IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/gunwpe/0424.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Renewed Growth and Poverty Reduction in Zambia

Author

Listed:
  • Bigsten, Arne

    (Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University)

  • Tengstam, Sven

    (Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University)

Abstract

The Zambian economy has grown relatively fast over the last decade up to the current global financial crisis. This paper discusses the challenge of using these growing resources effectively to improve the welfare of the population and to reduce poverty. The poverty head count index is found to have declined from 1998 to 2004 by about 5.4 percentage points. This change can be decomposed into a 6.6 percentage point reduction due to growth and a 1.2 percentage point increase due to inequality change. Since poverty is most severe in the rural areas it is important to make agriculture more efficient by improving roads and electricity, extension services and education. Our discussion further highlights the need to improve tax revenue collection and efficiency in realising budget expenditure plans. An important reform to undertake would be to change the budget cycle. The private sector development strategy should make the country a more attractive destination for private investors by creating a better business environment and infrastructure. The country also needs a new trading arrangement with the EU. Poverty relevant social services such as health and education remain vital. The health sector needs to be strengthened both because it has an immediate effect on welfare and because it helps build and protect human capital that is essential for long-term growth. Also social protection might have a role to play. It might be possible to use schools for channelling resources to the poor. Finally, improved governance helps all other measures to become more efficient.

Suggested Citation

  • Bigsten, Arne & Tengstam, Sven, 2009. "Renewed Growth and Poverty Reduction in Zambia," Working Papers in Economics 424, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
  • Handle: RePEc:hhs:gunwpe:0424
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/2077/21652
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bigsten, Arne & Tengstam, Sven, 2008. "Smallholder Income Diversification in Zambia: The Way Out of Poverty?," Food Security Collaborative Policy Briefs 54637, Michigan State University, Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics.
    2. Jayne, Thomas S. & Govereh, Jones & Chilonda, Pius & Mason, Nicole M. & Chapoto, Antony & Haantuba, Hyde H., 2007. "Trends in Agricultural and Rural Development Indicators in Zambia," Food Security Collaborative Working Papers 54483, Michigan State University, Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics.
    3. Arne Bigsten & Abebe Shimeles, 2007. "Can Africa Reduce Poverty by Half by 2015?," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 25(2), pages 147-166, March.
    4. Datt, Gaurav & Ravallion, Martin, 1992. "Growth and redistribution components of changes in poverty measures : A decomposition with applications to Brazil and India in the 1980s," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 275-295, April.
    5. Arne Bigsten, 2001. "Policy-Making in Resource-Rich Countries," World Economics, World Economics, 1 Ivory Square, Plantation Wharf, London, United Kingdom, SW11 3UE, vol. 2(3), pages 139-153, July.
    6. Ravallion, M. & Datt, G., 1991. "Growth and Redistribution Components of Changes in Poverty Measures," Papers 83, World Bank - Living Standards Measurement.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Bigsten, Arne & Tengstam, Sven, 2008. "Smallholder Income Diversification in Zambia: The Way Out of Poverty?," Food Security Collaborative Working Papers 54490, Michigan State University, Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics.
    2. Augustin Kwasi Fosu, 2009. "Inequality and the Impact of Growth on Poverty: Comparative Evidence for Sub-Saharan Africa," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(5), pages 726-745.
    3. Abdelhamid EL BOUHADI & Abdelkader ELKHIDER & El Mustapha KCHIRID, 2010. "Can Economic Growth Be Pro-Poor In Morocco?. The No-Monetary Approach," Applied Econometrics and International Development, Euro-American Association of Economic Development, vol. 10(2).
    4. Timothy Besley & Robin Burgess, 2004. "Can Labor Regulation Hinder Economic Performance? Evidence from India," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 119(1), pages 91-134.
    5. Bluhm R & Crombrugghe D.P.I. de & Szirmai A., 2013. "The pace of poverty reduction - A fractional response approach," MERIT Working Papers 2013-051, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    6. Bourdieu, Jérôme & Menéndez, Marta & Postel-Vinay, Gilles & Suwa-Eisenmann, Akiko, 2008. "Where have (almost) all the wealthy gone? Spatial decomposition of wealth trends in France, 1820-1939," Review of Agricultural and Environmental Studies - Revue d'Etudes en Agriculture et Environnement (RAEStud), Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA), vol. 87(2).
    7. Prospère Backiny-Yetna & Franck Adoho & Issa Bouaré & Virginie Briand & Kassim Dabitao & Assa Gakou & Estelle Sommeiller & Dramane Traoré & Clarence Tsimpo & Quentin Wodon, 2009. "Tendance, profil et déterminants de la pauvreté au Mali de 2001 à 2006," Perspective Afrique, Association Africaine pour les Sciences sociales, vol. 4(1-3), pages 1-24.
    8. Fujii, Tomoki, 2017. "Dynamic Poverty Decomposition Analysis: An Application to the Philippines," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 69-84.
    9. Fosu, Augustin Kwasi, 2017. "Growth, inequality, and poverty reduction in developing countries: Recent global evidence," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(2), pages 306-336.
    10. Lustig, Nora & Lopez-Calva, Luis F. & Ortiz-Juarez, Eduardo, 2013. "Declining Inequality in Latin America in the 2000s: The Cases of Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 129-141.
    11. Meng, Xin & Gregory, Robert & Wang, Youjuan, 2005. "Poverty, inequality, and growth in urban China, 1986-2000," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 710-729, December.
    12. Sharafat Ali, 2013. "The Small and Medium Enterprises and Poverty in Pakistan: An Empirical Analysis," European Journal of Business and Economics, Central Bohemia University, vol. 8(2), pages 25-301:8, July.
    13. Essama-Nssah, , B. & Bassol3, Leandre & Paul, Saumik, 2010. "Accounting for heterogeneity in growth incidence in Cameroon," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5464, The World Bank.
    14. Gabriele, Alberto & Schettino, Francesco, 2007. "Child Malnutrition and Mortality in Developing Countries: Evidence from a Cross-Country Analysis," MPRA Paper 3132, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Jul 2007.
    15. Nguyen, Cuong & Phung, Thu & Phung, Tung & Vu, Ngoc & Westbrook, Daniel, 2012. "The Impact of A National Poverty Reduction Program on Ethnic Minorities in Vietnam: The Lens of Baseline and Endline Surveys," MPRA Paper 50477, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Mansour, Wael, 2012. "The patterns and determinants of household welfare growth in Jordan : 2002-2010," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6249, The World Bank.
    17. Juan Carlos Chavez - Martin del Campo, 2008. "Poverty Goals," EconoQuantum, Revista de Economia y Finanzas, Universidad de Guadalajara, Centro Universitario de Ciencias Economico Administrativas, Departamento de Metodos Cuantitativos y Maestria en Economia., vol. 4(2), pages 27-34, Enero-Jun.
    18. John COCKBURN & Jean-Yves DUCLOS & Agnès ZABSONRÉ, 2011. "Is the value of humanity increasing? A critical-level enquiry," Working Papers I13, FERDI.
    19. Djibril Ndoye & Franck Adoho & Prospère Backiny-Yetna & Mariama Fall & Papa Thiecouta Ndiaye & Quentin Wodon, 2009. "Tendance et profil de la pauvreté au Sénégal de 1994 à 2006," Perspective Afrique, Association Africaine pour les Sciences sociales, vol. 4(1-3), pages 1-29.
    20. Sırma Şeker & Stephen Jenkins, 2015. "Poverty trends in Turkey," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 13(3), pages 401-424, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Zambia; poverty estimates; economic policy; budget; private sector; social services;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O10 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:hhs:gunwpe:0424. 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: Ann-Christin Räätäri Nyström (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/naiguse.html .

    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.