Dynamics of growth, poverty, and inequality in Pakistan

The paper analyses the long-run relationship between growth, poverty and inequality in the context of Pakistan. Consistent time series on poverty measures are constructed separately for rural and urban areas using all the 14 Household Income and Expenditure Surveys conducted in Pakistan from 1963-64 to 1994-95. (...) It is found that growth, ceteris peribus, has helped poverty reduction. Growth has worsened income inequality at national level but more so in the rural ares. Increase in inequality, keeping growth unchanged, has contributed to rise in poverty more in the urban areas than in the rural areas. On the whole, the dominant effect of growth has been of poverty reduction. (Pak Dev Rev/DÜI)