We introduce two separate datasets (The Global Consumption Dataset (GCD) and The Global Income Dataset (GID)) containing an unprecedented portrait of consumption and income of persons over time, within and across countries, around the world. The benchmark version of the dataset presents...

This paper examines the prospects of achieving a main goal of the Istanbul Programme of Action—at least half of the LDCs to meet the graduation criteria by 2020. Based on two different sets of graduation criteria established by the CDP and current trends in socio-economic indicators of LDCs,...

The movement emphasizing free markets to reduce poverty has found strong expression in the ‘bottom of the pyramid’ approach in recent years. It views the poor as “resilient and creative entrepreneurs and value-conscious consumers”. This romanticized view of the poor harms the poor in two...

We examine the phenomenon of real-income stagnation in a large cross-section of countries during the last four decades. Stagnation is defined as negligible or negative growth extending over a number of years. We find that stagnation has affected more than three fifths of countries (103 out of...

This paper examines data on economic growth and various social indicators and compares the past 25 years (1980-2005) with the prior two decades (1960-1980). The paper finds that the past 25 years in low- and middle-income countries have seen a sharp slowdown in the rate of economic growth, as...

Donors have developed new micro-level and local paradigms to address rural development, environmental sustainability, and poverty alleviation to bypass, ignore, and substitute for badly functioning and corrupt states. Yet, states still set the macro-economic, legal, and policy parameters or...

Three main changes in thinking about poverty have gained increasing currency over the past decade. First, the concept of poverty has broadened, with increasing attention to issues of vulnerability, inequality and human rights. Second, the causal structure has broadened to include causal...

Evidence about commercial banks’ liquidity preference says the following about the loan market in LDCs: (i) the loan interest rate is a minimum mark-up rate; (ii) the loan market is characterized by oligopoly power; and (iii) indirect monetary policy, a cornerstone of financial liberalization,...

The current development policy focus on poverty reduction is erroneous. Historically, successful development policy—from the late fifteenth century until the beginning of the twenty-first—has achieved structural change away from dependence on raw materials and agriculture, adding specialized...

This article attempts to explain changes and continuity in the developmental welfare states in Korea and Taiwan Province of China (hereafter Taiwan) within the East Asian context. It first elaborates two strands of welfare developmentalism (selective vs. inclusive), and establishes that the...