IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/ifwkwp/1664.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Global income distribution and poverty: Implications from the IPCC SRES scenarios

Author

Listed:
  • Calzadilla, Alvaro

Abstract

The Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES) has been widely used to analyze climate change impacts, vulnerability and adaptation. The storylines behind these scenarios outline alternative development pathways, which have been the base for climate research and other studies at global, regional and country level. Based on the global income distribution and poverty module (GlobPov), we assess the implication of the IPCC SRES scenarios on global poverty and inequality. We find that global poverty and inequality measures are sensitive to the downscaling methodology used. Our results show that future economic growth is crucial for poverty reduction. Higher per capita incomes tend to favour poverty reduction, while higher population growth rates delay this progress. Scenarios that combine high economic growth and convergence assumptions with low population growth rates produce better outcomes. China and India play a central role on poverty reduction and global inequality. While high economic growth rates in China and India may lift millions out of poverty, high population growth and stagnation in African economies could offset the situation.

Suggested Citation

  • Calzadilla, Alvaro, 2010. "Global income distribution and poverty: Implications from the IPCC SRES scenarios," Kiel Working Papers 1664, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:ifwkwp:1664
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/43116/1/640632572.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. anonymous, 1995. "Does the bouncing ball lead to economic growth?," Regional Update, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, issue Jul, pages 1-2,4-6.
    2. Branko Milanovic, 2002. "True World Income Distribution, 1988 and 1993: First Calculation Based on Household Surveys Alone," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 112(476), pages 51-92, January.
    3. Robert J. Barro, 2013. "Inflation and Economic Growth," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 14(1), pages 121-144, May.
    4. Milanovic, Branko, 2009. "Global inequality recalculated : the effect of new 2005 PPP estimates on global inequality," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5061, The World Bank.
    5. Quah, Danny T, 1996. "Twin Peaks: Growth and Convergence in Models of Distribution Dynamics," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 106(437), pages 1045-1055, July.
    6. Quah, Danny, 1997. "Empirics for growth and distribution," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 2138, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    7. Foster, James & Greer, Joel & Thorbecke, Erik, 1984. "A Class of Decomposable Poverty Measures," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(3), pages 761-766, May.
    8. Camelia Minoiu & Sanjay G. Reddy, 2009. "The Estimation of Poverty and Inequality through Parametric Estimation of Lorenz Curves: An Evaluation," Journal of Income Distribution, Ad libros publications inc., vol. 18(2), pages 160-178, June.
    9. Ian Castles & David Henderson, 2003. "The IPCC Emission Scenarios: An Economic-Statistical Critique," Energy & Environment, , vol. 14(2), pages 159-185, May.
    10. Shaohua Chen & Martin Ravallion, 2010. "The Developing World is Poorer than We Thought, But No Less Successful in the Fight Against Poverty," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(4), pages 1577-1625.
    11. T. Paul Schultz, 1998. "Inequality in the distribution of personal income in the world: How it is changing and why," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 11(3), pages 307-344.
    12. Danny Quah, 1996. "Twin Peaks: Growth and Convergence in Models of Distribution Dynamics," CEP Discussion Papers dp0280, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    13. Hillebrand, Evan, 2008. "The Global Distribution of Income in 2050," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 36(5), pages 727-740, May.
    14. Branko Milanovic, 2005. "Can We Discern the Effect of Globalization on Income Distribution? Evidence from Household Surveys," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 19(1), pages 21-44.
    15. Shaohua Chen & Martin Ravallion, 2004. "How Have the World's Poorest Fared since the Early 1980s?," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 19(2), pages 141-169.
    16. Bjart J. Holtsmark & Knut H. Alfsen, 2004. "PPP-correction of the IPCC emission scenarios - does it matter?," Discussion Papers 366, Statistics Norway, Research Department.
    17. Xavier Sala-I-Martin, 1997. "Transfers, Social Safety Nets, and Economic Growth," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 44(1), pages 81-102, March.
    18. Villasenor, JoseA. & Arnold, Barry C., 1989. "Elliptical Lorenz curves," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 327-338, February.
    19. Brian S. Fisher & Guy Jakeman & Hom M. Pant & Malte Schwoon & Richard S.J. Tol, 2005. "Chimp: A Simple Population Model For Use In Integrated Assessment Of Global Environmental Change," Working Papers FNU-69, Research unit Sustainability and Global Change, Hamburg University, revised Jul 2005.
    20. Quah, Danny, 1997. "Empirics for Growth and Distribution: Stratification, Polarization, and Convergence Clubs," CEPR Discussion Papers 1586, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    21. Xavier Sala-i-Martin, 2002. "The World Distribution of Income (estimated from Individual Country Distributions)," NBER Working Papers 8933, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    22. Charles I. Jones, 1997. "On the Evolution of the World Income Distribution," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 11(3), pages 19-36, Summer.
    23. Ian Castles & David Henderson, 2003. "Economics, Emissions Scenarios and the Work of the IPCC," Energy & Environment, , vol. 14(4), pages 415-435, July.
    24. Quah, Danny, 1996. "Twin peaks : growth and convergence in models of distribution dynamics," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 2278, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    25. Danny Quah, 1997. "Empirics for Growth and Distribution," CEP Discussion Papers dp0324, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    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. Bas Ruijven & Marc Levy & Arun Agrawal & Frank Biermann & Joern Birkmann & Timothy Carter & Kristie Ebi & Matthias Garschagen & Bryan Jones & Roger Jones & Eric Kemp-Benedict & Marcel Kok & Kasper Kok, 2014. "Enhancing the relevance of Shared Socioeconomic Pathways for climate change impacts, adaptation and vulnerability research," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 122(3), pages 481-494, February.

    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. Xavier Sala-i-Martin, 2006. "The World Distribution of Income: Falling Poverty and … Convergence, Period," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(2), pages 351-397.
    2. Maxim Pinkovskiy & Xavier Sala-i-Martin, 2009. "Parametric Estimations of the World Distribution of Income," NBER Working Papers 15433, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. David Warner & D. S. Prasada Rao & William E. Griffiths & Duangkamon Chotikapanich, 2014. "Global Inequality; Levels and Trends, 1993–2005: How Sensitive are These to the Choice of PPPs and Real Income Measures?," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 60(S2), pages 281-304, November.
    4. Ceccobelli, M. & Gitto, S. & Mancuso, P., 2012. "ICT capital and labour productivity growth: A non-parametric analysis of 14 OECD countries," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(4), pages 282-292.
    5. Ms. Camelia Minoiu & Sanjay Reddy, 2008. "Kernel Density Estimation Based on Grouped Data: The Case of Poverty Assessment," IMF Working Papers 2008/183, International Monetary Fund.
    6. Bart Capéau & Andre Decoster, 2004. "The Rise or Fall of World Inequality: A Spurious Controversy?," WIDER Working Paper Series DP2004-02, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    7. Paul Johnson & Chris Papageorgiou, 2020. "What Remains of Cross-Country Convergence?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 58(1), pages 129-175, March.
    8. Xavier Sala-i-Martin, 2002. "15 Years of New Growth Economics : What Have we Learnt?," Journal Economía Chilena (The Chilean Economy), Central Bank of Chile, vol. 5(2), pages 5-15, August.
    9. Xavier Sala-i-Martin, 2002. "The World Distribution of Income (estimated from Individual Country Distributions)," NBER Working Papers 8933, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Xavier Sala-i-Martin, 2001. "The disturbing 'rise' of global income inequality," Economics Working Papers 616, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Apr 2002.
    11. Juan Brida & Nicolás Garrido & Francesco Mureddu, 2014. "Italian economic dualism and convergence clubs at regional level," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 48(1), pages 439-456, January.
    12. Chang-Yang Lee, 2012. "Learning-by-doing in R&D, knowledge threshold, and technological divide," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 22(1), pages 109-132, January.
    13. Mukherjee, D., 2006. "Is the Rate of ‘Convergence’ Always Constant? Some Empirical Evidence from Sector Level Data of 56 countries, 1975-99," Regional and Sectoral Economic Studies, Euro-American Association of Economic Development, vol. 6(2).
    14. Fofack, Hippolyte, 2008. "Technology trap and poverty trap in Sub-Saharan Africa," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4582, The World Bank.
    15. Sanjay Reddy & Rahul Lahoti & Arjun Jayadev, 2015. "The global consumption and income project: An introduction and preliminary findings," WIDER Working Paper Series 003, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    16. Fung, Michael K., 2009. "Financial development and economic growth: Convergence or divergence?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 56-67, February.
    17. Ragdad Cani Miranti, 2021. "Is regional poverty converging across Indonesian districts? A distribution dynamics and spatial econometric approach," Asia-Pacific Journal of Regional Science, Springer, vol. 5(3), pages 851-883, October.
    18. Barnabé Walheer, 2016. "Multi-Sector Nonparametric Production-Frontier Analysis of the Economic Growth and the Convergence of the European Countries," Pacific Economic Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(4), pages 498-524, October.
    19. Dominique Guegan & Bertrand Hassani & Kehan Li, 2017. "An alternative class of distortion operators," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-01543251, HAL.
    20. Oleg Badunenko & Daniel J. Henderson & Valentin Zelenyuk, 2008. "Technological Change and Transition: Relative Contributions to Worldwide Growth During the 1990s," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 70(4), pages 461-492, August.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    global; poverty; income distribution; inequality; emission scenarios;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O50 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - General
    • I32 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Measurement and Analysis of Poverty
    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration
    • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming

    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:zbw:ifwkwp:1664. 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iwkiede.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.