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A poverty-inequality trade off?

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  • Martin Ravallion

Abstract

The idea that developing countries face a trade off between poverty and inequality has had considerable influence on thinking about development policy. The experience of developing countries in the 1990s does not, however, reveal any sign of a systematic trade off between measures of absolute poverty and relative inequality. Indeed, falling inequality tends to come with falling poverty incidence. And rising inequality appears more likely to be putting a brake on poverty reduction than to be facilitating it. However, there is evidence of a trade off for absolute inequality, suggesting that those who want a lower absolute gap between the rich and the poor must in general be willing to see lower absolute levels of living for poor people. Copyright Springer 2005

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  • Martin Ravallion, 2005. "A poverty-inequality trade off?," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 3(2), pages 169-181, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:jecinq:v:3:y:2005:i:2:p:169-181
    DOI: 10.1007/s10888-005-0091-1
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    inequality; poverty; growth;
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