This paper discusses Second National Poverty Reduction Strategy II (NPRS-II) (2012–2016) for Democratic Republic of São Tomé and Príncipe. A comparison of the results of the 2000 and 2010 poverty profile, based on the average income method, shows that there was progress in reducing poverty,...

This paper examines the empirical relationship between inequality and growth, and analyzes the impacts of growth, inequality, and government spending on poverty reduction. A new panel dataset has been assembled on inequality and poverty that reduces measurement error and ensures comparability...

Recent studies on the relationship between financial development and poverty have been inconclusive. Some claim that, by allowing more entrepreneurs to obtain financing, financial development improves the allocation of capital, which has a particularly large impact on the poor. Others argue that...

This paper examines Congo’s Interim Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (I-PRSP). Congo’s I-PRSP explains the features and causes of poverty in Congo. It provides a short- and medium-term vision of development as well as a strategic orientation for a return to sustainable and equitable growth....

This paper describes the nature and evolution of poverty in Nigeria between 1985 and 1992. It highlights the potential wealth of the Nigerian economy and examines how the economic policies pursued in the 1980s and 1990s impacted economic growth and welfare. The headcount measure of poverty in...

How does fiscal policy fare in improving the underlying income distribution in Central America? We integrate the data from a number of existing tax and public expenditure studies for the countries in the region and find that the distributional effect of taxation is regressive but small. In...

This progress report on Senegal’s Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) highlights that tax collection has been found to be effective as it attained the level foreseen in the high case scenario despite less favorable mobilization of PRSP resources than expected. More public investment...

This paper focuses on the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) for the Democratic Republic of São Tomé and Príncipe. The National Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper represents the result of analyses of the country’s current situation as well as a set of proposals designed to rout the...

Growth is pro-poor if the poverty measure of interest falls. This implies three potential sources of pro-poor growth: (a) a high rate of growth of average incomes; (b) a high sensitivity of poverty to growth in average incomes; and (c) a poverty-reducing pattern of growth in relative incomes. I...

This paper uses the Shapley Value decomposition technique to assess the factors behind the rise of inequality in China. It finds that, in many ways, inequality may have been an inevitable by-product of China’s investment and export-led growth model. Between Chinese households, we find that the...