Zyska, 2019. "The Joint Distribution of Net Worth and Pension Wealth in Germany," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 65(4), pages 834-871, December.
    21. Wan, Guang Hua, 2005. "Convergence in food consumption in Rural China: Evidence from household survey data," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 90-102.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:undpar:267648. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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 CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc 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 RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.africa.undp.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.