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Does the Rise of Middle Class Lock in Good Government in the Developing World?

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  • Nancy Birdsall

Abstract

The current size of the income-secure middle class and its likely future growth, suggest that optimism is indeed warranted for many of today’s middle-income countries. But it is not warranted for all of them, and especially not for most of the low-income countries of South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa — even if they continue to grow at the relatively healthy rates they have enjoyed in the last decade and more.

Suggested Citation

  • Nancy Birdsall, 2015. "Does the Rise of Middle Class Lock in Good Government in the Developing World?," Working Papers id:7861, eSocialSciences.
    • Handle: RePEc:ess:wpaper:id:7861
    Note: Institutional Papers
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alberto Alesina & Guido Cozzi & Noemi Mantovan, 2012. "The Evolution of Ideology, Fairness and Redistribution," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 122(565), pages 1244-1261, December.
    2. Loayza, Norman & Rigolini, Jamele & Llorente, Gonzalo, 2012. "Do middle classes bring institutional reforms ?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6015, The World Bank.
    3. Nancy Birdsall & Nora Lustig & Darryl McLeod, 2011. "Declining inequality in Latin America: Some economics, some politics," Working Papers 201, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
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    Cited by:

    1. Olivier CADOT & Jaime de MELO & Patrick PLANE & Laurent WAGNER & Martha TESFAYE WOLDEMICHAEL, 2017. "L’Afrique subsaharienne peut-elle se développer sans usines ?," Working Paper 084c8bee-b301-4412-8ca4-c, Agence française de développement.
    2. Diego F. Grijalva, 2017. "The rise of the middle class in Ecuador during the oil boom," Revista Cuadernos de Economia, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, FCE, CID, vol. 36(72).
    3. Schotte, Simone, 2017. "The Anxious and the Climbers: Ambivalent Attitudes towards Democracy among South Africa's Middle Class," GIGA Working Papers 304, GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies.
    4. Pedro Cunha Neves, 2018. "Optimal policies, middle class development and human capital accumulation under elite rivalry," CEFAGE-UE Working Papers 2018_04, University of Evora, CEFAGE-UE (Portugal).
    5. Elena Sochirca & Pedro Cunha Neves, 2020. "Optimal policies, middle class development and human capital accumulation under elite rivalry," Eurasian Economic Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 10(4), pages 727-744, December.
    6. Olivier Cadot & Jaime de Melo & Patrick Plane & Laurent Wagner & Martha Tesfaye Woldemichael, 2016. "Industrialisation et transformation structurelle : l’Afrique subsaharienne peut-elle se développer sans usines ?," Revue d’économie du développement, De Boeck Université, vol. 24(2), pages 19-49.
    7. Arve Hansen, 2022. "Negotiating Unsustainable Food Transformations: Development, Middle Classes and Everyday Food Practices in Vietnam," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 34(3), pages 1441-1459, June.
    8. Clément, Matthieu & Rougier, Eric & Berrou, Jean-Philippe & Combarnous, François & Darbon, Dominique, 2022. "“What’s in the middle”: Scratching beneath the surface of the middle class(es) in Brazil, Côte d’Ivoire, Turkey and Vietnam," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    9. Elena Sochirca & Pedro Cunha Neves, 2018. "Optimal policies, middle class development and human capital accumulation under elite rivalry," NIPE Working Papers 16/2018, NIPE - Universidade do Minho.
    10. Eric Rougier & Matthieu Clément & François Combarnous & Dominique Darbon, 2025. "“You Can't Always Get What You Want”: Middle‐Class Expectations and Incomplete Social Contracts in the Global South," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 78(4), pages 1463-1478, November.

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