Distribution and Development: A New Look at the Developing WorldMost of the world's people live in "developing" economies, as do most of the world's poor. The predominant means of economic development is economic growth. In this book Gary Fields asks to what extent and in what circumstances economic growth improves the material standard of living of a country's people. Most development economists agree that economic growth raises the incomes of people in all parts of the income distribution and lowers the poverty rate. At the same time, some groups lose out because of changes accompanying economic growth. Fields examines these beliefs, asking what variables should be measured to determine whether progress is being made and what policies and circumstances cause some countries to do better than others. He also shows how the same data can be interpreted to reach different, even conflicting, conclusions. Using both theoretical and empirical approaches, Fields defines and examines inequality, poverty, income mobility, and economic well-being. Finally, he considers various policies for broad-based growth. Copublished with the Russell Sage Foundation. |
Contents
The Distributional Effects of Economic Growth | 1 |
12 The Major Approaches to Distributional Analysis | 3 |
13 Income Distribution as a Multifaceted Concept | 7 |
14 Some Important Methodological Preliminaries The Role of Theory | 8 |
15 Plan for the Volume | 11 |
The Meaning and Measurement of Income Inequality | 13 |
21 The Meaning of Inequality | 14 |
22 Lorenz Curves and Lorenz Curve Comparisons | 18 |
62 The Different Mobility Concepts in Certain Stylized Examples | 126 |
63 Mobility Measures and Axioms Some Mobility Measures | 130 |
64 Conclusions | 137 |
Growth and Income Mobility Some Initial Evidence for the Developing World | 139 |
72 Malaysia | 145 |
73 Chile | 147 |
74 China | 149 |
75 Cote dlvoire | 154 |
23 Lorenz Curves and Inequality Comparisons | 23 |
24 A Note on Dominance Analysis in Theory and Practice | 24 |
25 Inequality Measures and Lorenz Comparisons | 28 |
26 About the Gini Coefficient | 32 |
27 Summary | 33 |
Economic Growth and Inequality A Review of the Empirical Evidence | 35 |
32 Influences on Inequality | 65 |
33 Conclusions | 69 |
The Measurement of Poverty | 73 |
42 Setting a Poverty Line | 74 |
43 The Concept of Poverty | 76 |
44 Four Groups of Poverty Measures | 82 |
45 Poverty Dominance | 86 |
46 The Concept of Relative Poverty | 91 |
47 Summary | 94 |
Does Economic Growth Reduce Absolute Poverty? A Review of the Empirical Evidence | 95 |
51 Inferences from CrossSection Evidence | 96 |
52 Intertemporal Evidence | 98 |
Individual Country Experiences | 102 |
54 Conclusion | 104 |
The Meaning and Measurement of Income Mobility | 105 |
61 Five Mobility Concepts | 106 |
76 India | 155 |
77 Conclusion | 156 |
The Meaning and Measurement of Economic WellBeing | 159 |
82 Social Welfare Functions Based on Vectors of Utilities or Incomes | 161 |
83 Abbreviated Social Welfare Functions | 165 |
84 Welfare Dominance Results | 167 |
85 Similarities and Differences among the Various Approaches | 170 |
86 Conclusions | 172 |
Empirical Comparisons of Economic WellBeing | 173 |
92 The Case of Taiwan | 174 |
93 The Case of Thailand | 178 |
94 The Case of Indonesia | 181 |
95 The Case of Brazil | 182 |
96 The Case of Chile | 185 |
97 Conclusions | 187 |
Distribution and Development Policies for BroadBased Growth | 191 |
102 Stimulating Economic Growth | 192 |
103 Distributional Policies Increasing Earnings in the Labor Market | 204 |
104 Conclusions | 222 |
References | 225 |
253 | |
Other editions - View all
Distribution and Development: A New Look at the Developing World Gary S. Fields No preview available - 2001 |
Distribution and Development: A New Look at the Developing World Gary S. Fields No preview available - 2002 |
Distribution and Development: A New Look at the Developing World Gary S. Fields No preview available - 2002 |
Common terms and phrases
abbreviated social welfare absolute poverty Ahluwalia Amartya K analysis Atkinson axiom Brazil chapter Chile comparisons Côte d'Ivoire Cumulative percentage decile Deininger and Squire developing countries distribution of income dollars Economic Development economic growth Economic Review economic well-being empirical employment equal example expenditures figure first-order dominance Gini coefficient growth spells headcount ratio High inequality higher household human capital immobility ratio income changes income distribution income inequality income mobility income quintile income recipients income share increase individual inequality measures inverted-U Kanbur Kuznets curve labor market Latin America Lorenz curves Lorenz-consistent Lorenz-dominance mean mobility measure percent policies poor poorest 40 population positional movement poverty deficit poverty headcount poverty line poverty measures programs rank Ravallion regression relative inequality rural sector share movement social welfare function statistically studies T. N. Srinivasan Taiwan theorem tion transition matrix University Press variables welfare dominance World Bank Y₁ Yes Yes Δ Δ